3rd world Saint Louis! (St. Louis, St. Charles: neighbourhoods, to buy, gated community)

[kagicre]

Originally Posted by Old Trafford

Lived in the UK for several years myself... you obviously never went to Hackney or Brixton in London, rough, run down and very dangerous. And if you ever made it up to Liverpool you would have seen large scale abandonment.

So you either never went, or you only see what you want to see.

You also have to keep in mind that our free market driven real esatate and construction industry was happy to see people flee historic areas from the 40's to today because they made a ton of money on it. There was no incentive to go and renovate old buildings, and cultural market pressures along taxpayer subsudized sprawl doomed historic older cities like St. Louis.

We have a lot of work to do on the north side, but there are also large tracts of the north side that are intact.

So StlToday shuts down its anonymous posting about the same time you show up, coincidence?

Yeez, Hackney and Brixton where run down, but nothing like North Saint Louis, at least when I lived in London. And dangerous, yeah, you can get mugged, but because of the strict weapons laws in most of Western Europe, you don't get shot as easy as here in the US.
And where and when did I show up???

[Dawn10am]

Originally Posted by kagicre

Yeez, Hackney and Brixton where run down, but nothing like North Saint Louis, at least when I lived in London. And dangerous, yeah, you can get mugged, but because of the strict weapons laws in most of Western Europe, you don't get shot as easy as here in the US.
And where and when did I show up???

Actually, random shootings are very rare. Most people who get shot in St. Louis, and really any American city for that matter, were looking for trouble.

[kagicre]

I wish, that were true, but it isn't. Just watch the news!!!!

[Dawn10am]

I do watch the news every night. Not to mention that we used St. Louis as our case study in my criminal law class at my law school. That's how I know that most people who are murdered were involved in gangs and drugs. Random killings are extremely rare.

[stlcitygirl]

No one is saying St Louis doesn't have crime or bad areas. The Northside has some horrible blight, but almost every American city has a bad area.
Which brings me to that, I don't care what anyone says, there is NOWHERE in the United States that is comparable to a third world country. The worst ghettos in the US are nothing compared to what I have seen in Venezuela, Jamaica or even Mexico. Even our worst areas have running water, electricity and some sort of police/fire protection.
It is true, the chances of you being a random victim of crime are very slim, I read a statistic once that said something like 90% of "victims" of crime are felons themselves or had been involved in drug sales.

[kagicre]

Originally Posted by stlcitygirl

No one is saying St Louis doesn't have crime or bad areas. The Northside has some horrible blight, but almost every American city has a bad area.
Which brings me to that, I don't care what anyone says, there is NOWHERE in the United States that is comparable to a third world country. The worst ghettos in the US are nothing compared to what I have seen in Venezuela, Jamaica or even Mexico. Even our worst areas have running water, electricity and some sort of police/fire protection.
It is true, the chances of you being a random victim of crime are very slim, I read a statistic once that said something like 90% of "victims" of crime are felons themselves or had been involved in drug sales.

10% random, or wrong place, wrong time..... or being Trayvon Martin or all the other innocent victims that got killed.... is still to much in my eyes!!!!

[Dawn10am]

As stlcitygirl said, the residents of North St. Louis enjoy brick houses, paved streets, public transportation, electricity, running water, trash and sewer service, police and fire protection, and free public education. North City may not be the best part of town or even a pleasant place to live, but an assertion that any part of St. Louis is "third world" is simply beyond laughable.

[trailblazer33]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

As stlcitygirl said, the residents of North St. Louis enjoy brick houses, paved streets, public transportation, electricity, running water, trash and sewer service, police and fire protection, and free public education. North City may not be the best part of town or even a pleasant place to live, but an assertion that any part of St. Louis is "third world" is simply beyond laughable.

It's not so laughable when you think about all the people who cannot afford to keep their electricity on or pay their water bills in St. Louis and other places across the country. The other services you mention vary in quality from first rate to, yes, third world, even in St. Louis.

[SDBorn]

Having driven through St. Louis a few times, (heading east from Colorado via the interstate), I've never seen such horrible urban decay, although I don't make a practice of visiting the bad parts of big cities. It was scary and I sure didn't stick around to explore the rest of the town although I have been to the arch. I have to say I didn't see a whole lot of improvement on the way to the arch either. It looked like a war zone along the interstate. I do hope St. Louis is making strides improving these areas, as some have posted, because it does give a bad first impression. It is hard to believe places like this exist in America, but as many have said I guess it isn't unusual in big cities.

[Smtchll]

Originally Posted by SDBorn

Having driven through St. Louis a few times, (heading east from Colorado via the interstate), I've never seen such horrible urban decay, although I don't make a practice of visiting the bad parts of big cities. It was scary and I sure didn't stick around to explore the rest of the town although I have been to the arch. I have to say I didn't see a whole lot of improvement on the way to the arch either. It looked like a war zone along the interstate. I do hope St. Louis is making strides improving these areas, as some have posted, because it does give a bad first impression. It is hard to believe places like this exist in America, but as many have said I guess it isn't unusual in big cities.

You cant really get a feel of St. Louis from the interstate. It doesn't look good from the interstate because you cant see all the cool neighborhoods. That's one of the problems with interstates, not just in St. Louis, but in many cities. Some people are too reliant on them and they think they've really seen a city because they passed through it on the interstate.