boroughs / larger neighborhoods in St. Louis City

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

The major divisions in the City are South City, North City, and the Central Corridor. However, they're not officially defined and people have varying definitions of what constitutes each. For me, North City is everything north of Delmar Blvd. The Central Corridor runs east-west from Downtown to the city limits and is bordered on the north by Delmar Blvd. and the south by I-44. South City is everything south of I-44 (some people consider I-64 as the northern boundary of South City). While these large areas aren't officially defined, St. Louis is one of the few cities that does officially define its neighborhoods, and most get pretty technical.

True this.

[mike0421]

From the readings here I am wondering if the one part of the city that may have the hardest classification to define, from a standpoint of region be the Hi-Pointe/Dogtown area?

[1greatcity]

Originally Posted by anna_b

Hi.

I am not from around St. Louis City, but i am doing a research on this city and i was wondering if St. Louis has something similar to the boroughs in NYC. This means that am am interested in knowing if there is a local understanding of some larger areas in the city which incorporate neighborhoods.
e.g. Manhattan is a borough which incorporates neighborhoods such as Harlem, West Village, Chinatown, etc, to say it in a simplistic manner.
Thx

It's difficult to apply the concept of boroughs to St. Louis. Here, you're dealing with a far smaller land area and population base than in NYC. The city of New York covers all of five counties and contains more than 25 times the population of the city of St. Louis.

But just for fun, here are some interesting comparisons of the NYC boroughs and the St. Louis area:
1. Staten Island (470,000), the most sparsely populated NYC borough, is slightly smaller geographically than the city of St. Louis, but it still has a third more people.
2. The Bronx (1.4 mil) covers about the same area as Chesterfield combined with Town and Country. But The Bronx contains more people than St. Louis City and County combined.
3. Manhattan (1.6 mil) is approximately the same area as O'Fallon, MO. But Manhattan contains about the same population as St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jefferson County combined.
4. Queens (2.25 mil) is about the size of North St. Louis County, but it has more residents than the entire Missouri side of the St. Louis MSA.
5. Brooklyn (2.5 mil) is about the same size of the city of St. Louis, U-City and Clayton combined. But Brooklyn has more than 67 times the population of the St. Louis/U-City/Clayton area.

[Chicago76]

To follow up on what others have said:

Corridor is the closest thing, and despite what others have mentioned, there are official corridor boundaries set by the city. In the public's mind these are fuzzy because there is no real teeth to the notion of corridor boundaries. In NYC, boroughs are political boundaries with each having a certain degree of administrative responsibility and autonomy from the mayor's office. In STL, the corridors are nothing more than an agglomeration of officially designated neighborhoods. These agglomerations have no real separate power--they are just another way to aggregate data for things like the housing market, census, etc.

Outside of neighborhood groups, the neighborhoods themselves have no defined authority either in STL. That is the responsibility of the wards, and the wards can and do cross over neighborhood and corridor boundaries, ie, you can't say that S City is precisely comprised of a list of wards, because portions of wards may straddle S City and the central corridor and so on.

The only major city that comes to mind with a borough type system with fixed borough boundaries with real authority is London. Even in that case, the boroughs are much smaller than NYC. They more or less resemble oversized wards.

[mike0421]

Originally Posted by 1greatcity

It's difficult to apply the concept of boroughs to St. Louis. Here, you're dealing with a far smaller land area and population base than in NYC. The city of New York covers all of five counties and contains more than 25 times the population of the city of St. Louis.

But just for fun, here are some interesting comparisons of the NYC boroughs and the St. Louis area:
1. Staten Island (470,000), the most sparsely populated NYC borough, is slightly smaller geographically than the city of St. Louis, but it still has a third more people.
2. The Bronx (1.4 mil) covers about the same area as Chesterfield combined with Town and Country. But The Bronx contains more people than St. Louis City and County combined.
3. Manhattan (1.6 mil) is approximately the same area as O'Fallon, MO. But Manhattan contains about the same population as St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jefferson County combined.
4. Queens (2.25 mil) is about the size of North St. Louis County, but it has more residents than the entire Missouri side of the St. Louis MSA.
5. Brooklyn (2.5 mil) is about the same size of the city of St. Louis, U-City and Clayton combined. But Brooklyn has more than 67 times the population of the St. Louis/U-City/Clayton area.

Every now and then I try to draw comparisons between where I grew up and lived in nearby suburban NJ to St. Louis, then it takes a post like this to spell out the reality: NYC area is just a whole different ball game. There is really no comparable in the nation relative to what the NYC area has. Every time I get a little frustrated about moving slow on Grand Ave or Jefferson I have to remember this post. My memory is short, I used to exist in this mass of humanity.