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This is highly misleading, as the FBI (the guys tracking the statistics) point out that comparisons lead to "simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents." Chicago hasn't even been reporting crime for "decades" in a way that meets the FBI standard for reporting, so you have no basis for making that claim. More broadly, even if you could factually state that one city has a higher proportion of dangerous neighborhoods than another, that only matters if you spend time in those neighborhoods.
So true. I've lived in both cities although St Louis crime seems more spread out and neighbourhoods change in as little as every 3 to 5 blocks, Chicago seems more dangerous. There seems to be more of an effort to protect real estate values in some lakefront neighborhoods where as in St Louis no one is protecting anything.
St Louis can be more intimidating for those who fear young Black men. Chicago has areas of town where Blacks barely exist.
Chicago gang culture is a lot more visible and feels more threatening. Actual crime seems more in your face like the memorial day mob fight on a northside beach (that barely got any attention) and the recent homicide on the red line at 47th and dan ryan. Chicago just seems to be an easier city to find trouble for the average Joe. It seemed easier to get punched in the face at a bar or witnessing something traumatic. Crime in St Louis is not nearly as in your face. The worse thing I see on a regular basis that some may be intimidated by is young blacks having annoying loud conversation on the train or walking past a group and smelling marijuana. Car break ins are way too prevalent in St Louis city. St. Louis seems more empty with no police in site and that may be intimidating for some.
The raw numbers seem overwhelming in Chicago (77 homicides for the month of June) but when you consider Chicago is the core city for a megalopolis of 10 million. St. Louis is the core city for a midsized metro of 3 million is clocking 82 as of June 27th for the entire year.
When I hear someone from Chicago declare how dangerous St Louis is I laugh.
I live not that far away in parkway north, and 1800 sf homes are going for around $160k even with it being a good district. That's way below what you would expect for a solid district 25 minutes from downtown in the rest of the country.
Rentals are still relatively high, but that's an issue with the entire rental market nationwide right now.
There are areas that would fit your description in other places I have lived - smaller homes with decent schools in that price range. Typically more blue collar areas. I just think it's a strange phenominon here in St Louis that people from here insist it's a cheap place to live, but people I have met that move from other parts of the country, and have lived around the country, think that it's not inexpensive at all, myself included. Of course, it's highly dependent on which area you want to live in, but that's true in every city. In addition to housing, taxes are relatively high here and actually the cost of services is relatively high. Contractors / home repair, for example, are more expensive than where I moved from - there seems to be a scarcity for many services. I wouldn't call it an "expensive" place to live, along the lines of NYC, San Fran, LA, Chicago, Miami, etc. But I don't think it's inexpensive by any means.
So true. I've lived in both cities although St Louis crime seems more spread out and neighbourhoods change in as little as every 3 to 5 blocks, Chicago seems more dangerous. There seems to be more of an effort to protect real estate values in some lakefront neighborhoods where as in St Louis no one is protecting anything.
St Louis can be more intimidating for those who fear young Black men. Chicago has areas of town where Blacks barely exist.
Chicago gang culture is a lot more visible and feels more threatening. Actual crime seems more in your face like the memorial day mob fight on a northside beach (that barely got any attention) and the recent homicide on the red line at 47th and dan ryan. Chicago just seems to be an easier city to find trouble for the average Joe. It seemed easier to get punched in the face at a bar or witnessing something traumatic. Crime in St Louis is not nearly as in your face. The worse thing I see on a regular basis that some may be intimidated by is young blacks having annoying loud conversation on the train or walking past a group and smelling marijuana. Car break ins are way too prevalent in St Louis city. St. Louis seems more empty with no police in site and that may be intimidating for some.
The raw numbers seem overwhelming in Chicago (77 homicides for the month of June) but when you consider Chicago is the core city for a megalopolis of 10 million. St. Louis is the core city for a midsized metro of 3 million is clocking 82 as of June 27th for the entire year.
When I hear someone from Chicago declare how dangerous St Louis is I laugh.
The per capita city argument others throw out is bogus, but a closer examation of the numbers don't support what you're saying above. The first thing to know is that UCR reporting and Chicago reporting aren't that different. Traditionally, UCR would report multiple crimes in the same incident as only the most serious crime in the incident. So if a woman was robbed, raped, and killed, the FBI reports that only as a homicide. Before McCarthy came along, Chicago reported all three crimes. My understanding is that since he left, they've gone back to reporting all three. The other big difference is that Chicago categorizes sexual assault and rape in the same category. Both are still lumped into violent crime, so they won't impact a violent crime rating. McCarthy started manipulating crime data, he got the boot and now Chicago is more on the up and up. No more or less than other major urban cities, all of whom play w the data to some extent.
The biggest problem in comparing two cities is that you have different boundaries, resident compositions, etc so an apples to apples is difficult. I could draw a new boundary for STL that excluded some of north city, included many inner suburbs, and get a much lower crime rate, for example. The best comparison is probably to take similar clusters of neighborhoods in both cities to see how they stack up.
SW STL vs far NW side of Chicago are very similar in terms of character, demographics, etc. Their crime rates are almost identical. One is higher in homicide and the other in violent crime, but it's basically a rounding error both ways.
Near South City (Broadway-Kingshighway-Cherokee-Chouteau excluding Peabody) is most similar to Chicago's "Gentrification Belt" wrapping from Bridgeport up to Albany Park with everything in between west of the lakefront community areas. Homicide is 14% lower in Chicago. Violent crime 49% lower.
The two worst areas for crime in Chicago are a cluster of 4 community areas on the West Side (Austin, both Garfields and N Lawndale) and a cluster of 5 on the south side (Fuller, Grand Cross., Washington Pk, both Englewoods). I'm real cherry picking here to find the areas with the highest crime concentrations. I won't cherry pick for STL. I'll simply take all of North City even though there are parts of North City that are much safer than others. That will only bring the rates down in North City. The worst areas for crime in Chicago rate 40% lower for homicide and 50% lower for violent crime. That is a big difference.
So no, it's not at all laughable to suggest crime is lower in Chicago than it is in St Louis. I'm not looking at the N Lakefront to bolster that claim, nor am I including areas like Gravois Park when comparing Near South City to the Gentrification Belt...although I did include areas like those west of the United Center, western portions of Logan Square, etc. for Chicago.
All that said, both cities have a crime problem as do most major cities in the country where people haven't effectively been priced out entirely. I don't feel unsafe living in St Louis and there is really no reason for me to go to the areas with the worst crime rates that have an outsized effect on the overall city crime rate. I do feel a little less safe, and that boils down to fewer people being on the street at any given time. The biggest determinant of perceptions though is probably where one lived in one city vs. where they live in the other, but a person moving here from Logan Square is likely to pick one of the usual S City suspects, someone from Jefferson Park a place like St Louis Hills, and so on. They are likely to be statistically safer in Chicago. Someone with a house in Kenwood who ends up in the Central West End, Lafayette Square, Compton Heights might feel the other way though. As would an African American moving from Chicago on a 120k-250k home budget because they can afford a nicer neighborhood here than there.
This is highly misleading, as the FBI (the guys tracking the statistics) point out that comparisons lead to "simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents." Chicago hasn't even been reporting crime for "decades" in a way that meets the FBI standard for reporting, so you have no basis for making that claim. More broadly, even if you could factually state that one city has a higher proportion of dangerous neighborhoods than another, that only matters if you spend time in those neighborhoods.
They can, but it's also the best method that is currently available to compare crime on a per capita basis. Chicago's FBI discrepancy also doesn't change its homicide rate. Last year St. Louis' murder rate was roughly triple Chicago's. Fact. St. Louis' homicide rate was the highest in the nation for major cities. Fact.
Even with the massive spike that Chicago is seeing this year, St. Louis' rate is still roughly double that of Chicago's this year.
What Chicago does benefit from is increased size and stable neighborhoods that water down the bad. Even with that being said, however, Chicago's murder rate has typically been in the same ballpark as DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, etc, as of late. This year will put it ahead of those cities, but still not in the group that consists of cities like Detroit, St. Louis, New Orleans, etc.
If the City of St. Louis was counted with suburban St. Louis County as one, however, its rate would drop substantially. It might even be lower than Chicago's, or at least comparable.
I'll also add that I've never been one of those people who looks at a rate and thinks, "Oh God, this whole place is awful." I grew up in the St. Louis area, and frequently spend time in Lafayette Square, Tower Grove, the Grove, the Central West End, etc, when I'm in town. I know North City and the other pockets don't define the city.
St Peter's and Dardenne Prarie are a long way out for someone who either works in or wants to have relatively easy access to the city, but they certainly are cheaper.
I guess "relatively easy access" is, well, relative. I live where Dardenne Prairie, Lake St Louis and O'Fallon meet, and the Hill is 30 minutes away. I work in this area too, but would not have a problem commuting to St. Louis. In my line of work I do it somewhat regularly anyway and never find it frustrating even in rush hour.
I've had mornings when it took me thirty minutes to get down I-64 from 170 to Vandeventer.
I don't know if it gets worse than 64/40 in the mornings from Chesterfield to 170. What a mess. I had to drive from the Clarkson exit to Kingshighway last week. Took me 40 minutes.
My first morning in St. Louis was back in '07. I woke up in a hospital room with some guy on TV saying they were going to tear down thousands of houses to "improve" "40". Last week they were still at it.
1) Is St. Charles a suburb of St. Louis, or is it like its own separate city or is it a "bedroom community"? They seem fairly close together. Do they have separate identities?
Caveat: I am a transplant from Texas and I live and work in St. Charles County, so I will leave it to others to speak of St. Louis City and St. Louis County since I am not there frequently. St. Charles has more of an old town feel. Much of the rest of St. Charles County will have more of a contemporary suburban feel. Defiance, Troy, etc. will have a rural feel.
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Originally Posted by midwestmaybe
2) So what is a comparable city to St. Louis? I'm thinking something like Baltimore, which is like a "little big city." It's got enough restaurant options and is definitely urban, but you wouldn't mistake it for NYC. Is that about right?
St. Louis does not have a cosmopolitan feel. It is a great city, but seems more small town to me. It does have some world class aspects, such as a fantastic zoo, science center, and fabulous Italian food on the hill. And an amazing WORLD CLASS baseball team, with arguably the best fans on the planet!
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Originally Posted by midwestmaybe
4) How bad is crime in St. Louis? Is it Chicago hood bad? Or is it just "as long as you don't do something dumb like leave your doors unlocked, not much will happen"?
Again, speaking of St. Charles, my kids have left the garage door open overnight on several occasions. I never lock my car door nor my front door. In three years I have not had an issue. O'Fallon (where I live) has an extremely low crime rate. That being said, I have heard of break ins, etc. so I wouldn't recommend my lackadaisical safety standards.
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Originally Posted by midwestmaybe
5) What's the general vibe in St. Louis? The Northeast has a fairly deserved reputation for people being pretty rude and sort of cold to each other. On the other hand, I've also heard that the Midwest is sort of insular, like "if you're an outsider, you'll always be an outsider, even if they're not rude to you." That always scares me because I don't want to move somewhere where people will be like peeking out the shades at me or whatever. (That's just a joke, I realize that people wouldn't do that in a larger city anyways, but you get the idea.) Or is St. Louis like some cities that have so many people from all over that nobody really cares?
St. Louis does not have a lot of movement in and out, but there is some. Most people who are not from here are married to someone who is from here. As a Southerner, I have found it more challenging to break in to groups, though coming from the Northeast you may not find it an issue at all. There are plenty of outgoing, friendly folks who are always willing to make more friends. You may just have to put yourself out there a bit more since they likely already know plenty of people to hang out with.
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Originally Posted by midwestmaybe
6) Getting back to weather, what's it like? I like having all four seasons, but I'm more of a cold weather person. But in the Philadelphia area, for example, it's not uncommon to have 90 degree-plus days in summer and pretty bad humidity. So in Missouri, is it way worse? Like, are you basically swimming in humidity for the entire summer? Is it as bad as the deep South? Or is it like the worst of both worlds, where it's ungodly humid in the summer but frigid in the winter?
Missouri is no where near as bad as the deep South. It has its days, but they rarely last for long. You don't get the relentless heat like you get in the South. Same with the winters. In general, I think it is a nice and livable mix.
Welcome to St. Louis! Let me know if you want any more info on St. Charles County.
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