I was born and raised in St. Louis, left after high school for several years for work, then returned for several years, then left again to pursue a new passion that I couldn't do there. This city has so much potential to be something really great. There have been some improvements but not enough to keep the population going. It's actually a beautiful city with tons of history. It offers a lot of free entertainment that most cities don't have. Sadly, I've witnessed the decline of the city over several decades. There are a lot of things I miss about it but I don't see myself going back there to live, just to visit. It will always be a part of me though.
This is exactly how I feel about St Louis, I also was as born and raised there. I left in 92 at 26yrs old, I came home from college w/ a degree in engineering. I couldn't get a decent job in my field, they under paid me I had no chance for advancement, I couldn't stay there in a dead end job. Once I left everything I was struggling to do or wanted to do fell in place. Within 4yrs of leave I started my own business, 5yrs after that I started my second business. It may be my hometown but it never felt like home, I couldn't survive and be happy. Both are two different things, surviving in one thing, being happy is another. I found out you can't do both, not in St Louis.
St. Louis is a great city but in a bad location of the country. Most Americans have never visited because it’s out in the middle of nowhere. If St. Louis was located on the east coast it would have been more lively. It’s kind of like a good restaurant but failing because it’s in a crappy hidden spot
I was born and raised in St Louis, still have friends and family living there. Yeah but from what I hear, East St Louis is mostly vacant lots and houses now. Plus the downtown area has become a war zone. I haven't been back since 2016, I seriously doubt I'll ever step foot in that ****hole again in my life.
Yeah, the largest employer is a hospital / college combo. They have hired and promoted a black man twice without a high school diploma, GED, certifications, or special license. They wanted the other D. Otherwise, the women feel empowered hired negro males on swinger rules, RJ>
I'm from ESTL. I originally was responding with "you're right", but on second thoughts, I'm not even sure. When I lived there is was certainly worse than STL, but now I think it, maybe not. It appeared that it was becoming an abandoned city. Which, if you think about it, could be better. Like a clean slate to start something new (dependent upon it being fully abandoned).
I guess it all depends on city leaders, what their goals are, and whether they care about people, or merely expanding the bureaucracy for its own sake. I'm not holding my breath@@Bay_Archer
As somebody who loves St. Louis, another major factor working against St. Louis is its people. And I'm not talking about just the criminals on the street. I see so many St. Louisans frequently throw St. Louis under the bus and hope for the City to fail in anything it does. The animosity between City and County certainly does not help things. It is pretty difficult for a city to get back on its feet when its people keep kicking it while it is down.
I'm from St. Louis, and I honestly love it. It definitely has some huge challenges and problems, but it also has a rich history. I love the St. Louis red brick architecture and many of the unique, varying neighborhoods. It has a great, rising food and coffee scene. It has a rising arts scene. There is a great craft beer scene. There are great free and cheap entertainment options including a very good and FREE Zoo. There has been investment in the downtown area, including a great Ballpark Village around Busch Stadium, and a new soccer stadium and as well as improvements in the area surround the soccer stadium. One thing that I think you got wrong is that St. Louis is actually an incredibly affordable place to live. You can get nice apartments and houses at a fraction of the cost of other cities. Crime is bad. Yeah. We could have a better highway system and transit system. Yeah. Our schools could use improvement. Yeah. It definitely has a LOT of room for improvement. Also, in recent years we have had a rising and thriving business start-up scene, and we are becoming a MAJOR player in the Geospatial Intelligence scene with the construction of the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency campus. We are becoming a major player in the coinciding GEOINT scene. Yeah. You aren't wrong in that there has been major decline in the city, but I feel that it could be turning around.
I was born and raised in St Louis and left in 92, I saw the future coming and I didn't want to be part of it. I have friends and family who still live there and we talk on regular basis. (Actually talk, not text or IM) Yeah you have a few new bobbles and trinkets but what I hear is that the downtown area has become a war zone. Almost every night there's a murder somewhere in the city even more on the weekends. Hell, there wasn't a year that the murder rate wasn't under 200 when I was living there. By the way the record was set I 1970 if I recall correctly 294. Yes I know the cities history all too well, it was the future that worried me. Most of the Ville neighborhood (first an oldest black neighborhood west of the Mississippi) is a bunch of vacant lots and abandoned houses, w/ very few people and businesses there. (The Jeff Vanderlou neighborhood isn't too far behind) Last year they tried to close Sumner down, (the first an oldest all black high school west of the Mississippi) my old high school. So what's so great about it? From what I see and hear it's a dieing city. It's a wonder why the New Madrid fault hasn't wiped it off the map yet, I'm so glad I'm gone. Love your enthusiasm for a lost cause though.
I found you recently and have started working my way through your early stuff and im really enjoying everything you bring. Getting educated here! From Scotland.
St. Louis no joke used to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. At one point some people even wanted to move the nation's capital here. Crime and terrible politicians have completely destroyed our nation's heart. So much history in St. Louis, and there's still plenty of incredible looking old homes (some areas look like old Boston). BUT the massive amount of crime is not getting any better anytime soon. Makes me sad.
St. Louis reminds me of an elegant old lady. You can tell she was incredibly beautiful when she was younger but has deteriorated in her old age. I feel St, Louis was like that when driving through the city for the first time last year.
Walt Disney wanted to put Disneyworld in downtown. However the Busch family wanted him to sell AB beverages there, so Walt moved it to Florida. Oh yeah, the Miss Universe pageant was here in 1983. I remember the contestants in their bathing suits by the muddy Mississippi.
When I first moved to St Louis county from San Francisco in 1997, the entire St Louis metro area was economically booming, good paying jobs were plentiful, and crime was relativity low. I went from being unable to find work in SF to landing $25 an hour jobs here, they were easy to find. We all prospered, until the early 2000's hit and poor economic policies in Washington started to take hold, pushing millions into poverty here. Things got even worse as we approached the 2010's and beyond, still mostly due to poor economic policies. As rampant poverty took hold, crime skyrocketed, investment dried up, and major companies began disappearing. Things got far worse over the past several years after the city elected the most incompetent and depraved leaders imaginable, just further compounding the issues the city already faced. They elected disgraced DA Kim Gardner, who's total perversion of the legal system caused crime to once again skyrocket. She released thousands of violent criminals, rather than prosecuting them. Rather than do her job, she spent her entire time in office whining about how much she hates white people; even going as far as to charge white people for crimes they never committed, or those who acted in self-defense, the McCloskey's are a prime example of this. Ultimately, her policies lead to rampant murders, and it was mostly black community's that were affected, she got them killed. Some of those families have filed lawsuits against the city, further compounding their financial headaches. To add insult to injury, as political leaders like cop hater Cori Bush pushed the defund the police movement, hundreds of cops quit the force altogether, further leaving the people of St Louis less secure. 2 decades of economic mismanagement by presidents Bush and Obama are the biggest causes of all of this. I watched the area where I live in South St Louis county turn into a ghost town. It was literally miles upon miles of boarded up buildings here as businesses failed one after the other. At one point I spent over 5 years looking for a job, found nothing, and that's despite my college education and work experience. There were no jobs to be had, they simply didn't exist. Over the past couple of years the county has rebounded for the first time in over 2 decades, with new businesses popping up everywhere, all while the City continues to fall apart and investment continues to dry up. Until the city gets effective leadership, I don't see anything changing for the better. Its very saddening to see what St Louis has become today. Things are so bad in the city now its no longer safe to walk the streets there, and I just try to stay away from the city as much as possible today. Even my friends who still live in the city are very careful to stay away from certain areas. You're pretty much guaranteed to robbed at gun point there today, which has happened to me several times in the past, and was a compounding factor in my decision to just stay away from the city altogether. Back in the late 90's me and my friends used to go down to the Del Mar loop every weekend, not anymore. Since I moved here in 97, the city has lost close to 50,000 residents!
@@D-Fens_1632 I hope things do change for the better, the people of St Louis deserve better. A lot of the stuff I mentioned many people are just in total denial about, but they needed hear it.
St Louis was too broke to pay the police department so they left and they don't have enough money to hire a new one that's why they went to incorporate the County
I love in St. Louis, actually I live in the county right now and am looking to LEAVE. I rent an apartment and in the past 2 years my rent has doubled but the services HAVE NOT. a lot of the streets need repaired and it is like you have to get your car realigned weekly. I HATE IT.
Your going to find the cost of housing has increased tremendously everywhere, and the services have not. I am not sure if you keep up with what’s happening, but we are in a time where we have massive inflation, and the cost of living is up everywhere.
Why would you live in St. Louis, when St. Charles County is only 20-30 minutes away with St. Peters, and OFallon listed as a couple of the top Cities in the Country to live in?
You could even cross the river and live in some nice suburbs in Illinois about 20-30 minutes away. St Louis itself isn’t great to live in but it’s a nice place to go on a weekend for those of us that live within a 30 minute drive.
Saint Charles wouldnt even exist without Saint Louis, so it's just a further testament to the American tragedy of suburbs completely draining their host cities and leeching off of their amenities and tax base 🤷🏿♂️
St. Louis does not have a high cost of living at all… I was paying $500 a month for a one bedroom that I recently just moved out of this year in 2023. You just need to learn how to be resourceful so people don’t walk all over ya. I also take public transportation and it’s HORRIBLE!!! Busses won’t even show up sometimes
I live in the St. Louis area, on Illinois side, and love it. I've moved and came back 4 times now. Entertainment and Sports are great and I love Forest Park. Cost of living is nice. The biggest things that will make me move again and not come back are the high property taxes (Illinois) and Crime all around St Louis now.
St Louis’s biggest problem is the same problem as any other large city. The wholesale subsidizing of black single motherhood. The government funds, the expulsion of black fathers from the house. The mothers do not know how to channel male aggression into productive endeavors like a masculine and stoic older male can. The result is young, testosterone filled, hyper, aggressive, emotionally incontinent, males unleashed on the city. SYSBM.
St Louis was my hometown, I was born and raised the though the late 60s, 70s and 80s. Anyone who disagrees w/ anything you said is oblivious to what's actually going on there. I moved out to Florida at 26yrs old in 92, I couldn't see a future there. Working a dead end job w/o any foreseeable future wasn't worth staying there. (I own 2 businesses now) Then on top of that you had crime, carjacking, drive-by's people using drugs on the bus and so on. There was a murder on the local news almost every night, I couldn't live like that anymore. I can't remember a time when the murder rate was under 200 annually. You had corrupt politicians and police officers, who I know from first hand knowledge had drug houses in the inner-city. They stole money ment for schools and community development programs. I still have friends and family who love the city and have no plans on moving. Lying to themselves that the city will rejuvenate itself soon. Then on the other hand I've got friends and family who has left and refused to return like me, 5 this year alone. The city is just like a prison, the longer you stay the harder it is to got out. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You don't leave or move out of St Louis, you escape from St Louis. Anyplace is better than St Louis, I haven't been back since 2016 when I moved mom in w/ my wife and I. (She's 99yrs on her way to triple digits this fall)
It's hard to even think about visiting any place anywhere downtown. It's to much have to worry about. Getting robbed, car getting broken into or someone just starting trouble for know reason. Crazy part is, they catching these crazy ass fools after committing these crimes and they letting them right back out. It's not just Downtown. They stealing people cars from all over the city and counties
Nationwide, middle class flight to the suburbs was enabled by the interstate highway system - an unintended consequence. Anybody who could afford to move, did. It wasn’t just to flee crime, although that was a factor. Families wanted more land, better schools, lower taxes, open spaces, etc. Interstate highways made the commutes reasonable. Urban Interstate highways also destroyed neighborhoods and artificially segregated cities. I’m not anti-highway, but look at time lapse maps and you can see the correlation between highway construction and suburban sprawl.
@@colddeadhands5167he wasn't *blaming the hwy system, just pointing out contributing factors. It's not all black and white unless you are that much of a simpleton. Obviously people ditch crime too, the point is the hwy system made it easy and affordable for more and more people to do so. Try not being so emotionally reactionary, it's bad for your health.
@@MatthewJoseph-tm9oo said the progressive lilly that had to come to someone else's rescue for obfuscating the issue. People are likely to stick around and live somewhere cheap as long as its safe. St. Louis isn't safe and it's gotten worse. Why is that exactly? All those "contributing factors" are tied in to Democrats and their pets.
I have a total of about 8 yrs of residency, You are spot on. Outside of St. Louis in west and south county areas are really nice with a decent cost of living. In the city of St. Louis there is a large amount of corruption that is ignored and lack of law enforcement not able to prosecute has made this a liberal hellscape like all the other large cities. I really do enjoy the material you put out.
As far as tourism goes there just isn't a lot to see in St. Louis other than the Arch and Mississippi. I doubt I will ever book a vacation there or Detroit or Des Moines....places like that !
@@LeanneFowler-ms5xc It is in Missouri, St.Louis County is not part of St.Louis city. They are two separate entities. I have lived in both and have owned property in both. The county is actually nice in west and southern part when liberals are not in charge.
St.louis is liberal look who is mayor and prosecuting attorney, West County and South county are more conservative but north county and the city are run by democrats.
Ugh St. Louis has the most free attractions in the country right behind Washington DC so that one needs to be fact checked as far as there being nothing for tourist to do. Also every other YT channel has been praising STL for its affordability now you’re saying it’s too expensive that’s a first …
This!! The fact that their zoo is free and amazing, as is the gateway park, art museum, science center, soulard, the brewery… so many amazing places to visit for free!! And very affordable
Saint Louis is the only major city I can think of that has a cost of living similar to the small towns an hour or more away. I’m originally from the Rolla area, that’s the immediate comparison I’m making. I live in west Texas now and the cost of living difference between Lubbock and the small towns just 25 miles down the road is stark.
All very good & accurate points. I lived in STL for a brief time. However, the cost of living here is not high at all IMO - you can easily find a 1br1ba apartment for under $1200 a month
25 years ago, STL had a very low cost of living, around 90% of the national average. Right now we're at the national average, which only seems high in comparison, but is still massively lower than the coasts.
I pay 2k for 1 bd 1ba CWE, if you want to live somewhere that is nice then it gets expensive fast. My friend lives in a 1bd 1200/month and he had to deal w roaches in the hallways everywhere (he moves obvi) but he is now paying 1500 somewhere else and that’s not cheap
I used to live in St Louis, you know you can order Imos online and have it sent to your home. You'll have to cook it yourself, but it better than going back.
Lived in St. Louis for a time in the late 90's. I found the people to not be particularly friendly (especially to an outsider) very cliquish socially. No regrets on leaving, and no desire to even revisit.
I was born and raised in Saint Louis and left in 2010. I never understood how STL politicians over the years could not see the slow motion “train crash” of the decline of the city. Tragic for sure, because there is incredible architecture. I feel sad for my friends and family that still live there they always boast how the city is improving, but I see incredible decline each visit. And the Arch?? 40 square blocks were raised to make room for the Arch…..similar architecture is the 11 square blocks that is called the French Quarters in New Orleans, a tourist magnet🤷🏽♀️
By the mid-80s most of the jobs have moved out of st. Louis they used to make shoes shirts dresses that a lot of other things there but they all moved out to the South
There's an inexhaustible optimism among hardcore city lovers. In a way it's admirable, but it's also kind of pathetic as it keeps them in a bubble or echo chamber of just being around people spouting the same nonsense. They refuse to critically look at the real problems. When they pretend to look at the problems, it's always the same nonsense, e.g., pointing fingers at "The County", or the perpetual St. Louis myth of how the FBI calculates crime in St. Louis, as if the FBI goes out of its way to calculate St. Louis' crime differently than every other city in the country, lol, it's just crazy. I've explained the crime stats thing to so many people. And of course they point fingers at "big business" and how they won't invest in the city. It could've been such a cool city, but that ship has sailed.
I really never thought of St Louis as a city with a lack of amenities. In addition to the zoo and the arch they also have several museums including a really good art and history museum the Missouri Botanic Gardens and they now have the Union Station Aquarium. If you are talking about a big city that lacks amenities that would be Indianapolis.
Yeah it definitely lacks excitement. I was born and raised there, we went to everything you mentioned hundreds of times on school field trips. After the hundredth time of going there it gets old. Oh you forgot Grant's Fram and the brewery tours, seen them more times than I wish to remember. Haven't seen the aquarium, but we a world known aquarium in Tampa 20 minutes from my house, so I'm good. So St Louis is and has always lacked excitement, doing the same things over and over gets boring. Not to mention the fun police, the moment something gets popular the city starts to regulate it overrunning it w/ police. I heard they started shutting down access to Fairgrounds Park on the weekends a few years ago. You can't go to a park on the weekends, com'on man.
@@deathscythehell7937 I forget to mention six flags. St Louis has a lot more than Milwaukee has and you say it's boring? In fact what does St Louis not have that Chicago has other than a football team of course?
@@dvferyance I live in Lutz FL 15 minutes from downtown Tampa there's so many amusement and water parks here to choose from. Plus little over an hours drive east an I'm at Disney world and universal studios and so many more. On top of that there's festivals year round so there's no lack of entertainment. I'm not even gonna mention the sunset parties on Clearwater beach on the gulf every night. St Louis doesn't even come close to anything we have here in Tampa, so yes St Louis is boring. There's a nationally acclaimed aquarium, football, baseball and hockey and the parks are no contest. I left St Louis in the fall of 92 for Florida 31yrs ago, only went back to visit, I don't consider it as home anymore.
After living in the city of St Louis for 15 years, I would not step foot in it ever again. When I left in 2019, the crime rate was horrible and I lived in a 'decent' area of the city. Every night you could hear the gang members attempting to off themselves with gunshots. Even on my street, there were a couple drive-by shootings attempts. Muggings, vehicle/home break ins, violent crime, rampant drug use, all night long cars with loud bass stereos driving people nuts, a government easy on criminals, but hard on innocent victim tax payers. Even in 2019 there was not enough of a police presence, and what there was of one, they were overworked, understaffed. When the weather warmed up, the police helecopter was almost a daily (and sometimes multiple times a day/night) ocurrence flying around in circles overhead. Yeah there were nice parks, but a shame that you wouldnt step foot in them even right after sunset due to crime. Sad to think a friend that still lives on my old street, said it has goten even worse now. Only thing I miss about St Louis is Forest Park, The Hill, Schlafly's beer, gooey butter cake and toasted raviolis. The latter two I can make from scratch now. St Louis is a cesspool.
I left in 2019 also for Boise, and am loving this mostly nonviolent city, although very expensive to live in. You described it accurately, and I don't miss it except for some family that is there.
That's nothing. I looked up on Wikipedia that St Louis just dropped down to number 75. It use to be number 70 in 2010's. The next I know, it became a solid number 75.
There is much more than just the arch in STL. The city museum, casinis, Union Station , the aquarium , the art museum, Forest Park, and the science center are just a few off the top of my head. A lot of these things are free to the public. I find your research lacking. Sure, the crime is bad, but it is rampant in all urban areas
St. Louis (and current suburban resident here) surprise! I don't disagree with anything you said although there are a lot of historical influences that you missed. The small, geographic size of the city (1876 boundries), in proportion to the metro area is a real omission but the St. Louis region, as a whole, suffers from the same problems as the city. You do a lot about St. Louis -- I'd be happy to talk to you and show you around. The most apt comparison is to Detroit. I've lived in Madison WI and Wash DC too. In some ways, St. Louis is much older than a Chicago or most anywhere else in the midwest. That is a part of the story. Its also fair to say that every urban renewal mistake was made in St. Louis too. BTW - I actually se\t foot in Pruitt-Igoe at age 11, with my dad.
From 1981 to 1986 I lived in the Crestwood neighborhood of St. Louis. I also worked in Crestwood. I lived a ten minute walk from the main shopping center Crestwood Mall. I enjoyed visiting the Saint Louis Zoo and Grant's Farm.
Crestwood was the county, growing up in the inner-city wasn't all sunshine and sweet dreams. I too have some of the same fond memories of growing up there, but a study done by Wash-U in 82 opened my eyes. It said 6 out of 10 black males growing up in the inner-city of St Louis would be dead or in jail by age 25. From that point all I could think about was getting the hell outta there. Finally done it in 92 at 26 w/o going to jail, I'm 56 and own two businesses. All happened after and because left St Louis, so I don't have any love for St Louis at all.
Born and raised STL but moved to Florida i still miss St. Louis and think about moving back all the time. Very under rated city. Good history and culture. Free things to do back there good sports good food winters aren’t crazy bad like Chicago/Minnesota. It has its problems. I should know I moved away to get clean and sober. But it’s where I’m from and a lot of good hard working people back there. Simple Midwest lifestyle.
@@donjuanseville3039 yeah man Florida is cool my whole family moved outta STL to start a new life I could never get clean and sober I was really hooked on drugs back in stl you probably know someone back there hooked. Still miss all y’all take care man it is a messed up city.
I grew up there, and while the list was interesting it really boils down to No. 10 -- white flight. An interesting take on why Pruitt-Igoe failed. Pruitt-Igoe actually failed because it was essentially free public housing that failed because it was destroyed by the people who lived there. Relatively speaking, a nice area when it was built. By the late 1960s, it looked like a war zone. Tall, solidly built brick buildings with the windows broken out, trash all over the streets, cars up on cinder blocks missing their wheels, gang fights in the streets, shootings, muggings, rapes, murders, and on and on. No. 1 thru No. 10 on my list is white flight. Even 50 years ago, you went to downtown St. Louis for one reason and one reason only -- to catch a Cardinals game.
@@liberatedentrepreneur149this movie played out in city after city. The rising cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Austin have dreadful walkability scores-you have to drive nearly everywhere. And, the word suburb is now for the most part obsolete. Very few if any of them are today “sub to the urb”.
And there's still people who think actual public housing could work in America, bro it's full of crazy people, criminals and drug addicts. You can't have nice things.
St. Louis also has one of the worst summer climates in the US. Ungodly hot and ungodly humid. It's worse than Bangkok. I spent a summer there on a contract gig. I took a bike to get some exercise, but every time I finished a ride, my body would just start itching. Had to hit the show within seconds of coming in. It was just miserable.
I grew up there I know the summer's all too well. I live in Florida now and it gets humid but nothing like St Louis. As least down here there's a breeze, it would get so hot and humid in St Louis the wind wouldn't blow for days at a time.
At least winters are that sweet spot between Deep Southern (30 something is the LOW temperature every day all week?!) and just enough snow to remind people it’s still “very much northern”. Practically everyone surrounding us seems to get more snow than we do every winter. KC & Indy… even the first big cluster of hotels on I-55 well below a full hour north of St. Louis’s sprawl in Litchfield IL seems to get more snow than the entire region. That alone I love about my area…
Born and raised in St. Louis COUNTY. I will only speak for 2000-present, as I was too young before then to form a credible opinion. Since 2000, the one and only reason is crime. And not only that crime is happening, it's that our corrupt city government does not punish the criminals. It's hard to wash the stink of our reputation off when our own prosecuting attorney will legitimately not put criminals in jail. Other than that, the city is just so painfully below average in almost everything except cost of living. Aside from the sports teams and our awesome free zoo, there is literally nothing about St. Louis City that sticks out. However, the surrounding counties are really not that bad. We have pretty decent schools in our suburbs, the cost of living is still relatively affordable ($300k can get you an amazing house in a good area), and traffic is not a factor at all, save for a few spots. Like most places in the United States, the city is struggling while the suburbs are doing pretty good.
St. Louis has had many challenges, and some of them were self inflicted. The city separated itself from the county in 1875, which prevented the city from expanding into nearby townships (as Chicago did), and that has affected the income and the crime statistics in the city. There are also four major interstates that cut through town (Interstates 70, 64, 55, and 44) and this has chopped up the city into chunks. There was also the Great Migration and the subsequent block-busting and racial segregation that made parts of the city very poor and crime-ridden, and this has further led many to flee into the county. And what was once an excellent and thriving school system has also fallen apart, which causes young people with children to move to areas with good schools. All that being said, there are parts of the city that are absolutely thriving, and the city over-all has a lot of potential. There is a lot of history and so many hidden treasures here. And the problems of STL aren't unique to this city. Many other formerly industrial towns have suffered from the same malaise.
When I lived in Crestwood I didn't make into to the city of St. Louis very often. I went to a few baseball and football games at Busch Stadium a few conceros and hockey games at the Checkerdome.
I've lived in Missouri pretty much from birth. I lived in Florida gor about 3 months, hated it and moved to Black Water. Nope, moved back to St Louis. I lived in Columbia for 2 years, and came back. I'm worse than a Missourian, I'm a St Louisian.
I moved out of Dutchtown to Maplewood in 2018. A new job takes me all over the city. A recent visit back to the old neighborhood was shocking. A great increase in abandoned residences. The rest of the city has a has a mass increase in homeless as well as graffiti. The alleys are trash heaps. Its depressing. But there's an aquarium. Detroit has a world class art museum.
Where did you find your info for point 4? STL cost of living is relatively cheap compared to other Midwest cities. You should have really made a point about the allergens in the air. It gets bad at certain times of the year.
I lived in the St. Louis metro area for several years. The city, East St. Louis, and some of the northern suburbs are dangerous (except for perhaps CWE and south city), while the other suburbs are fine.
Great video. I was born and raised here. Nearly all of the challenges that you mentioned are present and accounted for in Aug 2023. (It's more affordable than other parts of the country, with an asterisk.) That * is that the entire region has been red-lined. The poor and miseducated kill one another with seemingly no accountability. (Look into our former PA Kim Gardner) The rest of us elope to the suburbs to survive. It's the only way in St. Louis.
Most of the suburbs are lost, too. North County is gone. The city has always been hellish but the likes of Gardner and Jones really should have to answer to someone for being such miserable, inept failures. It's embarrassing.
@@D-Fens_1632 There's still a lot of nice areas in south city, the largest being Soulard. You just need to understand the neighborhood before moving anywhere in the city.
I think growth and decline has a lot (not fully) with trendiness or image, like you discussed. I think there is something about seeing those around you move and thinking maybe I should too. But I honestly visited “trendy” cities and was perplexed at their growth and have thought some cities that many considered afterthoughts and liked them.
Great video for people who have not been in St. Louis in the last half century. Those of us that have been there after 1973… we get it. Got it.. we’re good!
I feel like a very important thing you missed here is that while Saint Louis city population has declined, the metropolitan area of Saint Louis has grown over the last 50 years, which seems like a major detail. In other words, the number 1 reason for Saint Louis' decline is that the population has migrated to the suburbs, which are not technically part of the city proper. The metro area was ~1.8 million people in 1970; it's ~2.2 million people now. This migration is still not a good thing -- it's basically white flight -- but it's not the same story as is told here. It's not that Saint Louis population has declined, it's that the people have moved to the suburbs rather than live in the city itself.
After college, I lived in Soulard for several year, and Fox Park with my GF after that. But once we got serious and decided to get married, we bought a house in Kirkwood. It all comes down to kids. We wanted kids, and we wanted them to go to good public schools and grow up in a safe neighborhood. I imagine that's the story for a lot of people. We would have stayed in the city if the schools were better, and the streets were safer.
The burbs may be thriving somewhat, but the metro area has only grown barely one percent in the last 50 or so years. All of the "growth" that is happening in area such as St Charles County is because of the same people moving from one area of the metro to another. That is a population shift, not new growth. Most of the people who are in St. Charles (or Lincoln) county moved from North County. In essence, white flight moving farther away. Also, the video doesn't mention black flight as well since they are also leaving the city center.
I moved to STL in 1996 from Newark, NJ what was then considered the worst city in North America and that first year of living there, STL took over that "crown". My mother would jokingly say to my sister and I "We live in Newark, its the worst city in America, we move to St. Louis now its the worst city in America... what the hell are y'all doing when you leave this house"? Seriously though, STL is a city full of potential, it is in dire need of competent leadership with vision, a clear strategy and the organizational skills to execute. Right now, STL is literally a blank canvas. Briggs, the one bright spot, the teacher to student ratio... I don't think you realize that is due to the dropout rate so not exactly as okay as it seems.
As a non-American, the only thing I really know for sure about St Louis is that it is in the south of the USA and the Judy Garland film which was filmed in Hollywood, not St Louis. Thank you for the video.
@@danielintheantipodes6741 Thanks, oh yeah I forgot they filmed Escape from New York w/ Kurt Russell there when I was a kid. They closed off a bunch of streets, used Union Station and the Eads bridge in the movie too. That's about the time I started using the phrase. " You don't leave St Louis you escape from it." Lol.
There's been a second white flight that began in the 90's with the end of the cold war and loss of defense jobs with McDonnell Douglass and Boeing. Most fled the suburbs and moved to counties west and south. Now a very large swath around the city mostly spreading north is, well, Ferguson. The motto made famous there in 2014, "Hands up, don't shoot," is indeed now applicable, only it's not the police you're worried about. They've been rendered obsolete. Ironically it's armed and emboldened young black men you're begging to.
Is it a coincidence that the last time we had a Republican mayor in St Louis was 1949. After that it was all Democrats, and it’s been downhill since. Time for a change…
Briggs, if you're not from here, you won't get it. My family has lived here for generations and I give REAL tours of this city. My explaination starts before 1764. You're welcome to come through again and get a native St Louisan's version of the story anytime, complimentary of course.
When I was a kid the Cardinals were my favourite ball team ( I just loved Bob Gibson - showing my age here) so of course I wanted to visit St. Louis. Now I’m afraid to visit pretty well anywhere in the US - unfortunately. And I absolutely love Our Blue Jays! As the only MLB team in Canada, we believe they belong to our whole Country. I find your videos very interesting. Thanks from 🇨🇦.
You believe WRONG!!!...the BLUEJAYS belong ONLY to Toronto!... Not the rest of Canada!... You wanna root for baseball ...GET YOUR OWN TEAM😫....the Alberta Ailers😝...the Montreal Muddleheads!😜
Live about 45 miles SW of STL. I used to work in downtown STL back in the 90's. Wasn't safe then after work hours. Now...I don't go to the city. Closest I get is the South County area outside of STL proper and it's pretty nice.
Weird you left out the Fergusson Effect. Violent crime was going down year after year in StL before Michael Brown was killed, then it started getting worse again. police have had recruiting issues, and the ones already on the job were less incentivized to respond to certain calls.
Brown was killed by a cop in cold blood. Multiple 🪧 protesters rally up for Michael Brown. It's been ten years since the Ferguson catastrophe. A lot of people have moved out of town, out of state and out of the Midwest. And I don't blame each and every one of them. And they have every right to get away from all the chaos that the STL has gone down 👇👎 hill.
@@RolanJohnson_SoCal False: Brown was shot in self defense after he tried to grab a cops gun as corroborated by the autopsy report. The "hands up don't shoot" narrative was a lie begat by several witnesses who latter admitted they never saw Brown put his hands up in apparent surrender.
I have family in the area, so I've visited a lot. I really like St. Louis. The art museum is excellent, and the City Museum is AWESOME. The botanical garden, the parks, the zoo, good restaurants - it's got a lot going for it. But hey, I like Cleveland, and they get pissed on all the time, too.
At the root of many of St. Louis problems is the City/County divide. St. Louis city is an independent city, meaning it isn't part of St. Louis County. They split in the 1870s, so the city boundaries have been fixed since then. There have been efforts to reunite the two, maybe even merge them into one mega city that would instantly put it into one of the top ten largest cities in the US. But people have rejected this again and again. Also St. Louis county is comprised of - get this - 91 different municipalities. Apparently at some point if you wanted your block to be it's own town you could just do that, and people did. It's nuts.
Interstates brought the suburbs. Quick non-stop trip from the job in the city to the suburbs on the outskirts of town. The suburbs offered new, affordable middle class homes in safe neighborhoods, with good schools. In most cases, dad worked and mom stayed home and did the housework and had the kids with her. Before daycare. It really was like a care-free, Leave it to Beaver life. This was back when America really was great.
Wasn't that bad in the 80s. McDonnell-Douglas (now Boeing) was a major employer. The northern part was still safe; across the river into St Charles was a bounding community. Today? Yeah, lots of problems, but they don't go back THAT far.
Zoo is best in country, too three if not! City Museum is amazing! Greatest little Italy in America. Price me wrong, seriously. Fantastic botanical gardens. The Arch is known all over the world and the museum of national expansion underneath it is fascinating. Cardinals have won the World Series 11 times. Such great history and such great potential. And let’s go Blues!
At one point this city hosted the world's Fair and the Olympic games. 850,000 people so I was shocked to learn about this history. The biggest problem is that they bulldozed most of the downtown, the highways had to take up space and a lot of the wealth left the inner city.
STL native here, imo one of the biggest issues is a lot of the adjoining counties/townships have been incorporated into stlco as a whole. Granted some needed to be under various circumstances, not nearly as many that have in the last 20 years or so. Crime is by far the worst though, followed by public transit.
St Louis County doesn't want to pay taxes to support St Louis City. The separation of city and county has hurt the St Louis region (outlying areas of St Louis). Now we are a low rent Indianapolis instead of a major city attracting big business. My son works in Overland Park, KS because of the job opportunities in technology and lives in Kansas City, MO. In Kansas City, MO the city and county stand together. That's why Kansas City, MO is thriving.
One other factor that has a major impact is the inability to do regional planning because 312 different cities/townships make up the metro area. The City suffers as a result.
The most friendlest people I've met in my life. Everywhere I went, people showed love. Beautiful town. And where did you get thumbnail 0:06. That's not St. Louis.
I was born & raised in St. Louis. Left in 1980 due to lack of good paying jobs and everything falling apart in the area. After I left, I have been back 4 times and each time the area got worse, MUCH worse and some towns completely bulldozed to the ground plus all the multi million dollar super pack cancer lawsuits for Coldwater creek and many others hazardous dump sites in the area putting a huge red flags on ALL of the St. Louis area to stay away. Today they also have huge issues with gangs and gangsters running wild in the streets with big cal handguns shooting up the local streets. The best thing about St. Louis now is to GET OUT or die. I am so glade I got out when I did in 1980 as I am scared to even go visit my family's graves up there now.
One problem might be what would be facing a lot of cities. Old business and industrial infrastructure getting demolished and replaced with low income public housing apartments. This is a problem in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, which might adversely effect cities, like St. Louis. Much of that is not from minorities already native to the United States, but mass immigration from other countries around the world. Many of these countries are third world countries, and the people who immigrate from those places want to make cities, like St. Louis or Minneapolis/St. Paul, to be like things were in their original homeland. Presenting third world policies into a well developed country, like the United States presents huge problems for growth and prosperity. Canada is currently facing such a problem.
I’ve been traveling to St Louis for 30 years. The city de-industrialized in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. The city shrunk 60% in 20 years which is exactly y what happened in Detroit.
I went on a multi-legged business trip to St Louis in 2021, unfortunately during Covid, to help with a construction project for a residence in the Creve Coeur/Ladue area. I was mesmerized by the houses in that area, discovering that most of them were built between 1910-1920, and the neighborhoods had beautiful trees/foliage, and transitioning from winter to spring was a beautiful sight in that city! On off-days during that trip, me and the guys I was with went to downtown to check out the arch, Busch Stadium, and I actually got EXTREMELY lucky and happened to be in STL when my Vegas Golden Knights came to town for a game vs the St Louis Blues, and was able to snag a ticket to the game - a 5-1 win for my Knights! It was cool to be in the city for as long as I was, and the memory I made at the NHL game will be one I carry forever, but I would be lying if I said the city was perfect… because it certainly wasn’t. I saw signs of urban decay on some of the highways, I saw signs of crime in various areas that I travelled in around the metropolitan area, and the hotel I stayed in definitely seemed to have its share of shady people inside it. I had a perceived reputation going into the city regarding its danger level, and I can say that it certainly does possess the vibe, but at the same time I feel like the whole metropolitan area has a bunch of potential to be a thriving city. The economy definitely needs help though, and St Louis proper needs an economic boost. If this country can get away from these highly liberal, anti-business policies, get away from the bull shit that’s caused companies to invest elsewhere other than the U.S., you could see cities like St Louis begin to thrive again via investment into the community on the broader scale, and if the city leadership can also adopt more pro-business policies, things can drastically improve within the city.
Briggs: you are incorrect about the high cost of living. St Louis is much lower than most of the country. Real estate has gone up since covid but it's still a lot less than many other cities it's size
This is my fiancé’s hometown and I’m there 3-4 times a year. I don’t know what it is about St. Louis but it is the one city I feel so out of sync while visiting. People from there act like it’s the center of the universe and everywhere else is below them. It’s like if you aren’t from there, you’re not part of the club or something 🙄
You kinda forgot to discuss the systemic issue of how the idea is St. Louis was supposed to be a mega city. The city is “the gateway to the west” We were supposed to have a greater population that would put us on terms with Chicago. However, our manufacturing and the overall economy have been siphoned off by Chicago. All your other points were very valid and because of them, people were willing to jump ship a lot easier and go elsewhere.
I worked downtown for over 20 yrs. As soon as my company went remote in 2020, I got out of dodge. I now live in serene Eastern KY in the mountains. There is so much crime in St. Louis - I want nothing to do with it.
Yeah, but things are "looking up", "so much potential"... Your new location sounds awesome. Fortunately in the burbs for a while now, but when I retire in 5 years, I'm GTFO like you.
Personally all cities suck in my opinion. I've been in every major city in the southern states (except Florida) and I hated all of them. I prefer small towns with a population of just a few thousand people maximum. And I also hate flat places. Being born and raised in a small town in the mountains of NW NC, it's just in my blood to favor small mountain towns. I guess that's why I like WV. It's mainly small towns and hillbillies in a mountainous state, so I fit right in with the locals.
Things are fine in the St Louis Metro. In 1950 the population was 1.4 million. Today it’s 2.2 million. Like nearly every city, the metro is growing and the city is shrinking.
I wouldn't say everything is fine. The Metro area should have grown by more than 50% since 1950. You can't have a thriving metro area with an urban core that is falling apart. I lived in St. Louis until age 28 when I left for the military, still have family there, and try to follow what is happening. You have a dysfunctional governmental system for the whole area. The Missouri side fights with the Illinois side, the city fights with the county and within the county each little municipality fights with the others. Very little cooperation to really get anything done. The loss of many regional businesses that were HQed in St. Louis (like Pet, Ralston-Purina, Anheuser-Busch, etc.) hasn't helped things. These business leaders used to take the lead on civic efforts and got the elected officials to work together, that's not happening anymore.
I looked at numbers from multiple cities and none of the older cities had grown by 50%. New York City went from 12.5M to 18.6M in the same 1950 to 2023 time frame. St. Louis has all the same problems of every major city.
Where are you getting these inflated numbers for New York City because the city itself is 8.4 million and not the ridiculous number you just cooked up out of nowhere.
I live in St. Louis County, which is, in no way, linked or governmentally associated with the city of St. Louis. The reason people move out of the city of St. Louis is because...drum roll, please... DEMOCRATS. The city of St. Louis is run by Democrats who are so soft on crime that the circuit attorney was removed by the Missouri Attorney General for failing to prosecute numerous people. When she was called out for her dereliction, she pulled the race card and her supporters were out in force screaming the same. St. Louis COUNTY has plenty to offer everyone for any sort of dining, recreation or entertainment. If you see a sign that you are now in the city of St. Louis, TURN AROUND, IMMEDIATELY!!! I've worked in the City and lived in the City of St. Louis...a LONG time ago. It sucked, then. It's horrible, now. Avoid at all costs...unless you're a Democrat. If so, have at it.
I’m from the Rolla area. I’ve watched Saint Louis decline for my entire life and yet the county flourishes… I think you’re right. The worst cities where I’m at here in Texas have a similar problem - DEMOCRATS. They ruin every government they run.
Originally from south St Louis County, STL has a rich history but has a very fracture story, as in everyone has their own little silo that they don't want to include anyone else. It's not where did you grow it's where did you go to High School which puts you into a box and judged. Then there is the mismanagement of the City which has lost population for years due to parents don't want to put their children in failing schools so they move to the counties that have good public schools or send them to private schools. Now the same corrupt operator's are moving out into the county to steal to mismanage the county governments. KC use to be little Poe dunk city on the west side of the state, it has outshined STL for decades. The only real draw to STL are the Cardinal's and the Blues. It has turned into a very large little town.
I have noticed people from KC hostile. Most of the people I know from St. Louis are much friendlier, to me at least. I do give KC credit for minding its's own business and not trying to manipulate MO politics like St. Louis and Columbia (MU) does.
Poet Gertrude Stein once said of her hometown Oakland: "There's no there there." St Louis seems to be another city without much of a "there" either, outside of being a point on a map of course, a point somewhere between the East Coast and the West Coast.
Except for my service time am a lifelong St Louis metro resident. What caused the flight to the burbs in the 1950's is that so much of St Louis housing is 2 and 4 family flats with street parking. That's what my family was living in back then when we moved to a brand new affordable/modest home in the near county. Why would anyone want to stay?
Any people I meet that are proud to be from St. Louis instantly makes me think they either have very low self-esteem (because they don't believe they deserve better) or are completely delusional. Briggs didn't even mention the road infrastructure that makes even driving through the city suck too (even though it's not even that populated compared to other urban centers). Humans deserve better than St. Louis.
I lived in Missouri most of my life till about 5 years ago. I lived in St. Louis, county off Butler Hill. I didn't like anything about it. One thing you could bank on was that someone would be murdered overnight there and that it was usually multiples. The city is nasty. And had experiences that I would rather forget. You couldn't pay me enough money to even live in the state again. The weather, 30 to 80. The traffic. The zoo is nice. I couldn't wait to get away. I now live in clean air and sunshine in North Carolina. I love it here.
@@BootGal I live in Raleigh and back in 1999 I was living in Winston Salem and I met someone who was from Winston Salem and was in town for a funeral.He had moved to St Louis and loved it and recommended that move there to,I moved back to Raleigh in 2000.
I was born and raised in St Louis moved out in 92. I haven't been back for more than a few days a year since, I haven't been back since 2016. The only thing I claim about St Louis is it's my hometown, I don't even consider it as home just where I was born that's it. The last thing I think of being is proud of St Louis, it's a ****hole.
@@BootGal I was born and raised there left in 92, the only reason I came back a few days a year was cause mom. Now she's living with my wife and I, I'm looking forward to the new Madrid fault wiping St Louis out of existence.
St. Louis is a great ( well, sad) example of what happens when we abandon cities and then let them become derelict. And those who suffer are Black people.
Exactly, that why I left, I didn't want gonna be another statistic. As a black man it's already hard, why live somewhere you haven't got a chance for a future?
It's not anyone's fault but theirs that they stay, regardless of money. People do amazing things if they have the willpower, they can leave too if they'd like to.
I was born and raised in St. Louis, left after high school for several years for work, then returned for several years, then left again to pursue a new passion that I couldn't do there. This city has so much potential to be something really great. There have been some improvements but not enough to keep the population going. It's actually a beautiful city with tons of history. It offers a lot of free entertainment that most cities don't have. Sadly, I've witnessed the decline of the city over several decades. There are a lot of things I miss about it but I don't see myself going back there to live, just to visit. It will always be a part of me though.
❤❤❤❤❤
This is exactly how I feel about St Louis, I also was as born and raised there. I left in 92 at 26yrs old, I came home from college w/ a degree in engineering. I couldn't get a decent job in my field, they under paid me I had no chance for advancement, I couldn't stay there in a dead end job. Once I left everything I was struggling to do or wanted to do fell in place. Within 4yrs of leave I started my own business, 5yrs after that I started my second business. It may be my hometown but it never felt like home, I couldn't survive and be happy. Both are two different things, surviving in one thing, being happy is another. I found out you can't do both, not in St Louis.
City high school?
St. Louis is a great city but in a bad location of the country. Most Americans have never visited because it’s out in the middle of nowhere. If St. Louis was located on the east coast it would have been more lively. It’s kind of like a good restaurant but failing because it’s in a crappy hidden spot
St louis is way better then it was just 10 years ago. You are wrong its on the rise
However bad St. Louis is, East St. Louis is (and always has been) worse.
I was born and raised in St Louis, still have friends and family living there. Yeah but from what I hear, East St Louis is mostly vacant lots and houses now. Plus the downtown area has become a war zone. I haven't been back since 2016, I seriously doubt I'll ever step foot in that ****hole again in my life.
Yeah, the largest employer is a hospital / college combo. They have hired and promoted a black man twice without a high school diploma, GED, certifications, or special license. They wanted the other D. Otherwise, the women feel empowered hired negro males on swinger rules, RJ>
I'm from ESTL. I originally was responding with "you're right", but on second thoughts, I'm not even sure. When I lived there is was certainly worse than STL, but now I think it, maybe not. It appeared that it was becoming an abandoned city. Which, if you think about it, could be better. Like a clean slate to start something new (dependent upon it being fully abandoned).
I guess it all depends on city leaders, what their goals are, and whether they care about people, or merely expanding the bureaucracy for its own sake. I'm not holding my breath@@Bay_Archer
ESTL is equal with St Louis at thus point. I live just outside ESTL and work in STL.
As somebody who loves St. Louis, another major factor working against St. Louis is its people. And I'm not talking about just the criminals on the street. I see so many St. Louisans frequently throw St. Louis under the bus and hope for the City to fail in anything it does. The animosity between City and County certainly does not help things. It is pretty difficult for a city to get back on its feet when its people keep kicking it while it is down.
I'm from St. Louis, and I honestly love it. It definitely has some huge challenges and problems, but it also has a rich history. I love the St. Louis red brick architecture and many of the unique, varying neighborhoods. It has a great, rising food and coffee scene. It has a rising arts scene. There is a great craft beer scene. There are great free and cheap entertainment options including a very good and FREE Zoo. There has been investment in the downtown area, including a great Ballpark Village around Busch Stadium, and a new soccer stadium and as well as improvements in the area surround the soccer stadium. One thing that I think you got wrong is that St. Louis is actually an incredibly affordable place to live. You can get nice apartments and houses at a fraction of the cost of other cities. Crime is bad. Yeah. We could have a better highway system and transit system. Yeah. Our schools could use improvement. Yeah. It definitely has a LOT of room for improvement. Also, in recent years we have had a rising and thriving business start-up scene, and we are becoming a MAJOR player in the Geospatial Intelligence scene with the construction of the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency campus. We are becoming a major player in the coinciding GEOINT scene. Yeah. You aren't wrong in that there has been major decline in the city, but I feel that it could be turning around.
My husbands Grandfather did one of the stained glass windows in the Cathedral downtown.
@@mariamcclanahan470 Cool!
I was born and raised in St Louis and left in 92, I saw the future coming and I didn't want to be part of it. I have friends and family who still live there and we talk on regular basis. (Actually talk, not text or IM) Yeah you have a few new bobbles and trinkets but what I hear is that the downtown area has become a war zone. Almost every night there's a murder somewhere in the city even more on the weekends. Hell, there wasn't a year that the murder rate wasn't under 200 when I was living there. By the way the record was set I 1970 if I recall correctly 294. Yes I know the cities history all too well, it was the future that worried me. Most of the Ville neighborhood (first an oldest black neighborhood west of the Mississippi) is a bunch of vacant lots and abandoned houses, w/ very few people and businesses there. (The Jeff Vanderlou neighborhood isn't too far behind) Last year they tried to close Sumner down, (the first an oldest all black high school west of the Mississippi) my old high school. So what's so great about it? From what I see and hear it's a dieing city. It's a wonder why the New Madrid fault hasn't wiped it off the map yet, I'm so glad I'm gone. Love your enthusiasm for a lost cause though.
It’s a good thing you like it there. I’m sure you will have as much of it as you can handle and more if it’s every day.
and Imo's
I found you recently and have started working my way through your early stuff and im really enjoying everything you bring. Getting educated here! From Scotland.
Thanks for watching.
St. Louis definitely has the blues.
Lol
😂
@@seeingtheforest9529 its a sh!thole
St. Louis no joke used to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. At one point some people even wanted to move the nation's capital here. Crime and terrible politicians have completely destroyed our nation's heart. So much history in St. Louis, and there's still plenty of incredible looking old homes (some areas look like old Boston). BUT the massive amount of crime is not getting any better anytime soon. Makes me sad.
St. Louis reminds me of an elegant old lady. You can tell she was incredibly beautiful when she was younger but has deteriorated in her old age. I feel St, Louis was like that when driving through the city for the first time last year.
Crime is getting better
@@Whoisreeski2 Tell that to my neighbors! 🤣 I live in the Gravois Park area. Things are getting better, but somethings are also staying the same.
Walt Disney wanted to put Disneyworld in downtown.
However the Busch family wanted him to sell AB beverages there, so Walt moved it to Florida. Oh yeah, the Miss Universe pageant was here in 1983. I remember the contestants in their bathing suits by the muddy Mississippi.
When I first moved to St Louis county from San Francisco in 1997, the entire St Louis metro area was economically booming, good paying jobs were plentiful, and crime was relativity low. I went from being unable to find work in SF to landing $25 an hour jobs here, they were easy to find. We all prospered, until the early 2000's hit and poor economic policies in Washington started to take hold, pushing millions into poverty here. Things got even worse as we approached the 2010's and beyond, still mostly due to poor economic policies.
As rampant poverty took hold, crime skyrocketed, investment dried up, and major companies began disappearing. Things got far worse over the past several years after the city elected the most incompetent and depraved leaders imaginable, just further compounding the issues the city already faced. They elected disgraced DA Kim Gardner, who's total perversion of the legal system caused crime to once again skyrocket. She released thousands of violent criminals, rather than prosecuting them.
Rather than do her job, she spent her entire time in office whining about how much she hates white people; even going as far as to charge white people for crimes they never committed, or those who acted in self-defense, the McCloskey's are a prime example of this. Ultimately, her policies lead to rampant murders, and it was mostly black community's that were affected, she got them killed. Some of those families have filed lawsuits against the city, further compounding their financial headaches.
To add insult to injury, as political leaders like cop hater Cori Bush pushed the defund the police movement, hundreds of cops quit the force altogether, further leaving the people of St Louis less secure.
2 decades of economic mismanagement by presidents Bush and Obama are the biggest causes of all of this. I watched the area where I live in South St Louis county turn into a ghost town. It was literally miles upon miles of boarded up buildings here as businesses failed one after the other. At one point I spent over 5 years looking for a job, found nothing, and that's despite my college education and work experience. There were no jobs to be had, they simply didn't exist.
Over the past couple of years the county has rebounded for the first time in over 2 decades, with new businesses popping up everywhere, all while the City continues to fall apart and investment continues to dry up. Until the city gets effective leadership, I don't see anything changing for the better.
Its very saddening to see what St Louis has become today. Things are so bad in the city now its no longer safe to walk the streets there, and I just try to stay away from the city as much as possible today.
Even my friends who still live in the city are very careful to stay away from certain areas. You're pretty much guaranteed to robbed at gun point there today, which has happened to me several times in the past, and was a compounding factor in my decision to just stay away from the city altogether.
Back in the late 90's me and my friends used to go down to the Del Mar loop every weekend, not anymore.
Since I moved here in 97, the city has lost close to 50,000 residents!
Well put man. I'm thinking about making a copy of this comment. One could always add to it but that's a pretty perfect summary.
@@D-Fens_1632 I hope things do change for the better, the people of St Louis deserve better. A lot of the stuff I mentioned many people are just in total denial about, but they needed hear it.
Do they started disappearing in the seventies
Crime started to get bad in the 70s North st. Louis at one time was a nice neighborhood
St Louis was too broke to pay the police department so they left and they don't have enough money to hire a new one that's why they went to incorporate the County
I love in St. Louis, actually I live in the county right now and am looking to LEAVE. I rent an apartment and in the past 2 years my rent has doubled but the services HAVE NOT. a lot of the streets need repaired and it is like you have to get your car realigned weekly. I HATE IT.
Your going to find the cost of housing has increased tremendously everywhere, and the services have not. I am not sure if you keep up with what’s happening, but we are in a time where we have massive inflation, and the cost of living is up everywhere.
Well labor laws are 75 years old and healthcare and education costs are increasing 10x every 5 years. So id leave too
@@jesse_-
Why would you live in St. Louis, when St. Charles County is only 20-30 minutes away with St. Peters, and OFallon listed as a couple of the top Cities in the Country to live in?
You could even cross the river and live in some nice suburbs in Illinois about 20-30 minutes away. St Louis itself isn’t great to live in but it’s a nice place to go on a weekend for those of us that live within a 30 minute drive.
Why would you live that close to St Louis? When I moved I got as far away from that ****hole as possible. (1100 miles to be exact)
AMEN
St. Charles is nothing to write home about.
Saint Charles wouldnt even exist without Saint Louis, so it's just a further testament to the American tragedy of suburbs completely draining their host cities and leeching off of their amenities and tax base 🤷🏿♂️
St. Louis does not have a high cost of living at all… I was paying $500 a month for a one bedroom that I recently just moved out of this year in 2023. You just need to learn how to be resourceful so people don’t walk all over ya. I also take public transportation and it’s HORRIBLE!!! Busses won’t even show up sometimes
I live in the St. Louis area, on Illinois side, and love it. I've moved and came back 4 times now. Entertainment and Sports are great and I love Forest Park. Cost of living is nice. The biggest things that will make me move again and not come back are the high property taxes (Illinois) and Crime all around St Louis now.
St Louis’s biggest problem is the same problem as any other large city. The wholesale subsidizing of black single motherhood. The government funds, the expulsion of black fathers from the house. The mothers do not know how to channel male aggression into productive endeavors like a masculine and stoic older male can. The result is young, testosterone filled, hyper, aggressive, emotionally incontinent, males unleashed on the city. SYSBM.
St Louis was my hometown, I was born and raised the though the late 60s, 70s and 80s. Anyone who disagrees w/ anything you said is oblivious to what's actually going on there. I moved out to Florida at 26yrs old in 92, I couldn't see a future there.
Working a dead end job w/o any foreseeable future wasn't worth staying there. (I own 2 businesses now) Then on top of that you had crime, carjacking, drive-by's people using drugs on the bus and so on. There was a murder on the local news almost every night, I couldn't live like that anymore. I can't remember a time when the murder rate was under 200 annually.
You had corrupt politicians and police officers, who I know from first hand knowledge had drug houses in the inner-city. They stole money ment for schools and community development programs.
I still have friends and family who love the city and have no plans on moving. Lying to themselves that the city will rejuvenate itself soon. Then on the other hand I've got friends and family who has left and refused to return like me, 5 this year alone.
The city is just like a prison, the longer you stay the harder it is to got out. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You don't leave or move out of St Louis, you escape from St Louis. Anyplace is better than St Louis, I haven't been back since 2016 when I moved mom in w/ my wife and I. (She's 99yrs on her way to triple digits this fall)
They aren't oblivious, they are the bad guys. Have to learn that with other things. Bad people are always " all good" with sin and cruelty.
"The city is just like a prison, the longer you stay the harder it is to get out." Springfield is the same way.
It's hard to even think about visiting any place anywhere downtown. It's to much have to worry about. Getting robbed, car getting broken into or someone just starting trouble for know reason. Crazy part is, they catching these crazy ass fools after committing these crimes and they letting them right back out. It's not just Downtown. They stealing people cars from all over the city and counties
Nationwide, middle class flight to the suburbs was enabled by the interstate highway system - an unintended consequence. Anybody who could afford to move, did. It wasn’t just to flee crime, although that was a factor. Families wanted more land, better schools, lower taxes, open spaces, etc. Interstate highways made the commutes reasonable. Urban Interstate highways also destroyed neighborhoods and artificially segregated cities. I’m not anti-highway, but look at time lapse maps and you can see the correlation between highway construction and suburban sprawl.
Don't blame it on the hwy system. People fled CRIME....This city is a giant cesspool
@@colddeadhands5167he wasn't *blaming the hwy system, just pointing out contributing factors. It's not all black and white unless you are that much of a simpleton. Obviously people ditch crime too, the point is the hwy system made it easy and affordable for more and more people to do so.
Try not being so emotionally reactionary, it's bad for your health.
@@MatthewJoseph-tm9oo said the progressive lilly that had to come to someone else's rescue for obfuscating the issue. People are likely to stick around and live somewhere cheap as long as its safe. St. Louis isn't safe and it's gotten worse. Why is that exactly? All those "contributing factors" are tied in to Democrats and their pets.
In STL, people didn't necessarily flee to the suburbs. They fled, period.
The St Louis Mercantile Library is a national treasure
I have a total of about 8 yrs of residency, You are spot on. Outside of St. Louis in west and south county areas are really nice with a decent cost of living. In the city of St. Louis there is a large amount of corruption that is ignored and lack of law enforcement not able to prosecute has made this a liberal hellscape like all the other large cities. I really do enjoy the material you put out.
As far as tourism goes there just isn't a lot to see in St. Louis other than the Arch and Mississippi. I doubt I will ever book a vacation there or Detroit or Des Moines....places like that !
I always thought that the St. Louis was in Missouri, if I am not mistaken.
@@LeanneFowler-ms5xc It is in Missouri, St.Louis County is not part of St.Louis city. They are two separate entities. I have lived in both and have owned property in both. The county is actually nice in west and southern part when liberals are not in charge.
@@toddchiles4272. There is absolutely nothing liberal about St Louis. 😂😂😂
St.louis is liberal look who is mayor and prosecuting attorney, West County and South county are more conservative but north county and the city are run by democrats.
Ugh St. Louis has the most free attractions in the country right behind Washington DC so that one needs to be fact checked as far as there being nothing for tourist to do. Also every other YT channel has been praising STL for its affordability now you’re saying it’s too expensive that’s a first …
This!! The fact that their zoo is free and amazing, as is the gateway park, art museum, science center, soulard, the brewery… so many amazing places to visit for free!! And very affordable
Saint Louis is the only major city I can think of that has a cost of living similar to the small towns an hour or more away.
I’m originally from the Rolla area, that’s the immediate comparison I’m making.
I live in west Texas now and the cost of living difference between Lubbock and the small towns just 25 miles down the road is stark.
Lived in St. Louis for 6 years directly across from the Arch. Your report is very accurate - STL made Oklahoma look like heaven! Glad to be back.
All very good & accurate points. I lived in STL for a brief time. However, the cost of living here is not high at all IMO - you can easily find a 1br1ba apartment for under $1200 a month
Those used to go for $240.00.
im finding people that get a nice apartment in a safe area for 800-900, and thatd cost 1200+ in so many other cities
25 years ago, STL had a very low cost of living, around 90% of the national average. Right now we're at the national average, which only seems high in comparison, but is still massively lower than the coasts.
I pay 2k for 1 bd 1ba CWE, if you want to live somewhere that is nice then it gets expensive fast. My friend lives in a 1bd 1200/month and he had to deal w roaches in the hallways everywhere (he moves obvi) but he is now paying 1500 somewhere else and that’s not cheap
My home town. I'll be visiting in July. 3 days only then I'm out. Can't wait to grab Imos.
I used to live in St Louis, you know you can order Imos online and have it sent to your home. You'll have to cook it yourself, but it better than going back.
Lived in St. Louis for a time in the late 90's. I found the people to not be particularly friendly (especially to an outsider) very cliquish socially. No regrets on leaving, and no desire to even revisit.
KC, Columbia, and Springfield is the same way.
I really want to visit STL cause I'm a huge Blues fan. Gotta know the good AND the bad though
I was born and raised in Saint Louis and left in 2010. I never understood how STL politicians over the years could not see the slow motion “train crash” of the decline of the city. Tragic for sure, because there is incredible architecture. I feel sad for my friends and family that still live there they always boast how the city is improving, but I see incredible decline each visit. And the Arch?? 40 square blocks were raised to make room for the Arch…..similar architecture is the 11 square blocks that is called the French Quarters in New Orleans, a tourist magnet🤷🏽♀️
By the mid-80s most of the jobs have moved out of st. Louis they used to make shoes shirts dresses that a lot of other things there but they all moved out to the South
There's an inexhaustible optimism among hardcore city lovers. In a way it's admirable, but it's also kind of pathetic as it keeps them in a bubble or echo chamber of just being around people spouting the same nonsense. They refuse to critically look at the real problems. When they pretend to look at the problems, it's always the same nonsense, e.g., pointing fingers at "The County", or the perpetual St. Louis myth of how the FBI calculates crime in St. Louis, as if the FBI goes out of its way to calculate St. Louis' crime differently than every other city in the country, lol, it's just crazy. I've explained the crime stats thing to so many people. And of course they point fingers at "big business" and how they won't invest in the city. It could've been such a cool city, but that ship has sailed.
Train crash started coming in the early seventies
@@mikekeeler6362 yep!
@@valdivia1234567 Yeah, that crime calculating excuse is mind numbing Tom foolery🤣
I really never thought of St Louis as a city with a lack of amenities. In addition to the zoo and the arch they also have several museums including a really good art and history museum the Missouri Botanic Gardens and they now have the Union Station Aquarium. If you are talking about a big city that lacks amenities that would be Indianapolis.
Yeah it definitely lacks excitement. I was born and raised there, we went to everything you mentioned hundreds of times on school field trips. After the hundredth time of going there it gets old. Oh you forgot Grant's Fram and the brewery tours, seen them more times than I wish to remember. Haven't seen the aquarium, but we a world known aquarium in Tampa 20 minutes from my house, so I'm good. So St Louis is and has always lacked excitement, doing the same things over and over gets boring. Not to mention the fun police, the moment something gets popular the city starts to regulate it overrunning it w/ police. I heard they started shutting down access to Fairgrounds Park on the weekends a few years ago. You can't go to a park on the weekends, com'on man.
@@deathscythehell7937 I forget to mention six flags. St Louis has a lot more than Milwaukee has and you say it's boring? In fact what does St Louis not have that Chicago has other than a football team of course?
Right on. I was born in Florissant in 1962. St. Louis will always be my home no matter where I live now.❤
@@dvferyance The city has some of the best parks in the nation.
@@dvferyance
I live in Lutz FL 15 minutes from downtown Tampa there's so many amusement and water parks here to choose from. Plus little over an hours drive east an I'm at Disney world and universal studios and so many more. On top of that there's festivals year round so there's no lack of entertainment. I'm not even gonna mention the sunset parties on Clearwater beach on the gulf every night. St Louis doesn't even come close to anything we have here in Tampa, so yes St Louis is boring. There's a nationally acclaimed aquarium, football, baseball and hockey and the parks are no contest. I left St Louis in the fall of 92 for Florida 31yrs ago, only went back to visit, I don't consider it as home anymore.
After living in the city of St Louis for 15 years, I would not step foot in it ever again. When I left in 2019, the crime rate was horrible and I lived in a 'decent' area of the city. Every night you could hear the gang members attempting to off themselves with gunshots. Even on my street, there were a couple drive-by shootings attempts. Muggings, vehicle/home break ins, violent crime, rampant drug use, all night long cars with loud bass stereos driving people nuts, a government easy on criminals, but hard on innocent victim tax payers. Even in 2019 there was not enough of a police presence, and what there was of one, they were overworked, understaffed. When the weather warmed up, the police helecopter was almost a daily (and sometimes multiple times a day/night) ocurrence flying around in circles overhead. Yeah there were nice parks, but a shame that you wouldnt step foot in them even right after sunset due to crime. Sad to think a friend that still lives on my old street, said it has goten even worse now.
Only thing I miss about St Louis is Forest Park, The Hill, Schlafly's beer, gooey butter cake and toasted raviolis. The latter two I can make from scratch now. St Louis is a cesspool.
I left in 2019 also for Boise, and am loving this mostly nonviolent city, although very expensive to live in. You described it accurately, and I don't miss it except for some family that is there.
That's nothing. I looked up on Wikipedia that St Louis just dropped down to number 75. It use to be number 70 in 2010's. The next I know, it became a solid number 75.
If I may ask : what area was the “decent” area where you lived? Your description of it Doesn’t make it sound decent or appealing at all
Good evening Briggs. Can you PLEASE do a similar video on Indianapolis, Indiana?? Overall, it’s sucks here!!
There is much more than just the arch in STL. The city museum, casinis, Union Station , the aquarium , the art museum, Forest Park, and the science center are just a few off the top of my head. A lot of these things are free to the public. I find your research lacking. Sure, the crime is bad, but it is rampant in all urban areas
Urban areas are often Blue areas
@@HOTTIUSMAXIMUS not only blue but run by POCs... nothing worse than a democrat run city lead by POC leaders
St. Louis (and current suburban resident here) surprise! I don't disagree with anything you said although there are a lot of historical influences that you missed. The small, geographic size of the city (1876 boundries), in proportion to the metro area is a real omission but the St. Louis region, as a whole, suffers from the same problems as the city. You do a lot about St. Louis -- I'd be happy to talk to you and show you around. The most apt comparison is to Detroit. I've lived in Madison WI and Wash DC too. In some ways, St. Louis is much older than a Chicago or most anywhere else in the midwest. That is a part of the story. Its also fair to say that every urban renewal mistake was made in St. Louis too. BTW - I actually se\t foot in Pruitt-Igoe at age 11, with my dad.
Don't do it Briggs, don't go! I was born and raised in St Louis, it's better if you forget it exists.
I did too on the way to Soulard Market. It’s still a scary place.
It's simple. High taxes with Poor Management. No leadership with a vision for people to do better.
Don't look for leaders, believe in yourself and get the hell outta there.
The Union Station Hotel is a national gem. Ferris wheel, shops. An aquarium and more. A must-see for all Americans and of course the Arch.
From 1981 to 1986 I lived in the Crestwood neighborhood of St. Louis. I also worked in Crestwood. I lived a ten minute walk from the main shopping center Crestwood Mall.
I enjoyed visiting the Saint Louis Zoo and Grant's Farm.
Crestwood was the county, growing up in the inner-city wasn't all sunshine and sweet dreams. I too have some of the same fond memories of growing up there, but a study done by Wash-U in 82 opened my eyes. It said 6 out of 10 black males growing up in the inner-city of St Louis would be dead or in jail by age 25. From that point all I could think about was getting the hell outta there. Finally done it in 92 at 26 w/o going to jail, I'm 56 and own two businesses. All happened after and because left St Louis, so I don't have any love for St Louis at all.
Crestwood Plaza was a neat place in the 70's and early 80's.
Born and raised STL but moved to Florida i still miss St. Louis and think about moving back all the time. Very under rated city. Good history and culture. Free things to do back there good sports good food winters aren’t crazy bad like Chicago/Minnesota. It has its problems. I should know I moved away to get clean and sober. But it’s where I’m from and a lot of good hard working people back there. Simple Midwest lifestyle.
SMART MOVE.....STAY N FLORIDA.... NOTHING HERE N ST.LOUIS BUT HELL N HATE
@@donjuanseville3039 yeah man Florida is cool my whole family moved outta STL to start a new life I could never get clean and sober I was really hooked on drugs back in stl you probably know someone back there hooked. Still miss all y’all take care man it is a messed up city.
@@77D777 People ay the same about Wichita too.
I grew up there, and while the list was interesting it really boils down to No. 10 -- white flight. An interesting take on why Pruitt-Igoe failed. Pruitt-Igoe actually failed because it was essentially free public housing that failed because it was destroyed by the people who lived there. Relatively speaking, a nice area when it was built. By the late 1960s, it looked like a war zone. Tall, solidly built brick buildings with the windows broken out, trash all over the streets, cars up on cinder blocks missing their wheels, gang fights in the streets, shootings, muggings, rapes, murders, and on and on. No. 1 thru No. 10 on my list is white flight. Even 50 years ago, you went to downtown St. Louis for one reason and one reason only -- to catch a Cardinals game.
Maybe instead of blaming the people who left, you should consider the people who remain.
@@liberatedentrepreneur149this movie played out in city after city. The rising cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Austin have dreadful walkability scores-you have to drive nearly everywhere. And, the word suburb is now for the most part obsolete. Very few if any of them are today “sub to the urb”.
Correct. White Flight causes Ghettos.
Amish ?
And there's still people who think actual public housing could work in America, bro it's full of crazy people, criminals and drug addicts. You can't have nice things.
St. Louis also has one of the worst summer climates in the US. Ungodly hot and ungodly humid. It's worse than Bangkok. I spent a summer there on a contract gig. I took a bike to get some exercise, but every time I finished a ride, my body would just start itching. Had to hit the show within seconds of coming in. It was just miserable.
I grew up there I know the summer's all too well. I live in Florida now and it gets humid but nothing like St Louis. As least down here there's a breeze, it would get so hot and humid in St Louis the wind wouldn't blow for days at a time.
Dallas is far worse. Intolerable.
At least winters are that sweet spot between Deep Southern (30 something is the LOW temperature every day all week?!) and just enough snow to remind people it’s still “very much northern”.
Practically everyone surrounding us seems to get more snow than we do every winter. KC & Indy… even the first big cluster of hotels on I-55 well below a full hour north of St. Louis’s sprawl in Litchfield IL seems to get more snow than the entire region.
That alone I love about my area…
It's pretty absurd for sure
@@rogersmith7396You're kidding.
The city have been losing population to the suburbs, the one problem is safety and corrupt politicians, other than that it’s a great city.
Born and raised in St. Louis COUNTY. I will only speak for 2000-present, as I was too young before then to form a credible opinion.
Since 2000, the one and only reason is crime. And not only that crime is happening, it's that our corrupt city government does not punish the criminals. It's hard to wash the stink of our reputation off when our own prosecuting attorney will legitimately not put criminals in jail.
Other than that, the city is just so painfully below average in almost everything except cost of living. Aside from the sports teams and our awesome free zoo, there is literally nothing about St. Louis City that sticks out.
However, the surrounding counties are really not that bad. We have pretty decent schools in our suburbs, the cost of living is still relatively affordable ($300k can get you an amazing house in a good area), and traffic is not a factor at all, save for a few spots. Like most places in the United States, the city is struggling while the suburbs are doing pretty good.
Escape from NY was filmed in St Louis. I still love St Louis
St. Louis has had many challenges, and some of them were self inflicted. The city separated itself from the county in 1875, which prevented the city from expanding into nearby townships (as Chicago did), and that has affected the income and the crime statistics in the city. There are also four major interstates that cut through town (Interstates 70, 64, 55, and 44) and this has chopped up the city into chunks. There was also the Great Migration and the subsequent block-busting and racial segregation that made parts of the city very poor and crime-ridden, and this has further led many to flee into the county. And what was once an excellent and thriving school system has also fallen apart, which causes young people with children to move to areas with good schools. All that being said, there are parts of the city that are absolutely thriving, and the city over-all has a lot of potential. There is a lot of history and so many hidden treasures here. And the problems of STL aren't unique to this city. Many other formerly industrial towns have suffered from the same malaise.
When I lived in Crestwood I didn't make into to the city of St. Louis very often. I went to a few baseball and football games at Busch Stadium a few conceros and hockey games at the Checkerdome.
I've lived in Missouri pretty much from birth. I lived in Florida gor about 3 months, hated it and moved to Black Water. Nope, moved back to St Louis. I lived in Columbia for 2 years, and came back. I'm worse than a Missourian, I'm a St Louisian.
I moved out of Dutchtown to Maplewood in 2018. A new job takes me all over the city. A recent visit back to the old neighborhood was shocking. A great increase in abandoned residences. The rest of the city has a has a mass increase in homeless as well as graffiti. The alleys are trash heaps. Its depressing. But there's an aquarium. Detroit has a world class art museum.
Where did you find your info for point 4? STL cost of living is relatively cheap compared to other Midwest cities. You should have really made a point about the allergens in the air. It gets bad at certain times of the year.
I've lived in Florida for the last 14 years and we have a LOT of people from St. Louis here.
I'm from St Louis, I escape to Florida in 92, it's been the best 31yrs of my life.
Funny, I think Florida is terrible. I'll stick with STL.
I lived in the St. Louis metro area for several years. The city, East St. Louis, and some of the northern suburbs are dangerous (except for perhaps CWE and south city), while the other suburbs are fine.
Great video.
I was born and raised here. Nearly all of the challenges that you mentioned are present and accounted for in Aug 2023. (It's more affordable than other parts of the country, with an asterisk.)
That * is that the entire region has been red-lined.
The poor and miseducated kill one another with seemingly no accountability. (Look into our former PA Kim Gardner)
The rest of us elope to the suburbs to survive. It's the only way in St. Louis.
Most of the suburbs are lost, too. North County is gone. The city has always been hellish but the likes of Gardner and Jones really should have to answer to someone for being such miserable, inept failures. It's embarrassing.
@@D-Fens_1632 There's still a lot of nice areas in south city, the largest being Soulard. You just need to understand the neighborhood before moving anywhere in the city.
I think growth and decline has a lot (not fully) with trendiness or image, like you discussed. I think there is something about seeing those around you move and thinking maybe I should too. But I honestly visited “trendy” cities and was perplexed at their growth and have thought some cities that many considered afterthoughts and liked them.
Great video for people who have not been in St. Louis in the last half century. Those of us that have been there after 1973… we get it. Got it.. we’re good!
I feel like a very important thing you missed here is that while Saint Louis city population has declined, the metropolitan area of Saint Louis has grown over the last 50 years, which seems like a major detail. In other words, the number 1 reason for Saint Louis' decline is that the population has migrated to the suburbs, which are not technically part of the city proper. The metro area was ~1.8 million people in 1970; it's ~2.2 million people now.
This migration is still not a good thing -- it's basically white flight -- but it's not the same story as is told here. It's not that Saint Louis population has declined, it's that the people have moved to the suburbs rather than live in the city itself.
After college, I lived in Soulard for several year, and Fox Park with my GF after that. But once we got serious and decided to get married, we bought a house in Kirkwood. It all comes down to kids. We wanted kids, and we wanted them to go to good public schools and grow up in a safe neighborhood. I imagine that's the story for a lot of people. We would have stayed in the city if the schools were better, and the streets were safer.
The burbs may be thriving somewhat, but the metro area has only grown barely one percent in the last 50 or so years. All of the "growth" that is happening in area such as St Charles County is because of the same people moving from one area of the metro to another. That is a population shift, not new growth. Most of the people who are in St. Charles (or Lincoln) county moved from North County. In essence, white flight moving farther away. Also, the video doesn't mention black flight as well since they are also leaving the city center.
@@kevinvolk968 That is ONE of the factors, not all. But still a good point.
Can you do the Tale Of Two Cities: Kansas City and St. Louis
Kansas City and its suburbs are so much better than Saint Louis and its suburbs. There is really no comparison.
I lived in Lake Saint Louis for a year and a half, then I lost my job and that sucked.
Lots of suburban blight too.
I left town for a job
That is a whole other city! St Charles County?!
@@elephantmanstl i think it’s like 30-40 miles to downtown. Nice lake community. I’d have retired there if it worked out
I love my city 🥰
I moved to STL in 1996 from Newark, NJ what was then considered the worst city in North America and that first year of living there, STL took over that "crown". My mother would jokingly say to my sister and I "We live in Newark, its the worst city in America, we move to St. Louis now its the worst city in America... what the hell are y'all doing when you leave this house"? Seriously though, STL is a city full of potential, it is in dire need of competent leadership with vision, a clear strategy and the organizational skills to execute. Right now, STL is literally a blank canvas.
Briggs, the one bright spot, the teacher to student ratio... I don't think you realize that is due to the dropout rate so not exactly as okay as it seems.
The biggest mistake the city of St.Louis made was the city of St.Louis seceding from St.Louis County in 1877.
As a non-American, the only thing I really know for sure about St Louis is that it is in the south of the USA and the Judy Garland film which was filmed in Hollywood, not St Louis. Thank you for the video.
Actually it's in the center of the country.
@@deathscythehell7937 Thank you for the update. That is what I like about this channel. I learn something new in every episode!
@@danielintheantipodes6741St. Louis is not Southern that is a Midwest city in a Midwest state(Missouri)
@@rackss1661 Yes I have learnt that. Thank you for the update.
@@danielintheantipodes6741
Thanks, oh yeah I forgot they filmed Escape from New York w/ Kurt Russell there when I was a kid. They closed off a bunch of streets, used Union Station and the Eads bridge in the movie too. That's about the time I started using the phrase. " You don't leave St Louis you escape from it." Lol.
There's been a second white flight that began in the 90's with the end of the cold war and loss of defense jobs with McDonnell Douglass and Boeing. Most fled the suburbs and moved to counties west and south. Now a very large swath around the city mostly spreading north is, well, Ferguson. The motto made famous there in 2014, "Hands up, don't shoot," is indeed now applicable, only it's not the police you're worried about. They've been rendered obsolete. Ironically it's armed and emboldened young black men you're begging to.
I’m fairly new to MO and just made my first trip to SL, it was a blast!!! We absolutely loved it and can’t wait to go back!
Is it a coincidence that the last time we had a Republican mayor in St Louis was 1949.
After that it was all Democrats, and it’s been downhill since. Time for a change…
I was born and raised in St. Louis. Left over 12 years ago and couldn’t be happier. I like to visit family and friends but I don’t miss living there.
Same, I moved away 5 months ago and living my best life.
1973 was the last time I was in St Louis ... brother just visited there a month ago on a business trip and said it was "nothing to see"
Briggs, if you're not from here, you won't get it. My family has lived here for generations and I give REAL tours of this city. My explaination starts before 1764. You're welcome to come through again and get a native St Louisan's version of the story anytime, complimentary of course.
When I was a kid the Cardinals were my favourite ball team ( I just loved Bob Gibson - showing my age here) so of course I wanted to visit St. Louis. Now I’m afraid to visit pretty well anywhere in the US - unfortunately. And I absolutely love Our Blue Jays! As the only MLB team in Canada, we believe they belong to our whole Country.
I find your videos very interesting. Thanks from 🇨🇦.
You believe WRONG!!!...the BLUEJAYS belong ONLY to Toronto!... Not the rest of Canada!... You wanna root for baseball ...GET YOUR OWN TEAM😫....the Alberta Ailers😝...the Montreal Muddleheads!😜
@@brettrobinson2901 So what’s with the One Nation, One Team advertisements??!
@@nancyrafnson4780 Poor attempt at online trolling and crappy , uncaffeinated humour...
Live about 45 miles SW of STL. I used to work in downtown STL back in the 90's. Wasn't safe then after work hours. Now...I don't go to the city. Closest I get is the South County area outside of STL proper and it's pretty nice.
Weird you left out the Fergusson Effect. Violent crime was going down year after year in StL before Michael Brown was killed, then it started getting worse again. police have had recruiting issues, and the ones already on the job were less incentivized to respond to certain calls.
Brown was killed by a cop in cold blood. Multiple 🪧 protesters rally up for Michael Brown. It's been ten years since the Ferguson catastrophe. A lot of people have moved out of town, out of state and out of the Midwest. And I don't blame each and every one of them. And they have every right to get away from all the chaos that the STL has gone down 👇👎 hill.
@@RolanJohnson_SoCal False: Brown was shot in self defense after he tried to grab a cops gun as corroborated by the autopsy report. The "hands up don't shoot" narrative was a lie begat by several witnesses who latter admitted they never saw Brown put his hands up in apparent surrender.
@@kevinvolk968pretty much but
The leftists ignore that FACT because it contradicts their narrative and yeah that includes the liberal reporters
I have lived an hour west of stl all of my 61 years, very happy to visit st.louis about once a year...in the day time AND know the areas to avoid
I have family in the area, so I've visited a lot. I really like St. Louis. The art museum is excellent, and the City Museum is AWESOME. The botanical garden, the parks, the zoo, good restaurants - it's got a lot going for it. But hey, I like Cleveland, and they get pissed on all the time, too.
Great video briggs...and lol @ 7:27 😆 🤣 😂 😹 you know someone was in the middle of writting a comment as soon as youbsaid "arc" 😆 🤣 😂 😹
At the root of many of St. Louis problems is the City/County divide. St. Louis city is an independent city, meaning it isn't part of St. Louis County. They split in the 1870s, so the city boundaries have been fixed since then. There have been efforts to reunite the two, maybe even merge them into one mega city that would instantly put it into one of the top ten largest cities in the US. But people have rejected this again and again. Also St. Louis county is comprised of - get this - 91 different municipalities. Apparently at some point if you wanted your block to be it's own town you could just do that, and people did. It's nuts.
Interstates brought the suburbs. Quick non-stop trip from the job in the city to the suburbs on the outskirts of town. The suburbs offered new, affordable middle class homes in safe neighborhoods, with good schools. In most cases, dad worked and mom stayed home and did the housework and had the kids with her. Before daycare. It really was like a care-free, Leave it to Beaver life. This was back when America really was great.
Wasn't that bad in the 80s. McDonnell-Douglas (now Boeing) was a major employer. The northern part was still safe; across the river into St Charles was a bounding community.
Today? Yeah, lots of problems, but they don't go back THAT far.
Zoo is best in country, too three if not! City Museum is amazing! Greatest little Italy in America. Price me wrong, seriously. Fantastic botanical gardens. The Arch is known all over the world and the museum of national expansion underneath it is fascinating. Cardinals have won the World Series 11 times. Such great history and such great potential. And let’s go Blues!
At one point this city hosted the world's Fair and the Olympic games. 850,000 people so I was shocked to learn about this history. The biggest problem is that they bulldozed most of the downtown, the highways had to take up space and a lot of the wealth left the inner city.
STL native here, imo one of the biggest issues is a lot of the adjoining counties/townships have been incorporated into stlco as a whole. Granted some needed to be under various circumstances, not nearly as many that have in the last 20 years or so.
Crime is by far the worst though, followed by public transit.
St Louis County doesn't want to pay taxes to support St Louis City.
The separation of city and county has hurt the St Louis region (outlying areas of St Louis).
Now we are a low rent Indianapolis instead of a major city attracting big business.
My son works in Overland Park, KS because of the job opportunities in technology and lives in
Kansas City, MO.
In Kansas City, MO the city and county stand together. That's why Kansas City, MO is thriving.
One other factor that has a major impact is the inability to do regional planning because 312 different cities/townships make up the metro area. The City suffers as a result.
Only one reason.......the 13% committing all the crime
@@colddeadhands5167that should be obvious to most people but apparently it’s not (or the blue voters are just in denial)
St. Louis is a cesspool…period. Further it’s one of the most prejudicial place on earth. Just read some of the comments.
KC and Columbia bad too when it comes to kill whitey attitudes.
Hi Briggs. Just catching up. Thanks for the video and have a great day.
The most friendlest people I've met in my life. Everywhere I went, people showed love. Beautiful town. And where did you get thumbnail 0:06. That's not St. Louis.
Nicer than KC or Columbia.
I was born & raised in St. Louis. Left in 1980 due to lack of good paying jobs and everything falling apart in the area. After I left, I have been back 4 times and each time the area got worse, MUCH worse and some towns completely bulldozed to the ground plus all the multi million dollar super pack cancer lawsuits for Coldwater creek and many others hazardous dump sites in the area putting a huge red flags on ALL of the St. Louis area to stay away. Today they also have huge issues with gangs and gangsters running wild in the streets with big cal handguns shooting up the local streets. The best thing about St. Louis now is to GET OUT or die. I am so glade I got out when I did in 1980 as I am scared to even go visit my family's graves up there now.
One problem might be what would be facing a lot of cities. Old business and industrial infrastructure getting demolished and replaced with low income public housing apartments. This is a problem in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, which might adversely effect cities, like St. Louis. Much of that is not from minorities already native to the United States, but mass immigration from other countries around the world. Many of these countries are third world countries, and the people who immigrate from those places want to make cities, like St. Louis or Minneapolis/St. Paul, to be like things were in their original homeland. Presenting third world policies into a well developed country, like the United States presents huge problems for growth and prosperity. Canada is currently facing such a problem.
I’ve been traveling to St Louis for 30 years. The city de-industrialized in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. The city shrunk 60% in 20 years which is exactly y what happened in Detroit.
I went on a multi-legged business trip to St Louis in 2021, unfortunately during Covid, to help with a construction project for a residence in the Creve Coeur/Ladue area. I was mesmerized by the houses in that area, discovering that most of them were built between 1910-1920, and the neighborhoods had beautiful trees/foliage, and transitioning from winter to spring was a beautiful sight in that city! On off-days during that trip, me and the guys I was with went to downtown to check out the arch, Busch Stadium, and I actually got EXTREMELY lucky and happened to be in STL when my Vegas Golden Knights came to town for a game vs the St Louis Blues, and was able to snag a ticket to the game - a 5-1 win for my Knights!
It was cool to be in the city for as long as I was, and the memory I made at the NHL game will be one I carry forever, but I would be lying if I said the city was perfect… because it certainly wasn’t. I saw signs of urban decay on some of the highways, I saw signs of crime in various areas that I travelled in around the metropolitan area, and the hotel I stayed in definitely seemed to have its share of shady people inside it. I had a perceived reputation going into the city regarding its danger level, and I can say that it certainly does possess the vibe, but at the same time I feel like the whole metropolitan area has a bunch of potential to be a thriving city. The economy definitely needs help though, and St Louis proper needs an economic boost.
If this country can get away from these highly liberal, anti-business policies, get away from the bull shit that’s caused companies to invest elsewhere other than the U.S., you could see cities like St Louis begin to thrive again via investment into the community on the broader scale, and if the city leadership can also adopt more pro-business policies, things can drastically improve within the city.
Briggs: you are incorrect about the high cost of living. St Louis is much lower than most of the country. Real estate has gone up since covid but it's still a lot less than many other cities it's size
This is my fiancé’s hometown and I’m there 3-4 times a year. I don’t know what it is about St. Louis but it is the one city I feel so out of sync while visiting. People from there act like it’s the center of the universe and everywhere else is below them. It’s like if you aren’t from there, you’re not part of the club or something 🙄
They are idiots.
You kinda forgot to discuss the systemic issue of how the idea is St. Louis was supposed to be a mega city. The city is “the gateway to the west” We were supposed to have a greater population that would put us on terms with Chicago. However, our manufacturing and the overall economy have been siphoned off by Chicago. All your other points were very valid and because of them, people were willing to jump ship a lot easier and go elsewhere.
I worked downtown for over 20 yrs. As soon as my company went remote in 2020, I got out of dodge. I now live in serene Eastern KY in the mountains. There is so much crime in St. Louis - I want nothing to do with it.
Yeah, but things are "looking up", "so much potential"... Your new location sounds awesome. Fortunately in the burbs for a while now, but when I retire in 5 years, I'm GTFO like you.
On no.10, the move to the suburbs was also helped by the rise of personal mobility (by that I mean mass produced automobiles...)
Interstate highways.
The LARGE elephant in the room we cannot openly talk about ...
Personally all cities suck in my opinion. I've been in every major city in the southern states (except Florida) and I hated all of them. I prefer small towns with a population of just a few thousand people maximum. And I also hate flat places. Being born and raised in a small town in the mountains of NW NC, it's just in my blood to favor small mountain towns. I guess that's why I like WV. It's mainly small towns and hillbillies in a mountainous state, so I fit right in with the locals.
Cities are the best places to live. All small towns suck and have nothing to offer and most of the people are backward thinking and very clannish.
Things are fine in the St Louis Metro. In 1950 the population was 1.4 million. Today it’s 2.2 million. Like nearly every city, the metro is growing and the city is shrinking.
I wouldn't say everything is fine. The Metro area should have grown by more than 50% since 1950. You can't have a thriving metro area with an urban core that is falling apart. I lived in St. Louis until age 28 when I left for the military, still have family there, and try to follow what is happening. You have a dysfunctional governmental system for the whole area. The Missouri side fights with the Illinois side, the city fights with the county and within the county each little municipality fights with the others. Very little cooperation to really get anything done. The loss of many regional businesses that were HQed in St. Louis (like Pet, Ralston-Purina, Anheuser-Busch, etc.) hasn't helped things. These business leaders used to take the lead on civic efforts and got the elected officials to work together, that's not happening anymore.
I looked at numbers from multiple cities and none of the older cities had grown by 50%. New York City went from 12.5M to 18.6M in the same 1950 to 2023 time frame. St. Louis has all the same problems of every major city.
Where are you getting these inflated numbers for New York City because the city itself is 8.4 million and not the ridiculous number you just cooked up out of nowhere.
St. Louis - Where the Saints go running out - instead of marching in
Currently I live in St. Louis county but I have every intention to buy back into the city.
I live in St. Louis County, which is, in no way, linked or governmentally associated with the city of St. Louis. The reason people move out of the city of St. Louis is because...drum roll, please... DEMOCRATS. The city of St. Louis is run by Democrats who are so soft on crime that the circuit attorney was removed by the Missouri Attorney General for failing to prosecute numerous people. When she was called out for her dereliction, she pulled the race card and her supporters were out in force screaming the same. St. Louis COUNTY has plenty to offer everyone for any sort of dining, recreation or entertainment. If you see a sign that you are now in the city of St. Louis, TURN AROUND, IMMEDIATELY!!! I've worked in the City and lived in the City of St. Louis...a LONG time ago. It sucked, then. It's horrible, now. Avoid at all costs...unless you're a Democrat. If so, have at it.
I’m from the Rolla area.
I’ve watched Saint Louis decline for my entire life and yet the county flourishes… I think you’re right. The worst cities where I’m at here in Texas have a similar problem - DEMOCRATS. They ruin every government they run.
I think I can guess!!
Originally from south St Louis County, STL has a rich history but has a very fracture story, as in everyone has their own little silo that they don't want to include anyone else. It's not where did you grow it's where did you go to High School which puts you into a box and judged. Then there is the mismanagement of the City which has lost population for years due to parents don't want to put their children in failing schools so they move to the counties that have good public schools or send them to private schools. Now the same corrupt operator's are moving out into the county to steal to mismanage the county governments. KC use to be little Poe dunk city on the west side of the state, it has outshined STL for decades. The only real draw to STL are the Cardinal's and the Blues. It has turned into a very large little town.
I have noticed people from KC hostile. Most of the people I know from St. Louis are much friendlier, to me at least.
I do give KC credit for minding its's own business and not trying to manipulate MO politics like St. Louis and Columbia (MU) does.
Poet Gertrude Stein once said of her hometown Oakland: "There's no there there." St Louis seems to be another city without much of a "there" either, outside of being a point on a map of course, a point somewhere between the East Coast and the West Coast.
Except for my service time am a lifelong St Louis metro resident. What caused the flight to the burbs in the 1950's is that so much of St Louis housing is 2 and 4 family flats with street parking. That's what my family was living in back then when we moved to a brand new affordable/modest home in the near county. Why would anyone want to stay?
Any people I meet that are proud to be from St. Louis instantly makes me think they either have very low self-esteem (because they don't believe they deserve better) or are completely delusional. Briggs didn't even mention the road infrastructure that makes even driving through the city suck too (even though it's not even that populated compared to other urban centers). Humans deserve better than St. Louis.
I lived in Missouri most of my life till about 5 years ago. I lived in St. Louis, county off Butler Hill. I didn't like anything about it. One thing you could bank on was that someone would be murdered overnight there and that it was usually multiples. The city is nasty. And had experiences that I would rather forget. You couldn't pay me enough money to even live in the state again. The weather, 30 to 80. The traffic. The zoo is nice. I couldn't wait to get away. I now live in clean air and sunshine in North Carolina. I love it here.
@@BootGal I live in Raleigh and back in 1999 I was living in Winston Salem and I met someone who was from Winston Salem and was in town for a funeral.He had moved to St Louis and loved it and recommended that move there to,I moved back to Raleigh in 2000.
I was born and raised in St Louis moved out in 92. I haven't been back for more than a few days a year since, I haven't been back since 2016. The only thing I claim about St Louis is it's my hometown, I don't even consider it as home just where I was born that's it. The last thing I think of being is proud of St Louis, it's a ****hole.
@@BootGal
I was born and raised there left in 92, the only reason I came back a few days a year was cause mom. Now she's living with my wife and I, I'm looking forward to the new Madrid fault wiping St Louis out of existence.
They will tell you with a straight face they are as good as LA, Chicago, NYC. I've always assumed they have never been to those places.
Ive visited twice and have had a great time. Haven"t had any issues on my visits. St. Louìs reminds me of the Bay Area. ❤STL
St. Louis is a great ( well, sad) example of what happens when we abandon cities and then let them become derelict. And those who suffer are Black people.
Exactly, that why I left, I didn't want gonna be another statistic. As a black man it's already hard, why live somewhere you haven't got a chance for a future?
You can thank the Democrats
It's not anyone's fault but theirs that they stay, regardless of money. People do amazing things if they have the willpower, they can leave too if they'd like to.