I love St. Louis. Certain parts have a European feel that no other city outside of Canada has. There are a lot of extremely bright, hard working people there too. It is odd. It is a city that seems to not know how much untapped talent it has.
That being said, there are parts that are rundown and sketchy. There are huge problems with drugs like methamphetamine outside of the 'normal' urban drug issues that most cities have. In addition, from what I understand, the Missouri tax system is terrible (property tax on many large items you own like cars in addition to your homestead tax and sales tax on top of income tax).
I went to Washington University in St. Louis, and I was overall impressed with the beauty of the city (especially forest park) and the sense of community. The kids at the school were wicked smart (ranked 7th in the nation in terms of average SAT scores--higher than Stanford).
The city is super segregated. When you cross Delmar, the population shifts from very wealthy and white to poor and black.
Yeah. But how the city is technically setup doesn't stop people from being confused and stopping there.
I'm not saying that east st. louis is terrible as an indictment of st. louis. I love stl. I can't wait to move back. I've just met a lot of random folks who don't realize that east st. louis is different, and stop by.
Luckily, if you stay on the west side of the river, you're pretty much fine. I lived in the city near the botanical gardens for awhile and it was great.
There are sketchy places in St. Louis itself, but they're not as bad as east st. louis, and that's like just about any other city I've been.
That being said, there are parts that are rundown and sketchy. There are huge problems with drugs like methamphetamine outside of the 'normal' urban drug issues that most cities have. In addition, from what I understand, the Missouri tax system is terrible (property tax on many large items you own like cars in addition to your homestead tax and sales tax on top of income tax).