Most Dangerous U.S. City

[Replica.]

I have never lived in St. Louis or Detroit, but I would like to hear opinions from people who live in these cities. Are they really that dangerous or is the media and FBI not getting thier facts correct?.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061030/ap_on_re_us/city_crime_list

[senile1]

Part of the problem for St. Louis is that, as a city, it cannot annex any more land from St. Louis county.  It is surrounded by suburbs that are thriving in St. Louis County, but I believe it is the law for that county that St. Louis must remain inside its existing borders.  Since the city has aged, much of the area within its borders has become run down and has become a haven for crime, as occurs with the oldest areas of any city.  Other cities can annex land and spread out into new areas.  These new areas have very little crime compared to the core which lowers the crime rate for those cities.  St. Louis is not able to do this.  St. Louis has done a lot to improve its downtown but this area is still surrounded by slum and ghetto areas.  

[Siebert Outdoors]

Well, I think Senile pretty much summed up St Louis.  Downtown around the stadium is nicer then it use to be.    

[Guest the_muddy_man]

Well I grew up in Brooklyn, and my earlier lifestyle took me through some hard and scary neighborhoods. I lived in New Orleans for several years and saw the tough side of that city.

 i work in a Job Corps center now and a lot of our kids come from Wash DC and Philly. I have to transport kids home on occassion and my case load puts me in direct conatct with their first hand accounts of the front lines in these cities. I can tell you this DC,NYC and New Orleans have some tough eareas but I do not see any other city as scary as the NORTH SIDE OF PHILLY commonly known as the BAD LANDS  This is the only place I truely have feared to be in at any time in my whole life I dont see how things could be worse than there!

[JiggaMan512]

im pretty sure that Detroit is still the most dangerous, i think that St.Louis is the most dangerous city within the 100k to 500k population. one thing that ive learned the hard way is that bad things can happen to you in the least "dangerous" of places

[Valascus]

Saint Louis will be a much better area downtown soon enough. There are A TON of MAJOR renovations being done downtown, trust me I know I have worked on 3 so far. Like GMAN said around the Satdium and whatnot is getting nicer than it used to be. There are a lot of building downtown that are essentially being gutted and turned into high dollar lofts and condos. Old run down apartment buildings, business buildings, and abandon lots are all being targeted for these renovations in hopes that the city can be turned into a much nicer place to live. Lets see...the Marquette Building, The PET building, Beehat, Ely Walker...all buildings I have worked on (except Beehat...missed that one...barely)..and those are only a few of the many many buildings being redone. It seems construction began on the riverfront and is working it's way out of the city from there.

Here is my only problem with the direction this will go. Turning ALL of the city into thse high dollar lofts and such will draw many many ritsy folk into the city. They will buy up this property and spend money IN the city while living and working there. This will give the city a greater amount of tax revenues and help the city as a whole. NOW...here is the problem. All of the undesirable aspects of the city right now...the poverty, the crime, etc. etc...will not go away. I think in the years to come you will see it move away from the city and spill into the suburbs surrounding it in Saint Louis County. Mostly North Saint Louis County and the more easterly sections of West County were housing is the most affordable. These areas...which are already not really a walk in the park...I think will get a whole lot worse. The most dangerous part of Saint Louis...isn't really even technically Saint Louis. East Saint Louis...more commonly know 'round here as "The East Side", is BY FAR the most dangerous place in the "Saint Louis Area" to be by a looooooooooooooong shot. You do not wanna be lost, caught unawares, alone, acting like you don't know where you are or what your doing, or just around there without some sorta purpose...even in broad daylight and MUCH MUCH MUCH less at night. Whew...flat out bad area.

BUT...all that being said. I still think there are more dangerous cities in this country than Saint Louis. I guess the point is that all cities, no matter where you go in this country have their "good" areas and the ones that you wouldn't wanna be stuck in, in broad daylight.

[cart7t]

The core downtown area around the stadium complexes is fairly safe, though I wouldn't want to stray too far away from those areas.  St Louis has been a city in decline for many years. The population of the city is down to around 250,000 people, many of them live in poverty areas or just plain bad areas of the city.  The north side of the city is bad.  The south side isn't a whole lot better.  There are clusters of good areas but there aren't a lot of younger people moving into the city, most are moving to the burbs.  Once the older folks start dying out the neighborhoods begin to decline.  There's also been a massive influx of Bosnians and Vietnamese is certain parts of the city.  That hasn't exactly been working out real well either.  

When the blacks began moving into north St. Louis county around 25 years ago the white flight started.  The first blacks that moved in were good, hard working folks that had worked their way out of the ghetto and now wanted to live the good life, too bad for them.  Within a few years those once all white neighborhoods were very rundown.  There are areas in North St Louis county where I used to hang out as a teen in HS with my friends that aren't completely safe anymore.  Many of those North Countians ran out to St. Charles to get away from it all.

As for the question, is St. Louis that bad crime wise?  Probably no worse than any other large city.  There isn't a lot of crime in the burbs, most of them anyway, except the usual robbery, break in kind of thing.  It's nothing that would stop me from moving here if I didn't live here already or cause me to caution anyone wanting to move here.  I would definitely let anyone who's never been here before know exactly where the NO GO areas were.

BTW, as you all know St Louis won the world series.  The partying went on into the night.  

There were no cars overturned and set on fire, no looting, no vandalism, no shootings, etc.  Sunday an estimated half a million, yes a half a million people were downtown for the WS parade and ceremony at the ballyard.  There were no cars overturned, no looting, no vandalism, no shootings, etc. for that either.

Now, how does that stack up against some of the so-called safe cities that have had far worse when they tried celebrating a sports championship?  

[Top]

hmmm if I didn't know better I would have sworn y'all were talking about Baghdad...  

AL

[fishbear]

It doesnt matter if you are in NYC, Detroit, Atlanta, LA, Seattle, or Podunk, Nowhere.... you are in danger if you do not pay attention to your surroundings and put yourself in a compromising situation.....

This is not a nice world anymore, and there are people out there that prey on the weak and the careless..

You have to learn to watch your back, because most times there is no one else there to do it for you.

[Bass XL]

south st.louis is the worst...it will never get better....i lived in north st.louis, but recently moved out here to st.peters (abot 30 min away from stl)

[Bass XL]

hey cart7: what highschool??? hazel wood east??

[cart7t]

hey cart7: what highschool??? hazel wood east??

Hazelwood West until my junior and senior year and then I went to North County Tech to learn a trade (Radio & TV repair)  

The results of this survey were somewhat skewed.  Since St. Louis is NOT in a county but it's own entity, they didn't include the crime results from the metro area in the overall results.  Had they done that, St. Louis would've been much farther down the list.

[Bass XL]

when did you graduate?

[Fishing Doug]

these guys already summed it up..that is a distorted fact due to the fact that the city is such a small part of the St. Louis area.

Other than illegal parking, I haven't heard of any crimes in my area of STL.

[cart7t]

when did you graduate?

1976

[K_Mac]

hey cart7: what highschool??? hazel wood east??

That is a very "St. Louis" question

I am an "east side" guy but live 40 miles south of the East St. Louis mess. I think Senile got it right that St. Louis is "landlocked" by countless small communities, with a shrinking economic base. The per-capita crime rate may be higher than some other cities, but it does not reflect the crime rate of the St. Louis Metro Area. The problems here are the same as many other urban areas, but the St. Louis area in general is great place to live and raise a family. Just my .02