St. Louis ranks as "7th Worst Run City" (along with "Worst Place to Find a Job" and "Most Miserable" (St. Charles: best cities, salon)

[chicagoerin]

If there is a best/worst list coming out, it's a safe assumption that St. Louis will be featured on the "worst" list. The bad news for St. Louis keeps coming in. The latest are: "7th Worst Run City" and ""Worst Place to find a Job" Both from credible sources (Forbes comes to mind) with hard stats to back it up (Mentioned since the regular defenders seem to think that St. Louis gets picked on for no reason by sources that should be ignored.. "Who would read that?")

http://news.yahoo.com/10-best-worst-run-cities-america-014228518.html



St Louis
Violent crime per 1,000 people: 17.47 (2nd highest)
Poverty rate: 27.8 percent (13th highest)
Credit rating: AA3 (stable outlook)
Population: 319,156

St. Louis has had a hard time controlling violent crime. With 17.47 incidents per 1,000 residents in 2010, the city has the second highest rate of violent crime in the country. This is due in part to the city’s high poverty rate of 27.8 percent and its median income of $32,688, which is the 10th lowest out of the 100 largest cities. Additionally, nearly 20 percent of housing units in the city are vacant. All of these measures influence government revenues.
Despite this, St. Louis has managed its finances fairly well. While Moody’s credit score is AA3, the credit agency also reports that the city faces a continued weakening of resident income levels, high unemployment rates and a decreasing population.

Most Miserable:
http://realestate.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=23468266


Worst for finding a job:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/260358/20111202/10-worst-cities-job-hunting-america.htm

I am keeping a list for my family, in case I get any grief when I tell them we are moving in 1.5 years. I don't think they will have any objections, as we have all lived elsewhere and think St. Louis is a dying city, but just in case. I thought I would share it here for anyone who might be interested. As usual, I will not respond to any slams or comments from the regulars. Just reporting the facts.

[flynavyj]

Well, the sources do seem to make points of some very valid problems with the city of St. Louis. But it doesn't necessarily do a great job at looking at what really is "St. Louis". I'm sure you've aware that St. Louis is significantly larger than the area of St. Louis City. If you looked outside of the city limits, or even combined simply St. Louis County with St. Louis city the numbers would look drastically different. The poverty rate would be significantly lower, crime statistics would be significantly lower, job opportunities would be higher, etc...Many of the residents cited who had the "means" and were cited as "leaving St. Louis" moved as far away as Florissant...eventually, some of those individuals moved as far away as St. Charles, MO or St. Peters, MO...both are major parts of the St. Louis Metro area, and as stated are not included in the above "findings".

PS, the MSN article on most miserable...really? The Ram's suck is essentially given the reason that the city is miserable...and apparently Chicago not getting the Olympics makes that city miserable as well...REALLY? Ya gotta do better than that.

And the final article of course is taking stats based once again on St. Louis city job openings per number of potential applicants...essentially it's a comparison of unemployment rates, which as stated are exaggerated because of St. Louis City's high unemployment compared to the St. Louis Metro region.

The major issues I do see as detriments to St. Louis are crime and poverty. This is especially true on St. Louis City's North side, however crime rates for most of St. Louis City are probably slightly higher than their county contemporaries. The city losing population has been explained numerous times before on this board, some are individuals moving out, others are four family units being converted into two family or single family homes. Personally, we need to find a way to curtail crime issues on the North side of St. Louis City, improve the absolutely terrible St. Louis school system, and get people back to work if we're really going to put a dent in the most major problems that plague this city...Those are all legitimate issues, but none of them (if taken as a metropolitan whole) would have put St. Louis on any of the lists you provided. The issue is, whoever was writing these articles cared more about getting the articles out than they did about accuracy of reporting. The research required to do a true and accurate comparison of this magnitude would have taken significantly longer than these writers were most likely willing to do...they probably got their sources from city-data tables. LOL.

[1greatcity]

I could easily produce silmilar disparaging rankings for Chicago. Or Miami. Or any other city. So I must conclude that either the OP has a terrible grudge against STL, or is gullible enough to believe every negative ranking found in print.

If the latter is the case, then read this and weep:

Forbes Magazine has rated STL the "fourth most affordable city to live well", the "15th best city for young professionals", the "8th best housing market in America", and the "fifth most recession-proof city to retire in".
Parenting Magazine ranked STL as "11th best city for families".
The LA Times named STL as "one of the most underrated destinations of the world".

And if the OP simply dislikes STL, then my advice is to stay away-- far, far away-- and allow the rest of us to enjoy our wonderful city.

[DR2012]

I used to live in StL and it was one of my favorite places. I moved because of the military, so I didn't leave because I had problems. I had job opportunities and I just loved it there. Out of everywhere I've lived, it's still #1 for me (or at least ties for #1 ) Never had a crime problem, etc. I don't know about schools, but everywhere I live everyone says they have bad schools... I never notice much.

[1greatcity]

I should also mention that in 2009, Forbes ranked Chicago as the "third most miserable city", while STL ranked down at 10th place. So the OP-- who's apparently from Chicago -- has a LOT of nerve posting a negative thread like this about STL, when Chicago rated far worse!
Anyway, such rankings are not facts. They are simply one magazine's biased opinion. But CD threads are not required to be fact-based, right? They are forums of discussion and include a variety of opinions. Therefore, the third-place ranking that Chicago was given is also a valid thread topic.

[BoomBoxing]

Salon wrote an excellent piece on city rankings. It basically highlights things many of us on here have been saying for years even though St. Louis isn't even mentioned in this article. The crux of the piece falls in line with what all of us city-buffs already know: the essence of what makes a city cannot be measured quantitatively. Sorry for linking the mobile version...

Why city rankings always get it wrong - Salon.com

[BoomBoxing]

Also I want to highlight my experience living in a place that tends to not rank well (St. Louis) to moving to a place that always ranks well (Arlington, VA). Arlington was even named the 2nd best city in America past year by Business Week. And Arlington really is a great place...low crime, great schools, walkable, semi-urban, and the essence of smart growth. But it lacks the "essence" that makes a city, a city. The architecture is bland, chains are prevelant, there's little middle class presence, and not a whole lot of pride or sense of place.

Many people don't care about such things, which is a shame if you ask me. But St. Louis has those things in spades. St. Louis is a great city for people who love cities. I don't think Americans value places like our friends in Europe and the result is a United States full of generica. Thankfully cities like St. Louis still exist and when someone does a list of 'Best cities for city-lovers' we should have a good ranking

[icecreamsandwich]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

The major issues I do see as detriments to St. Louis are crime and poverty.

When you say this are you referencing the city of St. Louis, or the metro area as a whole?

[Dawn10am]

Why don't you just move back to Chicago if you hate St. Louis so much?

[flynavyj]

Originally Posted by icecreamsandwich

When you say this are you referencing the city of St. Louis, or the metro area as a whole?

I was referencing St. Louis City. I don't think the metro area has a major crime problem, but there are specific parts of the city that are pretty plagued with it, combine that with the low population of St. Louis City and you have the crime stats that are so commonly quoted. Truthfully, a city/county merger would solve many of these statistics, but that doesn't address the very real problem of crime and poverty in North St. Louis.