What's going on in Ballwin ? (St. Louis, St. Charles: tornado, maintenance, places to live)

[Dawn10am]

Originally Posted by strangeday

This thread is ridiculous, and reflects the attitudes of most waspy St. Louisans. I did not grow up here, but recently moved here and was very ubpleasantly surprised by the lack of culture and blatant segregation.

Example: In NYC and Chicago, public transportation is for everyone. In St. Louis, the middle and upper class wouldn't be caught dead on the Metrolink. So strange.

(1) NYC and Chicago are both much larger than St. Louis, so the comparison of public transportation networks isn't really fair. Metro gets NO money from the state of Missouri, so we have to pay for that ourselves.

(2) I am a part of the white middle class and I ride the MetroLink regularly and see many other white middle class people on there with me, especially at the rush hours.

[MoNative34]

Originally Posted by orangefuscia

Ballwin Named the 9th Safest City in America

Ballwin named 9th safest city in America. So what's the cause for concern again?

The concern is from 20 somethings that think they have it all figured out and their biggest concern is how "cool" a neighborhood is. Nothing new. They'll eventually outgrow it.

[Brickmama]

Originally Posted by orangefuscia

Ballwin Named the 9th Safest City in America

Ballwin named 9th safest city in America. So what's the cause for concern again?

There is more to a neighborhood than safety. If someone can live in a walkable interesting neighborhood that may not be as safe as Ballwin, but still feel relatively comfortable with the prospect of the neighborhood improving, people will live there over places like Ballwin.

[Brickmama]

Originally Posted by MoNative34

The concern is from 20 somethings that think they have it all figured out and their biggest concern is how "cool" a neighborhood is. Nothing new. They'll eventually outgrow it.

Some may outgrow it, others won't. But the ones that don't outgrow it will continue to improve the neighborhood in which they live, attracting more people. It's a snowball effect.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by Brickmama

Well the years of robbing Peter to pay Paul may be catching up to a lot of STL County munis.

Good thing the city of St Louis is above this kind of thing:

St. Louis opens checkbook to keep employers downtown : Business

Lewis Rice received tax breaks to move about one block. I like that forgivable loan if they stay downtown for 5 years: that's a bribe, errr, I mean a gift.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by Brickmama

There is more to a neighborhood than safety. If someone can live in a walkable interesting neighborhood that may not be as safe as Ballwin, but still feel relatively comfortable with the prospect of the neighborhood improving, people will live there over places like Ballwin.

Some people will, some people won't. Some people prefer suburban areas, some don't. While Ballwin isn't necessarily my preferred cup of tea either, you drive back in most of those subdivisions off of Manchester and you are going to see, what exactly - life. Family life - kids riding bikes, backyard barbeques, some really nice parks full of people, baseball, swim meets, block parties, pool parties, etc. It may not be as diverse as you might prefer and it may not be walkable in the sense that there is a bar or coffee shop on every corner - but it is still full of life. Maybe not your ideal - but perhaps it's pretty close for a lot of others. And yeah - safety and decent schools still mean a lot to people - people with kids.

According to the census data, including the most recent estimates, we still aren't seeing a massive inflow of people leaving the suburbs for the city.

I keep hearing about this, but we aren't seeing it yet. Will we ever?

Is safety everything - probably not, but if you have kids, it's pretty damn high on the list, at least for most people, hand in hand with schools.

[Dawn10am]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

Good thing the city of St Louis is above this kind of thing:

St. Louis opens checkbook to keep employers downtown : Business

Lewis Rice received tax breaks to move about one block. I like that forgivable loan if they stay downtown for 5 years: that's a bribe, errr, I mean a gift.

I think the City doing this is slightly different from suburb poaching from suburb. Downtown is the traditional centerpoint and anchor of this metropolitan area and it needs to be strong for that reason. Downtown is on a different footing from the suburbs stealing Wal-Marts from each other. It's sad that the City has to bribe companies to stay downtown, but it's even more sad that so many companies have wantonly abandoned it.

[orangefuscia]

Originally Posted by Brickmama

There is more to a neighborhood than safety. If someone can live in a walkable interesting neighborhood that may not be as safe as Ballwin, but still feel relatively comfortable with the prospect of the neighborhood improving, people will live there over places like Ballwin.

Oh I completely agree, I was just referring to the original post. "Scores of African-Americans moving in from the hood. City going down the crappers." I wasn't looking to defend Ballwin's hipness. I guess the thread got away from that.

[mjtinmemphis]

Originally Posted by orangefuscia

Oh I completely agree, I was just referring to the original post. "Scores of African-Americans moving in from the hood. City going down the crappers." I wasn't looking to defend Ballwin's hipness. I guess the thread got away from that.

Ballwin is a magnet for African Americans? My have things changed.

I'm an African American who would never consider Ballwin. We do have some friends of our family who live in Ballwin are African American but their incomes are much higher than the average income for the area. They don't commit crimes and don't represent the age, income and education level of African Americans or White Americans who commit crime. Their White American neighbors over all have been very friendly towards them and they've been happy for the past 15 years with the area.

[flynavyj]

Originally Posted by ll0OoO0ll

So I logged in after a couple of months and reading that Crestwood Mall took a nose dive. Jamestown Mall seems to be the next in line as Macy's is shutting down it's doors. Northwest Plaza already went to crappers.

What the heck is going on?

Been around St. Louis for the last 15 years? All of this could have been predicted years ago, and was occurring in some shape or form for more than 10 years.