OT: Finally Some Good STL News

[cgeldmacher]

I was reading an article about a study that was done that ranked the top 25 US cities for jobs.  I usually don't expect St. Louis to be on these lists if they don't involve crime statistics.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  The study measured the "top cities in the U.S. for finding a job, feeling good after you get it, and being able to enjoy an affordable quality of life."

5.  St. Louis

• Glassdoor City Score: 4.4
• Job Openings: 104,725
• Median Base Salary: $45,600
• Job Satisfaction Rating: 3.4
• Median Home Value: $148,600
• Hot Jobs: Electrical Engineer, Communications Manager, Recruiter

[JMM28]

St. Louis is a really good area. Sometimes living in a place magnifies the bad aspects. I think the metro area has a chance to really do some great things in the near future. 

[615Billiken]

The main thing that attracted me to St. Louis for graduate school was the city's raw potential for growth. Close to other major and mid sized cities. Cheap. infrastructure for transportation. (people on the metro all the time, but I've lived in Nashville and Denver and compared to their transit, the metro link is awesome.

 

My bets are on St. Louis becoming the next 'It' city. I saw first hand the boom in Nashville. No one in the city expected it. I'm seeing the same signs that I saw in Nashville here in St. Louis. 

 

Buy property before the carpetbaggers arrive!

[DeSmetBilliken]

1 hour ago, 615Billiken said:

I've lived in Nashville and Denver and compared to their transit, the metro link is awesome.

Im glad you like it, but my big takeaway from this statement is that Denver and Nashville must have atrocious public transit systems.

[billiken_roy]

when metro link first was put in i agree i thought it was great.   now i no longer feel safe riding it and will spend the extra bucks to drive to downtown or the airport and pay the parking when before i was more than willing to get on metro link.   

[615Billiken]

41 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Im glad you like it, but my big takeaway from this statement is that Denver and Nashville must have atrocious public transit systems.

Nashville absolutely. Denver is actually considered to be relatively good, but I still believe STL's is better.

 

I'm not saying St. Louis is the greatest city with all of the amenities. It's not. I think my generation (22-30 year olds) is tired of expensive cities like San Francisco, Chicago, NY and are looking to affordable mid sized cities. Now people will still be going to those large cities, but I think there is an uptick of migration to cities like Memphis, St. Louis, etc.

 

just watch.

[Box and Won]

STL punches above its weight in a number of areas.  Hopefully that, combined with a very low cost of living, will prove beneficial.  

[Band Legend]

If you were at the free stl symphony concert at one of the most beautiful park settings in America last night you would be bullish on St. Louis.  It's not always just about sports.

[hsmith19]

2 hours ago, 615Billiken said:

Nashville absolutely. Denver is actually considered to be relatively good, but I still believe STL's is better.

 

I'm not saying St. Louis is the greatest city with all of the amenities. It's not. I think my generation (22-30 year olds) is tired of expensive cities like San Francisco, Chicago, NY and are looking to affordable mid sized cities. Now people will still be going to those large cities, but I think there is an uptick of migration to cities like Memphis, St. Louis, etc.

 

just watch.

The bus system here is actually pretty great. It's better than the vast majority of cities' and one of the best kept secrets in town, just because many people never think of using it.

[Quality Is Job 1]

7 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

The bus system here is actually pretty great. It's better than the vast majority of cities' and one of the best kept secrets in town, just because many people never think of using it.

As someone who's used the bus system a lot, I must disagree, vehemently.  No, Bi-State's MetroBus service is not any better than almost adequate, and it is inferior to that of any other metropolitan area I've visited.  Unlike many other metro areas, St. Louis is one where it's almost a necessity to have a car, because public transportation leaves too many gaps.

[Slu let the dogs out?]

2 hours ago, Band Legend said:

If you were at the free stl symphony concert at one of the most beautiful park settings in America last night you would be bullish on St. Louis.  It's not always just about sports.

Took me an hour to find a parking spot for the free SLSO concert in Forest Park. The set up on Art Hill with all of the people, well-lit trees, symphony stage, and lake was a thing of beauty. Couldn't believe I was in St. Louis last night.

It's not just that St. Louis has so many cultural amenities and events such as last night but rather that so many of them are free! That's rare.

 

I think you get a free corn dog at the Columbia, MO BP station with the purchase of 10 gallons of gas. Guess we can't overlook that...

[Slu let the dogs out?]

1 hour ago, hsmith19 said:

The bus system here is actually pretty great. It's better than the vast majority of cities' and one of the best kept secrets in town, just because many people never think of using it.

There's a rather large stigma about riding the bus in STL. Perhaps some of that has subsided the past decade or so with metro link and its expansion (i.e. if metro link isn't bad, maybe the bus isn't either) but I know most of my friends wouldn't be caught dead on a metro bus. I think this speaks to a much larger problem St. Louis has and will continue to have in the future.

[3star_recruit]

Large midwestern cities in general have become a safe haven for millenials. The big cities on the left and right coasts don't offer a path to the middle class for average people. If you're not a high achiever or a workaholic, you're going to struggle.

[615Billiken]

57 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Large midwestern cities in general have become a safe haven for millenials. The big cities on the left and right coasts don't offer a path to the middle class for average people. If you're not a high achiever or a workaholic, you're going to struggle.

Very good point. I had not thought about it in those terms before. 

I also think that even some high achievers (Wash U types) see so much opportunity in the abyss that has become St. Louis. They see it as a canvas where they can create and implement their own vision. 

 

[RiseAndGrind]

The city is not without its challenges but I really think it's on the cusp of something great 

[Slu let the dogs out?]

24 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Large midwestern cities in general have become a safe haven for millenials. The big cities on the left and right coasts don't offer a path to the middle class for average people. If you're not a high achiever or a workaholic, you're going to struggle.

https://www.stlmag.com/news/st-louis-millennials-brain-belt-study-pew-inhen/

[Quality Is Job 1]

27 minutes ago, 615Billiken said:

Very good point. I had not thought about it in those terms before. 

I also think that even some high achievers (Wash U types) see so much opportunity in the abyss that has become St. Louis. They see it as a canvass where they can create and implement their own vision. 

 

I know many people hate tidbits on spelling and grammar, but I'd like to point out for those who might be interested that the spelling "canvass" means to go through in search of support (i.e., it's a verb).  The spelling "canvas" is a type of material, often used for painting (i.e., it's a noun).

[615Billiken]

19 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

I know many people hate tidbits on spelling and grammar, but I'd like to point out for those who might be interested that the spelling "canvass" means to go through in search of support (i.e., it's a verb).  The spelling "canvas" is a type of material, often used for painting (i.e., it's a noun).

It is evident that my SLU education has failed me thus far. I have edited my post to reflect the new knowledge that has been imparted upon me.

[hsmith19]

3 hours ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

As someone who's used the bus system a lot, I must disagree, vehemently.  No, Bi-State's MetroBus service is not any better than almost adequate, and it is inferior to that of any other metropolitan area I've visited.  Unlike many other metro areas, St. Louis is one where it's almost a necessity to have a car, because public transportation leaves too many gaps.

What metro areas have you visited, and what kind of service issues are you talking? Statistically, it is one of the best in the country at coverage, which is especially remarkable considering it covers two states and crosses numerous political borders. Most of St. Louis' problems in terms of public transit go back to a lack of density outside the urban core, which is true of most spread out metros. We're just not dense enough to support the metro systems in Chicago, New York, or DC.

[hsmith19]

1 hour ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

There's a rather large stigma about riding the bus in STL. Perhaps some of that has subsided the past decade or so with metro link and its expansion (i.e. if metro link isn't bad, maybe the bus isn't either) but I know most of my friends wouldn't be caught dead on a metro bus. I think this speaks to a much larger problem St. Louis has and will continue to have in the future.

Exactly. Thicks' opinion aside, I have found that once people try it (particularly younger folks) they are surprised by how good it is. Often a better option all around than the Metrolink.

[bonwich]

1 hour ago, 3star_recruit said:

Large midwestern cities in general have become a safe haven for millenials. The big cities on the left and right coasts don't offer a path to the middle class for average people. If you're not a high achiever or a workaholic, you're going to struggle.

I hear this expressed a lot, and as a late Boomer I'm finally going to weigh in and say that nothing has changed all that much in 40 years.

My senior year ('77-'78), a friend and I went out to see Stanford, he for the Ph.D. program in physics and me for the program in economics, and of course to eat and visit wineries.  We stayed with his cousin's family in a three-bedroom ranch home in a nice middle-class neighborhood somewhere between SF proper and what's now Silicon Valley. That house cost more than twice as much as my parents' all-brick two-story four-bedroom (with a garage, no less!) house in U. City. 

LA wasn't quite as bad, but its rents, for example, were still a reasonably high multiple of St. Louis'. A friend of mine (this is early '80s now) went from living alone in refurbished one-bedroom up high in the Parc Frontenac to a fairly dumpy two-bedroom in North Hollywood that he shared with two other guys and still paid higher rent than when he was by himself in STL. 

As far as city turnarounds, the CWE pretty rapidly went from rooming houses on the blocks up above Balaban's and elements of bombed-outedness between SLU and Euclid to a really vibrant rehab community. You know what it's evolved into today. Kids like me took fabulous, shabby-chic seven-room apartments for less than our less adventurous peers were paying for the soul-sucking apartment hells off of Page and Olive west of 270.

I think you get the picture. 

I had one opportunity to take a job in NYC, about which my father, who grew up there, screamed long and hard about filth and crime and traffic and general lack of decent living conditions combined with being expensive. I turned it down. I had another job offer in Chicago that would have crimped my ability to eat at nice restaurants, but in that case I've regretted to this day not taking it. 

What did happen, however, was that I was able to rise quickly in the local creative community and then take a marketing job at a software company with worldwide reach that eventually went public. (One of the big problems with STL, which it still hasn't fully resolved, was that companies like mine flew way under the radar, in large part because that radar only picked up very large objects like Monsanto, Famous-Barr, Sigma, etc.)

Long story, short conclusion: Aside from continual deterioration of the poorer parts of the City proper and continual shifts of the population center west, not a whole lot has changed between when I was a "kid" and when Millennials are "kids," at least in terms of STL revival and opportunities. 

[hsmith19]

12 minutes ago, bonwich said:

Long story, short conclusion: Aside from continual deterioration of the poorer parts of the City proper and continual shifts of the population center west, not a whole lot has changed between when I was a "kid" and when Millennials are "kids," at least in terms of STL revival and opportunities. 

I'm not nearly as old as you, but I can think of a lot of neighborhoods besides the CWE that have changed dramatically in just a couple decades. Started with Soulard and Lafayette Square when I was a kid, and then moved southward from TGS/South Grand to BPW/Cherokee. Even the parts of South City that are still considered "bad" (ie, Broadway south of Bellerive and Grand south of Delor) are not nearly as bombed out as they were in the '90s. Meanwhile, the Northside outside of a couple tiny pockets has just continued to bleed.

[bonwich]

17 minutes ago, hsmith19 said:

I'm not nearly as old as you, but I can think of a lot of neighborhoods besides the CWE that have changed dramatically in just a couple decades. Started with Soulard and Lafayette Square when I was a kid, and then moved southward from TGS/South Grand to BPW/Cherokee. Even the parts of South City that are still considered "bad" (ie, Broadway south of Bellerive and Grand south of Delor) are not nearly as bombed out as they were in the '90s. Meanwhile, the Northside outside of a couple tiny pockets has just continued to bleed.

And I don't know exactly how old you are, but I didn't say that neighborhoods hadn't changed dramatically. The CWE was just an example I was using. 

Soulard is an interesting case study, because I'd argue that, back in ancient times (~1980), Soulard and Hyde Park were on the same trajectory. However, one of them is north of Delmar. Also, Soulard back then still had a reasonable mix of lower middle class and Yuppies, which has since then been tilted heavily toward the middle middle to upper middle class.

Also in the '80s: We used to go frequently to a place we called "All Night Barbecue." I think it was still around through the '90s -- the VFW Post did bbq on weekends late into the night. I'd pretty much argue that the area roughly southwest of Broadway and Gasconade really disintegrated since then. I do think that's an example of a part of South City that went from working class to bad. 

As far as the North Side, I dated a girl in the early '80s who lived just off of the corner of Goodfellow and McLaran, and I had a large number of friends up there at the time. From my perspective, I might replace "bleed" with "hemorrhage." 

BPW/Cherokee? Jefferson Avenue Boarding House. 

Anyway, I'm streaming-of-consciousness, and I hope you now understand that CWE was simply an example, and one that I used because I lived through a lot of that. (I had actually put a deposit down on a place in Soulard prior to moving to the CWE.) But I stand by my conclusion: It ain't a helluva lot different now than it was then. 

 

[almaman]

6 hours ago, Band Legend said:

If you were at the free stl symphony concert at one of the most beautiful park settings in America last night you would be bullish on St. Louis.  It's not always just about sports.

How did that go? I saw them setting up on Tuesday went I went to History Museum for the St Louis panorama display which is really cool. 

[Band Legend]

8 minutes ago, almaman said:

How did that go? I saw them setting up on Tuesday went I went to History Museum for the St Louis panorama display which is really cool. 

You need to take advantage of seeing one of the great symphonies in the country for free.  Obviously the acoustics are not like Powell, and it is largely a pops concert, but it's always well done, the combination of the setting and the weather was beyond picturesque, and the post concert fireworks were great.  We enjoyed it with about 7000 other St. Louisans.  Many folks make a big production of it with fine food and wine.  I highly recommend going, although you might have a half mile or more hike back to your car afterwards.