Rave: St. Louis

[docellis]

And I think we just had an earthquake.

are you joking?

[Tambourine Man]

And I think we just had an earthquake.

are you joking?

Not at all. And I'm sober.

[sighyoung]

And I think we just had an earthquake.

are you joking?

Not at all. And I'm sober.

It was centered in Oklahoma, evidently. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45173167/ns/us_news-life/

[docellis]

I miss it. So badly.

In STL: costs for things are reasonable, there's no traffic, there's no constant traffic noise while trying to sleep, there's no ridiculous sales tax, there's no overcrowding on public transit, there's actual job openings, there's less homeless people, there's naturally growing trees, flora and fauna instead of just planned parks, there's significantly less people.

I miss it. I despise living where I do right now, it's depressing me. And I can't wait to get out in a few months.

I can understand all this. Nevertheless, based on my shuttling between my mother's house and Barnes Hospital, I will say that where she lives is dangerous, violent, and depressing. The person who cut my mother's lawn up until a year ago, for instance, was an addict who screamed at her on the front porch when my mother had hired someone else. While trying to help after my father died, I found doing basic things were incredibly difficult--like finding like a photocopier or ATM within a ten-minute drive of the house.

All cities have racial tensions, but I learned about them in St. Louis, so I (probably unfairly) associate the city with them, as well, and for that reason, too, I like to visit, but don't really consider it home anymore.

When I lived in South Carolina and they talked about racial tension I always threw this out there....despite the confederate flag being flown atop the state house in SC and despite the civil war seeming to be much more recent in SC, there was far less racism in SC than in STL.
I know this has been said, but we are so segregated in St. Louis. Races don't interact the way they do in the south (to my experience) and neighborhoods in the southern area I lived were not separated so distinctly by both race and wealth (or lack there of).

That said, I think most of St. Louis city is awesome. I hate the car theft/vandalism etc. But I wonder, sigh, if it wouldn't be worth it to move mom a few blocks away from where she lives.

[jim]

The fact that st Louis has earthquakes makes it even cooler.

[jim]

And I think we just had an earthquake.

are you joking?

Not at all. And I'm sober.

Why are you sober?

[sighyoung]

That said, I think most of St. Louis city is awesome. I hate the car theft/vandalism etc. But I wonder, sigh, if it wouldn't be worth it to move mom a few blocks away from where she lives.

She's at the age where she either needs round-the-clock care in her house, or needs to move to assisted living. I'd prefer that she move to Louisville so I could keep an eye out for her.

But she lives in a wonderful home. The whole block is full of these great, small 1930's cottages. Wonderful houses. If she could manage it, I'd love for her to stay. Frankly, she's as likely to kill herself standing up as die at the hands of anyone in her neighborhood.

[Freed Roger]

I do like Chicago and enjoy visits there, don't get me wrong - and the comparison is apples to oranges in some regards, small sample size and generalizing etc here:

But what the hell -nothing like a trip to Chicago to make me appreciate St. Louis all the more. Convenience/access, cost, size, no [expletive] tollways, beer offerings. My wife notes a colder materialistic "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality in Chicago -which I've sensed as well. My view was even more soured by participating in the lamest 5K event ever (wtf - a run/walk advertised as through a forest preserve equals thousands of people jammed on a gritty bikepath hard by a raging highway)

The baseball team here of course - I think better baseball franchise means better people, generally those two go hand-in-hand.

blanket provincial assessment over (I hear the same sort of narrow-view analysis of STL by my small town friends).

[IMADreamer]

I've always enjoyed visiting St. Louis but I did not enjoy living there. That's nothing against St. Louis though as I'm just not a big city person and to be fair I HATED living in Chicago.

As for the racial tension thing it's pretty thick in St. Louis. I'm a farm boy and there are zero non white people in the entire county I live in, so needless to say until college I had little interaction with people from other races. The great thing is college did a great job of erasing any stereotypes or prejudices I had. However living in St. Louis basically made me understand how those stereotypes began. I'm sure that makes me awful but there are only so many times you can be called "cracker" by some unemployed drug selling douchebag while trying to shop at the mall before you start thinking really bad thoughts about people and that has only happened to me in St. Louis.

[Tambourine Man]

heyzeus doesn't live here anymore, so the # of cracker incidences at area shopping malls has decreased to the point of non-existence.