Why has St. Louis become the most dangerous city in the USA? - VisualPolitik EN 

I grew up there and we pronounce it like "Lewis"

This video failed to mention that in the mid 1900s development in St. Louis reached its 61 square miles city limit (a size which is small by American standards) and could no longer annex land. Development continued into the neighboring county, which now has a million person population. Missouri's other large city, Kansas City, has an area of 319 square miles. St. Louis city is only a small part of it 2.8 million person metropolitan area.

And 117 years back , this city hosted the 3rd Olympics. Damn !!

It is not a 6 year trend ?!?! I'm 47 and St. Luis has had similar problems to Baltimore and Detroit and Cleveland where this trend has been firmly in place for at least 50 years.

I think you should also mention this. St. Louis City removed itself from the larger St. Louis county which has one million residents. St. Louis city now covers just 64 square miles, where the St Louis county is 3x larger. SO, statistically the crime rates cover only the 64 square miles of st. Louis city. Imagine if you cut out the downtown only area of most U.S cities...the crime rate would be much higher. If you look at the St. Louis metro area the crime rate is much more like other cities in the U.S.

oh look another researcher that failed to notice how the divorce of St. Louis and St. Louis County effects the statistics.

The vast majority of the crime happens in North St. Louis City. East St. Louis is very dangerous, but East St. Louis and St. Louis Missouri are two different cities. Downtown St. Louis is dangerous at night. The main way to keep yourself safe in St. Louis is to not get involved with gang activities and to be aware of your surroundings.

Lived in the suburbs 91-04. The city can’t annex land so it’s size has been fixed for 100 years. The city itself is 66sq miles. 1/5 size of Memphis and 1/2 Little Rock. Everyone who can move to the suburbs left. That’s why it has so much crime.

Not mentioned in this video: McDonnell Douglas (Headquarter: St. Louis, Missouri) was an important aircraft manufacturer who produced an impressive range of civil aircraft (like the famous DC3 and DC10/MD11 among others) alongside important military aircraft (F4, F15 and many others). Since 1997 McDonnell Douglas is part of Boeing, headquartered in Seattle.

I wanna hear this info as a local of st Louis but if you keep pronouncing the city wrong or say “wait wait” “hold up let’s go back” or make that record scratch/rewind sound one more time I’m gonna lose my damn mind.

The way he says st. louis pains me

The city population within the city limits has shrunk because of the white flight to the suburbs. Because of the highways being built in the 1950s people with money left the city. St Louis County has 2 mil plus people and growing.

Wow we made VisualPolitik? I don't know whether to be embarrassed or flattered....

But what about East St Louis? You know the city's run down slum across the Mississippi in Illinois?

Like the others said, you have to acknowledge the move from St. Louis city to St. Louis County. If both populations were one, it would be one of the largest cities in the country and wouldn't be one of the most dangerous cities. That has to be acknowledged when telling this story.

Living here in St Louis all my life, I can tell you that you're missing an important distinction with St Louis and its population. We are one of the only cities that does not include the outer population of the metro area and it's numbers. Unlike your typical City, St Louis is completely separated from St Louis County and both of them have completely different governments, police forces, and Reporting. Within the city limits St.Louis the population is 315,000 or so. In the surrounding metro area St Louis County the population is between 2 to 3 million. Most major cities would include these numbers before whatever reason st-louis is separate. This makes people think our city is a lot smaller population wise and actually is when really the number is vastly larger then what the numbers that are reported show

The movie ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was filmed in St. Louis.

St. Louis: I'm the most dangerous city! Baltimore: *laughs in hood*

Haha I work in North St. Louis. The other day I watched a lady steal bricks right from the sidewalk just outside my security fenced parking lot.

Im sure that the fact that the City is separate from the county really scews up these stats

Please, please do not ever call it “St Louey” again.

Can’t say I’ve heard of Saint Louie

I live in St. Louis, and some of those buildings that are shown as being dilapidated or run down are actually fully restored and have tourist sites/businesses in them now. I'd say the city is on the up..... especially since that's really the only direction we can go I guess

I find it interesting that the so called American "Rust Belt" with cities in decline pretty much surrounds the thriving heart of Canada, Southern Ontario. The cities there, not just Toronto, but Hamilton Kitchener-Waterloo, London and man more have been in continuous growth and expansion since the end of WWII. While there is crime, there is no where near the amount of crime and violence there is in the U.S. with a similar culture.

Video chooses to skip over the race issue. However without understanding the race issues over the last 50+ years and dealing with that, the city will never be able to move forward and return to greatness

How have cities through history recovered from such decline and how long and what did it take?

Great video :)

"The Broken Heart of America" by Walter Johnson is a very good book on this subject. I am born, raised, and live in the Metro East (Illinois side suburbs).

St Louis has many suburbs. If you look at the MSA I don't think the population has shrunk anything near the numbers put out here. It may even have some growth, but clearly Chicago is the winner here.

Could you please make a video about Different types of health care system accross the world?? There pros and cons??

The city is crime ridden but the county (west county and south county) are nice places to live. companies and people moved out of the city a long time ago. When you compare cities ie St Louis to Chicago you have to make sure you are comparing city vs city and not city vs city including the counties.

Hearing the name mispronounced every few seconds is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Why not spend a moment addressing why the pronunciation is different than in French?

Request fewer commercials. Eight minutes in and have learned essentially one thing.

As a Someone from Kansas City.. St. Louis is seriously one of the worst cities… it’s gone hill so bad.. it’s sad

Nice video, a lot of stuff about my city I didn’t even know. Thank you.

Thanks for highlighting my home town region

It's not St Louie, it's St Louis.

I think another factor in the population drop is that a lot of people in the next gen of citizens ( myself included) got the eff out of there . You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve gone to a new city in America and I run into like 5 other people from St. Louis .

Amazing!!!🌹🌹🌹

You picked very good drone shots of down town at the beginning of the video too! Love that downtown is very very nice.

My home and where I at now lol

Lived in downtown for 8 years, moved cause of the crime.

I went to school for about 3 years there and I loved it with all the negative and positive....you just needs to figure out where you going and what you are doing and you should be fine!

If here were not for the Arch and two pro sport teams there would be no reason to go downtown. We actually chose to no longer attend any games at either stadium because we no longer felt safe getting back to our vehicle.

It's weird watching this in downtown St. Louis. It really is a great city ignoring statistics. Also we have an amazing flag.

What part of Argentina is St Louis?

Must have been hell getting a drink in a saloon in the 1870s with a population of 300k !!!

Nice video, cool graphics! I am hoping to improve graphics on my own channel! Cheers

It’s as if there’s a common demographic factor shared all these once great industrial cities now in decline. I wonder what that could be.

I grew up around Boston. In the late 1970's, I visited St. Louis for a job interview. As was the custom, the employer (a big chemical company) assigned a junior guy to drive me around the area and show me the sights and the neighborhoods where I might find an apartment. What sticks in my mind was that, in casual conversation, he asked me what denomination I was. Even in the 70's, for someone from Boston, that was a bit jarring since the question contained the assumption that I must be Protestant and that I could not be an atheist, a Jew, or even a Catholic. I don't believe the question indicated any prejudice on his part... It was more an indication of the how uncosmopolitan the area was compared with the East or West coasts.

I'm from Missouri and the city is pronounced St. "Lewis". 🤦 Also, the reason it's so dangerous is because of the influx of opioids (specifically Fentanyl) being shipped in from China through South America.

It really is a tale of two cities. I'm a Southside city boy now living in a yuppie party of the city called Soulard. A large majority of this violence happens in north city. But it was interesting hearing about the poor decisions in regards to railroads.

Lol that thumbnail

If you’re ever in St. Louis, do not cross the river into East St. Louis or you’re gonna have a bad time.

I lived in the city for 12 years. Went to UMSL and bought a home in south city. It was mostly safe on the south side back in the 70s. Had an occasion to visit the city last June. It is truly a dangerous place now.

Isn’t the rapper “ nelly” (along with his posse, the St. .Lunatics) from St. Louis ? I wonder if he still lives there??

Great chess city.

America is truly a country of extremes. You have obscene wealth and violence. I read some of the crimes that get committed there and I'm literally left speechless. We do have crimes here in UK but the degree of violence is no where near like America. A girl was missing a few months ago and the whole nation was notified. I imagine this is an everyday occurrence in American.

He did not do enough research at all, the only reason St. Louis looks so bad is because the county and the city are not one big city like any other city, also the main reason St. Louis has had a population decline wad because everyone is moving to the county, instead of the city, he should really try to research a little more

Hey mate, the "S" in St. Louis isn't silent.

It’s not that bad

There are places in London that this exact same thing is happening. I just can't quite work out what the common factor is.

please share your sources for crime rate statistics. I'm not saying your wrong but 1 in 51 people being the victim of violent crime sounds absolutely insane.

Either u love my city #STL or u hate it don't care don't come here .... we st.lousian love it here .

This is a good VDO. Yet, I think there should be a distinction between (west) St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois. The VDO mainly covers the decline of the west and its crime, but I am not sure whether the crime statistics you got include the east or not. You did not mention anything about that city, so I am quite curious.

4:09 I love how they always put a reference of argentine economy on their videos, even when the whole video is about some place else. Greetings from Argentina, where progress goes backwards.🇦🇷🇦🇷

8:22 you completely overlook the Eads Bridge. Why is that important? Because Chicago didn't want St Louis to have railroads coming right into the heart of the city, and guess what, they have to cross the Mississippi River to go into the heart of St Louis. So, they got steamboats to require the arches span to be widened, believing it wouldn't happen, but Eads found a way around it, and St Louis got the railroad into the heart of the city.

You missed out on interesting trivia that 3rd ever modern Summer Olympics were held in this city.

I loved st.louis as a kiddo. But it's gotten so bad in just 15 years and we avoid it like the plague.

There is a giant elephant in the room that this video does not address. Yeah, bad luck.

STL (where I live) the north side is where the only problems are. I live in the south and everyone here probably in their whole life has never experienced any crazy crime. The north and east STL are where the problems happen. South STL in thriving. Also, STL is losing people because more than 70% of the population is local. Many people don't come here and live, but many people come here for college.

The word trend does not mean (prevailing conditions). The word trend implies the DIRECTION of a phenomenon over time not simply the state of a phenomenon here and now ( i.e. change in rate decrease or increase in rate).

Chicago metro area population is shrinking whereas St. Louis metro area is slightly growing

Democrat run cities... Chicago massive pension timebomb

Autos were only part of the employment base. Shoe manufacturing, chemicals, beer, aerospace, advertising, and financial services were also big...and still are except for shoes and clothing. There are a lot of tech, bioscience, and healthcare jobs here....and some of the best universities. We have problems (what city doesnt) but things are improving for sure. I bought a beautiful 6 bedroom historic house for 140k 3 yrs ago. My street and neighborhood is full of rehabs now...

Will the next video also be about the USA?

It pains me to correct a Brit on the correct pronunciation of the English language but for the good of the world - I must. It's St. LOO-IS not LOO-WEE. We're not French, my dear former colonial master.

Saint Lou-ie with the hard "t" and silent "s". This is like a St. Louisan pronouncing Edinburgh on first sight. Maybe it's revenge. Lol

Gary, Indiana?

Visualpolitik ❤️ China

Visual Politik: sAiNt LeWeY Me: Cringe

Sadly this is the norm many places in US they are just hollowed out now.

From St. Louis here. Perhaps this is how rivalry between Chicago and St. Louis began????

Because of all the green people!

I’ll give you a one word explanation as to why St. Louis, and pretty much every other old industrial center, faces the same problems with crime, etc: demographics. That’s literally it.

"Why has St. Louis become the most dangerous city in the USA?" well...

It's only statistically dangerous because it uses per capita, instead of the entire metro region. We're the 20th largest region, but like the 300th largest city, or something like that since most live outside St Louis city.

I grew up on the south side and East side

I believe they pronounce the S. Am I wrong? I grew up hearing St. "Lewis"

i drove through St. louis once. Couldnt leave fast enough

What about San Juan?

The crime in the city--when it is considered per capita--is the damning element in the analysis, and really the only way to bring context to St. Louis city crime. Violent crime in the city is over 1000% higher than the national average. That St. Louis County is very safe doesn't negate the crime nearby in the city itself. People have decided to stop riding the Metrolink downtown, even when this takes them to the ever-popular St. Louis Cardinals baseball games. St. Louis City is a war zone. And areas directly sharing borders with the city are increasingly in peril. Clayton, Missouri serves as a good example. Because of travel on the urban train system which effectively brings the ghetto to the county, Clayton is losing its luster. It is the affluent county seat of St. Louis County but nearby malls and theatres are places where many from the county will no longer frequent, and proximity to the city border isn't helping this. People are terrified of talking about the crime problem is the city because it is largely black-on-black. Read Heather McDonald's book "The War On Cops." Though it is written about another city, its premises are eternal and its statistical analysis doesn't lie. It suggests, powerfully, that there is no such thing as a safe urban environment in the United States. St. Louis is certainly unsafe.

Is there anything in common to the population all the cities highest in crime in the US??? Can’t seem to put my finger on it 🤔🤔

To give you some perpective..the actual CITY of STL (which reflects the stats u are using) is only 10% of the metro area. I live in the 10% area and the city has problems for sure, but stats for the metro area are good.

It’s such a shame. There is so much space that could be utilized down there.

St. Louis city has 300000 residents, but the metro area is 2.8 million, so if you were to look at the whole metro, the crime rate is much lower. Not that St. Louis has not historically been horribly managed and was corrupt which prevented the proper development and growth. However, Chicago is really in a better economic position still.

Interesting Facts about St Louis City: St Louis City or (Saint Louis) Separated from St Louis County in 1876-1877 known as the "Great Divorce" the City of St Louis people were unhappy with the St Louis County government about the County Taxes and and the City people don't feel like paying the County Taxes, The City people decided that they wanted to carve the City away from the County and now the city of St Louis can't expand any farther ever since the "Great Divorce" City of St Louis had gone down hill

Facinating topic but your ADD-style lack of focus undermines your presentation. REALLY difficult to watch.

He get to the point at @5:42

I was there, in 1999 for a corporate conference. I stayed at the Drury Plaza Hotel, overlooking the mighty Gateway Arch. I attended the conference and couldn’t attend the Cardinals baseball game in Busch Stadium. I could not wait to leave. For four days, I was in total fear.