Saint Louis, Missouri Crime: Why Does it Persist
Saint Louis, Missouri is experiencing a massive amount of crime, but this is nowhere close to being a recent development. Over the last several decades, it has remained one of the most dangerous, crime-ridden cities in the continental United States. While known factors are causing this like redlining, segregation, police violence, and equity of treatment toward minority groups in the area, plenty of these components are out of the hands of the citizens being most impacted. Communities are struggling and the local government refuses to address the issue, in turn, making the problem worse.
One of the main contributing factors to crime rates in Saint Louis is the extensive history of redlining and
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This only causes the crime rates to rise. The statistics for why Saint Louis has such high crime rates are heavily affected by the low population, it is based per capita. “No city which achieved the scale of a half million residents has lost a larger percentage of its population in peacetime than St. Louis. To some extent, this is a remarkable old problem for a city that was once the largest in the Midwest but was passed in 1880 by Chicago” (Cox). Additionally, there is a problem with housing quality that is leading households to leave Saint Louis City and into Saint Louis County, “Exurbanization is to older suburbs what suburbanization was to central cities; it siphons off housing demand, leaving behind more obsolete housing for households further down the economic ladder. The problem has not just been that more affluent families were moving out to distant suburbs but that housing production has far outstripped household formation decade after decade— especially in weak market metros like St. Louis.” (Swanstrom, 106). As a former resident of Saint Louis City, driving around, it is abundantly clear and saddening to pass abandoned buildings and homes. But not only are the abandoned buildings falling apart, but those being lived in are also as well. This brings down housing prices further, making it hard for people to sell their homes and escape. The crash in public funding impacts …show more content…
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