St. Louis, Missouri Part 2/2

St. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is located near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while its bi-state metropolitan area, which extends into Illinois, had an estimated population of over 2.8 million. It is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri and the second largest in Illinois. The city's combined statistical area (CSA) is the 20th largest in the United States.

In the 21st century, the city of St. Louis contains 11% of the total metropolitan population. (The top 20 U.S. metro areas have an average of 24% of their populations in their central cities). St. Louis grew slightly during the early 2000s, but lost population from 2000 to 2010. Immigration has continued, with the city attracting Vietnamese, Latin Americans predominantly from Mexico, and Bosnians, who make up the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The city is divided into 79 government-designated neighborhoods. The neighborhood divisions have no legal standing, although some neighborhood associations administer grants or hold veto power over historic-district development.

Several neighborhoods are lumped together in categories such as "North City", "South City", and "The Central West End"

Since 2014 the city of St. Louis has had, as of April 2017, one of the highest murder rates, per capita, in the United States, with 188 homicides in 2015 (59.3 homicides per 100,000) and ranks No. 13 of the most dangerous cities in the world by homicide rate. Detroit, Flint, Memphis, Birmingham, and Baltimore have higher overall violent crime rates than St. Louis, when comparing other crimes such as rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Despite these high crime rates relative to other American cities, St. Louis index crime rates have declined almost every year since the peak in 1993 (16,648), to the 2014 level of 7,931 (which is the sum of violent crimes and property crimes) per 100,000. In 2015, the index crime rate reversed the 2005–2014 decline to a level of 8,204. Between 2005 and 2014, violent crime has declined by 20%, although rates of violent crime remains 6 times higher than the United States national average and property crime in the city remains 2 1⁄2 times the national average. St. Louis has a higher homicide rate than the rest of the U.S. for both whites and blacks and a higher proportion committed by males. As of October 2016, 7 of the homicide suspects were white, 95 black, 0 Hispanic, 0 Asian and 1 female out of the 102 suspects. In 2016, St. Louis was the most dangerous city in the United States with populations of 100,000 or more, ranking 1st in violent crime and 2nd in property crime. It was also ranked 6th of the most dangerous of all establishments in the United States, and East St. Louis, a suburb of the city itself, was ranked 1st. The St. Louis Police Department at the end of 2016 reported a total of 188 murders for the year, the same number of homicides that had occurred in the city in 2015. According to the STLP At the end of 2017, St. Louis had 205 murders but the city recorded only 159 inside St. Louis city limits. The new Chief of Police, John Hayden said two-thirds (67%) of all the murders and one-half of all the assaults are concentrated in a triangular area in the North part of the city.

Yet another factor when comparing the murder rates of St. Louis and other cities is the manner of drawing municipal boundaries. While many other municipalities have annexed many suburbs, St. Louis has not annexed as much suburban area as most American cities. According to a 2018 estimate, the St. Louis metro area included about 3 million residents and the city included about 300,000 residents. Therefore, the city contains about ten percent of the metro population, a low ratio indicating that the municipal boundaries include only a small part of the metro population.