By Elizabeth Hise
Special to the FOCUS Blog
In the past few years, St. Louis has received a few… auspicious… titles. In 2006, it was dubbed the most dangerous city in the United States, a title it received from Morgan Quitno Press, a private research and publishing company specializing in state and city reference books. Then, in 2007, we all breathed a sigh of relief when Detroit beat out St. Louis for the number one most dangerous spot. Although, since 2000, our city has also been living with the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that it has the highest rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia in the country.
Awesome.
At first, I reacted to these titles with anger, especially the “most dangerous city” ranking. The stats can’t possibly be right. The standards must be skewed. St. Louis is an amazing city, not a dangerous one. And I wasn’t the only one with a strong opinion on the topic. Other citizens, news media, legislators and the blogosphere all reacted, some in agreement, some with disbelief, some questioning the methods used to rank cities across the country.
After the initial reaction died down, however, I began to think about the issues at hand. Sure, maybe the rankings are a little skewed. But we’ve received top billing on both counts - there’s obviously something here that warrants such high rankings. Just because I, in my safe little bubble, don’t see violence and crime on a day-to-day basis, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Some parts of St. Louis are safe; others are very dangerous. As Jeanette mentioned in Safety and the City, often, we learn to tune out the sirens and the blaring horns. We’ve worked so hard for so long to make St. Louis a better place to live that sometimes, we’re blind to its flaws.
St. Louis has made great strides over the past few years. Shops, restaurants and businesses are popping up around the city. Once-neglected neighborhoods have received some much-needed TLC. But in spite of this, we have much room to grow.
This city is a great one, regardless of our rankings. How can we take them – skewed or not – and use this knowledge to make St. Louis even better?