EAST ST LOUIS: The Most DANGEROUS SUBURB In The United States

St Louis Missouri looks calm and peaceful this morning doesn't it don't be fooled with a murder rate of 68 per 100 000 people St Louis ranks fourth in the country the highest murders and with an overall violent crime rate of 2100 per 100 000 people St Louis ranks number one it is the most violent city in America the most dangerous city in America it's no surprise that the city is losing population people are fleeing to the suburbs because they're safer right not necessarily I'm on the other side of the Mississippi River in Illinois in the notorious town of East St Louis which is right over here what is it like here in this suburb of St Louis well I'm gonna jump into the Bronco drive into town give you the statistics and we're going to find out East St Louis was once a bustling thriving City growing rapidly and in 1950 it reached a population of 82 000 people in 1959 it was called an All-America City and because of its status as a industrial and Manufacturing Powerhouse it was nicknamed the Pittsburgh of the West but then the 60s happened industry manufacturing collapsed people moved out of the city in droves and the population dropped massively with its tax base dropping as well today there are about 18 000 people here a little bit more now when that happened poverty and crime became became a way of life here and for many years East St Louis has been the murder capital of the United States now the city's working on it an initiative that has the police working in the community has dropped the crime a little bit it's worked here's the numbers released by the state of Illinois 36 murders in 2019 25 last year in 2022 the mayor is so proud that he started to Proclaim East St Louis East St Louis should he be doing that well let's look at the numbers now the metric that's usually used is per 100k but there's only eighteen thousand people here so how do we scale it up by the way there's St Louis right there well we just uh divide 100 000 by 18 000 people here and that gives you a number of 5.5 so we multiply 25 homicides by 5.5 and you get 137.5 so that's the uh that's the right here 137.5 per 100K how does that match the most dangerous cities in the United States well here's uh here's the list you got uh Jackson Mississippi for the second year in a row number one with 92 for 100k where does East St Louis last year Stack Up well you can see for yourself number one so perhaps the mayor shouldn't be saying that quite yet anyway there are a lot of historic buildings here so as I enter downtown I'm going to show them to you now before I start exploring downtown let's take a look at the statistics to help paint a picture of the Town see what they tell us the median age here is 43. it's a little bit older that tells you that young people are leaving gender breakdown 57 female 43 male 15 of these females are widowed here's the race breakdown 95 Black 2 percent White one percent Hispanic one percent Asian one percent mixed this is the median household income twenty six thousand dollars a year that's about 500 a week uh that is a third of what the U.S average is I think the national average is around 70 000. poverty is 29 percent children 17 and under 42 percent so that's pretty high and um people 65 and older poverty is 20 percent a number that kind of sticks out 20 of the town is married U.S average is 50 percent so uh people don't get married here one more number the median home value here is 57 800. fifty seven thousand dollars can get you a house here if you want to live in East St Louis anyway time to explore the downtown now there are a lot of beautiful old buildings here that are on the national register they're abandoned of course this is one of them The Majestic Theater built in 1928 when it was built it was one of the grandest in the United States uh but it's set empty for a very very long time I hate to see that that's a damn shame did you look at it all right this is the heart of downtown here you can see that it's pretty much an empty shell they've got a building here called the Spivey building tallest building in town the only skyscraper I'm going to get a little bit closer to it it's right there and I'll tell you about it but anyway yeah this is main intersection in town even one of the bulbs is out in the lights in the traffic lights look down that way um I don't think that is happening anymore there no more live entertainment I would think all right I'm heading down this little side street towards the Spivey building um built in the mid 1920s by the wealthy owner of the local newspaper his name was Spivey his idea was to kick off the saint or east St Louis Downtown make it one of the greatest in the area his commitment to the future if you will it failed though the building was The prominent address in the city for many years but in 1980 The Last Tenant left and this building has been set in here empty for 43 years astonishing they've got the street on either side of it blocked off you can't come in here except for this little side road I just took the reason being um is because the building is literally disintegrating onto the street and it's become dangerous and you can see the debris on the ground here so they don't want people walking around it but this little side road here you can still get in here now I'm not going to go in there guys sorry I came out here yesterday and I saw well I saw some folks walking in there that I wouldn't want to tangle with so I'm not going to go in there but you can get a little bit of a look here isn't that something the problem for the city is that it's it's that too far gone to renovate but they can't afford to tear it down so it just sits here disintegrating into the street [Music] crazy isn't it I see I was just there you can see the roads blocked off and uh yeah pretty much every building here in downtown East St Louis sets empty and of course there's trash everywhere in this building over here in the middle of frame now that sets empty as well it looks like they're attempting to renovate it though there's some work being done but you can see all the glasses out all right well want to look around a little bit more I am driving by the police station I'm going to show you that real quick East St Louis Police Department you know what I don't think that's it that building is sitting empty looks like maybe they have a new building here I hate to see that building setting empty that was Art Deco it was a beauty and it's in its day yeah this is probably the police department here it is there it is okay that looks better doesn't it all right here's another look coming into downtown from a different direction there's the Spivey building they're in the frame the tallest building you can see the road is blocked off keep people from walking by it they still do I was here in the early afternoon yesterday and there there are people there I'm going to uh Drive behind the Spivey building here give you a look that's something isn't it huge building like that just sitting empty for over 40 years it's astonishing let me go the side here and show you yeah I'm pretty sure there's people in here look at that dumpster it's on fire see it I'm burning something in there I bet there are people watching me right now anyway that's as close as I'm getting guys sorry I'm pretty brave but I'm not that brave anyway this is behind uh I'm behind that theater beautiful old building sits empty as well you see a lot of open areas here this uh has a name it's called uh Urban Prairie there were once buildings here maybe even houses but they have been cleared out and it's returning to nature I mean you can see downtown's right there I don't know if you can see the uh Gateway Arch in St Louis there let me put it right in the middle frame there's the Gateway Arch but yeah it's just been cleared out there's still some uh old buildings here but they have cleared many many of them out it's really interesting and an old uh looks like shelter here Second Chance shelter I'm gonna get out of the way here the bus trying to get past me as I drive down the street now here's the uh Street on the other side of the Spivey again blocked off that might be open local Legends Listening Room yeah there's another look at the Gateway Arch let me zoom in a little there you go St Louis Missouri over there now let's look around a little bit more now when a few blocks out and started roaming the neighborhoods a little bit it's uh not bad really I expected it to be like Detroit or Gary Indiana and to see a lot of abandoned homes and there are a few but it's uh nothing like those two cities because for the most part they have been cleared out I'll show you some more areas here in a bit but yeah there are huge swaths where uh of the city where it's been cleared out and uh there's just nothing there it's become like I told you earlier Urban Prairie let's say I'm going to show you some of this Urban Prairie I was talking about this street here was once filled with houses but they've all been cleared out almost looks like being in the country doesn't it instead of being in a city of course um you're not going to see this kind of trash in the country a toilet stool yeah toilet there a bunch of tires I guess that's one of the things that happens it becomes a Dumping Ground but yeah there were once houses lined along the street and they have been all torn down it's returning to nature a lot of the neighborhoods look just like this though I mean some of them look a little rough but they're not completely falling apart some of the houses uh look really nice in good shape these um you know you get a house like this for instance on the on the coast it's going to cost a lot of money but you could probably pick them up cheap here but like I said a lot of them have been torn down there's still a few here's one right here yeah that one um that's definitely abandon you can see the former Beauty in a lot of these houses though I'm actually impressed with the St Louis or east St Louis housing that's been left a lot of it looks great now I'm on State Street the main Dragon town I'm going to just drive back into downtown give you a look at the city today is Tuesday about 9 30 in the morning a lot of you know a lot of empty buildings I don't know I don't know if East St Louis can make it back I mean if I'm a I don't know if I'm a young person as soon as I'm old enough I'm out of here and you're seeing that you can see that with the median age as high as it is here and you see this quite a bit stop lights that have went dark they just have stop signs everywhere in lieu of the stop lights it's a bleak here there's really no other way to describe it this way oh I'm not going to head that way that is a one way um oh empty gas station uh here's another um Urban Prairie if you will and people um I don't know they don't recycle Tires Tires here do they a lot of tires just piled up anyways saw what looked like a bar or something here I'm not sure if it's open well probably not over here I got this road blocked off huh not sure what's going on there turn around take another look that's a no-go zone for some reason because it's blocked off on the other side too couple houses in there and a mobile home hmm what about going on there maybe someone knows they can uh put it in the comments well everyone I'm going to end the video here at one of East St Louis landmarks the Gateway geyser one of the tallest fountains in the world when it's working apparently that's only occasionally which is kind of a bummer I really wanted to see it it shoots water 630 feet into the air and it's a companion piece do that the Gateway Arch which itself Rises 630 feet in the air I bet it's pretty spectacular when it's on but it's not anyway uh okay guys so that's going to be the end of this video we're heading east going to see are going to go into Ohio then West Virginia and then Pennsylvania then New York all that's coming up so be looking for those [Music]

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 1,207,594

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Id: 5hNIxor4Ao4

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Sat May 06 2023