I drove through the WORST parts of East St. Louis, Illinois. This is what I saw.

in a last video we visited st. Louis Missouri and right now we're gonna cross over the Mississippi River and head into Illinois we'll take the first exit barack obama highway and head deep into East st. Louis one of the most notoriously rundown and dangerous communities in America the day is Wednesday December 18 2019 at about 11:30 a.m. the region had just received several inches of snowfall two days prior but as you can see today the skies are bright the air was crisp and the snowfall made the area appear unusually charming like makeup covering a bruise like other Rust Belt cities in the Midwest East st. Louis was once a bustling community and at its peak was home to 82 thousand people however the economic decline has hit this city heart and the population now numbers around 27,000 shrinking by more than two-thirds [Music] East Saint Louis was Illinois's fourth-largest city and was an all-american city as late as 1959 but that was a long time ago 60 years in fact the problem here really began in 70s when the middle class moved out of the area and the resulting failed tax base meant basic city services like police and fire departments had trouble operating because of depopulation East st. Louis today has many abandoned properties and extensive urban blight Oliver towners sections of urban Prairie where vacant buildings were demolished and where whole blocks have become overgrown with vegetation we saw the same thing in Detroit we drove by one such home being razed to the ground right in front of us you can see it here [Music] much of the land outside the city remains undeveloped bypassed by developers who choose more affluent suburban areas that area is now farming outside of town what's left in city limits proper or widely scattered inner-city neighborhoods truckstops adult venues liquor stores and other blighted sections of town the racial makeup of East st. Louis is 98% black 1 percent white and 1% other 35 percent of the city lives below the poverty line where family incomes average about 25 thousand dollars a year crime wise East st. Louis is notorious throughout the Midwest the per capita homicide rate here is about 18 times the national average and East st. Louis has the highest murder rate of any city in the United States kids who grow up here are told to take cover in the bathtub when they hear gunfire people don't answer their doors after dark however it was early in the day and many the troublemakers here were endorsed perhaps daunted by the icy roads and cold weather we'll drive through some of the worst sections of East st. Louis right now [Music] you [Music] you [Music] you [Music] you [Music] in terms of seeing dangerous people it would have been a lot different had we driven through these areas at night [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] you [Music] a San Luis wasn't as bad as we thought it would be perhaps some of the blight was masked by recent snowfall and it appears as if more and more blighted neighborhoods have been demolished possibly never to be rebuilt again [Music] you [Music] okay so we've reached the far northern limits of town which is pretty much where urban blight meets farmland [Music] hey guys if you learn something new or you just like this video make sure to like it and if you really like this video make sure you hit that subscribe button so you get all of our videos about what it's like to live in different places in America peace

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 245,321

Rating: 4.4649949 out of 5

Keywords: East St. Louis, whats East St. Louis like, east st. louis hood, east st. louis crime, driving east st. louis, illinois

Id: zTGdj9lpDrg

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 28 2019