St. Louis is a case-study for the charms and problems of a 21st-century American city.
One hundred years ago, St. Louis was the fifth-largest city in the country. As recently as the 1960’s, it was one of the 10 largest cities in America. Now its population is less than half of what it was in the 1960’s and smaller than it was in the 1880’s. With barely 300,000 people, the city comprises only 10% of the population of metropolitan St. Louis – most major cities account for at least 25% of their metro areas.
Located on the Mississippi River, St. Louis grew up as a transportation and manufacturing hub. Thirty years ago, it was the headquarters of Anheuser-Busch, Purina, Missouri Pacific Railroad, McDonnell Douglas and TWA. All now have been merged into bigger national or international firms – good for shareholders, bad for cities.
The effect of this has devastated the tax base of the city. St. Louis now has the highest per capita murder rate of any U.S. city and the 13th-highest murder rate of any city in the world.
And yet…
The Gateway Arch is as American icon (and features a spiffy new visitors center that opened earlier this month). 
Forest, Park, on the western edge of downtown, is huge, vibrant and beautiful.
There are neighborhoods in the city itself and in adjacent towns such as Clayton with street after street of grand 100-year-old houses.
Washington University is one of the nation’s most respected research universities and its medical school is consistently ranked among the 10 best in the country.
And for us, the best reason to visit St. Louis over the weekend was to see Dee and Anne Cross. Dee is my stepbrother, although we never met each other until last December. It would be an understatement to say we’ve hit it off while dealing with all our recent parent-related family matters. Dee is a neuroradiologist and Anne is a neurologist. They moved to St. Louis after medical school and are happily dug into the community. Their son, Kevin, is a neurosurgical resident at WashU.
We had a wonderful dinner at the first Italian restaurant we’ve been to since we hit the road (not sure how Kevin missed being in the below pic, as he was with us for dinner)…
capped off by dessert at Ted Drewes, a local institution – it’s in St. Louis and it serves frozen custard, but it reminded us of Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland. 
We hit the road to Springfield, IL Sunday morning. After some internet connectivity issues last night and this morning, we’ll have some things to say about Mr. Lincoln next time.