The St. Louis area is a great place to live, work, and raise a family, and it offers affordable living, good educational resources, and a variety of cultural and sports-related activities. To say that St. Louis is a city of neighborhoods is to quote a local cliché—but it’s true. From its ethnically inspired neighborhoods, where the earliest immigrants banded together to re-create their lives in familiar surroundings, to today’s artists’ enclaves and suburban attempts at bohemia, there’s a place for almost every personality in the greater St. Louis region. Luckily for its inhabitants, St. Louis—the region and the city—is home to a diverse assortment of neighborhoods that are rich in history, architecture, and character.
The city consists of a number of distinct neighborhoods, including a resurgent downtown that is a popular place for young professionals and older empty-nesters looking to enjoy city living in the Midwest. A mile or so to the south, Soulard, which is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, is reminiscent of the residential enclaves in New Orleans’s French Quarter, complete with brick mansard-style buildings, neighborhood groceries and pubs, and a historic centerpiece known as the Soulard Farmers Market. In Lafayette Square, Victorian homes line the 30-acre Lafayette Park, and the neighborhood has retained much of the charm of the late 1800s. A few miles to the west, along the city’s western boundary, is the Central West End (CWE). The CWE and its magnificent estates make it one of St. Louis’s grandest neighborhoods, and the stately mansions and regal “private places” are neighbors with a host of diverse shops, restaurants, and pubs. Renovated single- and multifamily housing is located along the Skinker-DeBalivere area that borders Forest Park, while The Hill neighborhood is home to dozens of Italian restaurants, bakeries, and groceries alongside quaint brick homes and shotgun-style houses. In the St. Louis Hills neighborhood, just southwest of The Hill, you’ll find stately two-story homes surrounding Francis Park and charming brick bungalows that look like gingerbread houses. The southwestern edge of the city is where many city employees call home. Due to a residency law that requires all city employees live within the city limits, this area of town is home to many city government employees. In Richmond Heights and Maplewood, young families and artists are revamping the neighborhood’s stately homes and businesses that have been around since the early 1900s. Clayton and Ladue are two of St. Louis’s toniest suburbs, while Webster Groves and Kirkwood bring their own brand of small-town charm to the metropolitan region. For those who really want to “get away from it all” at the end of the workday, there’s Chesterfield, Wildwood, Town & Country and points west—West County, that is, and the suburban melting pot that occupies the far edge of St. Louis County.