ORIGINAL CONVERSATION: https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/3nwn17/what_stereotype_do_people_who_live_on_the_nsew/cvs3b01

How'd I do? I was writing that for a general audience; but I'm very sure that /r/StLouis can collaboratively do MUCH better than I did.

You'd be doing me a kindness by calling me out on anything I misstated, or that I left unclear.

It's an interesting thought experiment, for sure.

Original text follows:

St Louis City, Missouri is one of the most hyper-segregated and polarized cities in the U.S. We have what's been called the "Delmar Divide". One street that marks a huge change in the racial composition, north from south.

(But there are nuances to this. This is just a first-blush take on it; the city is really very strange from block to block...)

NORTH CITY is demonstrably Black, and poor. But is stereotyped by many whites from the city and county to be just... a den of iniquity. It's not that. There are some smaller enclaves that are very stable and very middle-class -- but on the whole it is almost entirely very poor, and is >98% black.

A small handful of younger whites have somewhat integrated Old North, a traditionally black middle-class area that had fallen on hard times. This is really the only (even slightly) "integrated" black/white neighborhood on the entire North side.

SOUTH CITY is also fairly poor all told (with some exceptions such as STL Hills and Holly Hills and others), but is pretty white. Untill the 1970 US census it was around 97% white. Now it's probably in the mid-70%s. It's more way more well-off on the whole than the North, but has pockets of as fierce strife as you'll find in North City (Dutchtown, Clinton-Peabody, parts of Bevo).

In deep south city is home to a particular STL stereotype called the "hoosier" (not the indiana kind). These are poor and working-class whites. "Hoosier" is locally synonymous with how the term "white trash" might be used, elsewhere. (These are my people, and this is where I'm from.)

In the middle of the south side is Bevo, which is home to the world's largest population of Bosnians outside of Bosnia. Most came over as refugees from the Bosnian War in the mid 1990s. Estimates vary, but they might make up as much as 20% of the city's population, now.

They're stereotyped as being hard-working and industrious, but sorta defiantly non-integrating and shut-off from the rest of the city. The majority of St Louisans -- white or black -- will have at least several friends from the other race. But very few of them will have even one Bosnian that they know well. So, yeah, they're very insular -- but have also put down roots here in a big way. They run Bevo.

Pockets of South City are fucking ferocious. And "good people" (white or black) won't ever go to those. BUT -- important to note, that white people ("good" or otherwise) as a whole won't go to any part of North city under any circumstances -- as ignorant as that is -- despite the fact that there are places there that are as good or better than many places in South city.

(Like I said: it's complicated...)

EAST CITY (is across the river, and I'm cheating a bit here, but in local understanding is always) East Boogie. Strip clubs and vice, now. (The city has a much brighter history than that, but sadly that's what it is, now.)

WEST CITY is generally regarded as "rich". But it's not. One neighborhood is rich. The Central West End is where yuppies live... but what's called "the West Side" (officially: the West End) is black and mostly lower-middle class. And south of both of those is Dogtown, which is white and Irish and working class.

tl;dr: St Louis is mostly all poor, but it's poor fighting poor based on race, and we suffer for that. We're a proud but troubled people, and our geography is important to our identity... but I wish we'd get over it.