If you were to guess that St. Louis was the most dangerous city in Missouri, you would be correct. You would also be correct if you assumed it would rank within the top ten most dangerous cities in the United States. The rankings can vary slightly depending on the website and the metrics used, but St. Louis ranked near the top of nearly every one of them. The Kansas City Star article linked above uses a report from U.S. News and World Report for 2024–2025. The rankings were determined by FBI crime reports of each city’s murders and property crime per capita. The same list had Kansas City at eight.

St. Louis has a reputation for being a violent city. Crime issues have helped push people out in droves and deterred newcomers from settling in the area. St. Louis City’s population has decreased by over 30% since the 1980s, and the number of vacant downtown buildings has increased substantially. The Wall Street Journal went as far as to call downtown a “real estate nightmare.”

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