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In summer of 2019, I went on a road trip with my dad to St. Louis, as I had never been there and it was within reasonable driving distance. I visited the Gateway Arch and museum, and made a visit to the St. Louis City Museum. We also made trips to Washington University, the St. Louis Zoo, and the Cahokia Mounds. I had such an amazing time in St. Louis - and I later found out that the city had a much worse reputation than I had realized. People often compare St. Louis to cities like Detroit for its mass deindustrialization and overburdened inner city population. If one explores the city, one finds blocks and blocks of empty grass, signs of a desolate, struggling community in dire need of economic support. Throughout my time in the city, I only saw hints of this struggle, and many of the areas we visited were rather affluent. The areas around Washington University, for example, are incredibly well off.
With my personal experiences in St. Louis, I became curious about the city's housing patterns. So in Metro Analysis, I chose the city as my case study to map racial segregation patterns. I found that white and Black segregation was the most prevalent, and much of this can be attributed to historic policies like redlining and racial covenants that explicitly forbade households of color from owning homes in particular neighborhoods. Segregation persists in the St. Louis metropolitan area today, and is especially pronounced when looking at the differences between areas like East St. Louis and the city's inner ring western suburbs.
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