1870 · City
Lafayette Square
Second Empire mansions around a 30-acre park. An 1870 one listed for $749,900 in 2023: about $165 a square foot
$329,000 typical home value, Aug. 2026 (Zillow)
Three ways home
A mansion on a city park, a porch on a leafy suburban street, a stone house on an 1810s Main Street. Here is what the money buys.
1860s–1920s · Inner-ring suburbs
Kirkwood & Webster Groves
Victorian and Craftsman houses with deep porches and old trees, near walkable downtowns, in two of Missouri's top-rated school districts
$445,000–$469,000 typical home values, Aug. 2026 (Zillow)
1810s–2020s · St. Charles County
St. Charles
Early stone and brick houses along historic Main Street, and new subdivisions on the edge of town
$348,000 typical home value, Aug. 2026 (Zillow)
Starting out
Your first place, on your first paycheck. What people in their 20s and early 30s ask first:
- What does rent cost? A one-bedroom in Tower Grove South runs about $850–$1,150 a month (RentCafe, 2025–26).
- Can I live on my salary? A basic budget for one adult takes $45,320 a year before taxes, less than in Austin, Nashville, Chicago or Denver (MIT, 2026).
- Where is everyone my age? The five walkable neighborhoods where they cluster.
Bringing a family
Schools, safety and space, for families and mid-career moves. What parents ask first:
- Which schools? How the county districts work, and why a few blocks can change the price.
- Is it safe? Why the citywide number misleads, and how to check a street.
- What does a house cost? The typical home in Webster Groves, a suburb with a walkable downtown and strong schools, is valued around $430,000 (Trulia, 2026).
Gilded Age homes at Midwest prices
St. Louis has one of the nation's most intact collections of Victorian, Romanesque Revival, and Second Empire homes — and an 1870 Second Empire house facing Lafayette Park, 4,542 square feet, listed for $749,900: about $165 per square foot Pricey Pads, 2023. The citywide median is $158 per square foot, against $285 in Chicago Redfin, 2026.
Explore the architecture →A top-20 university in your backyard
Washington University in St. Louis climbed to #20 in U.S. News & World Report's 2026 National Universities ranking, tied with Carnegie Mellon and Michigan. Its medical school is consistently ranked among the nation's elite research institutions, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital is ranked #1 in Missouri by U.S. News (2025). KSDK, 2026
Moving for WashU →Four world-class museums, zero dollars
The Saint Louis Zoo, Art Museum, Science Center, and History Museum all charge zero general admission — every day, for everyone. The Zoo was voted the #1 Best Free Attraction in the U.S. in 2026. This is funded by a dedicated property tax voters created in 1971. Saint Louis Zoo, 2026
Explore free culture →Forest Park: bigger than Central Park, and it's all yours
At roughly 1,326 acres, Forest Park is about 500 acres larger than New York's Central Park. It houses the free zoo, art museum, history museum, and science center, plus 30+ miles of trails, golf courses, and the Muny outdoor theater. Forest Park Forever, 2025
See the outdoors →Neighborhoods built from the ground up — literally
After the Great Fire of 1849, St. Louis mandated brick construction. Vast clay deposits under the city made brick so cheap that even working-class homes were built of it, creating the iconic red-brick streetscapes found almost nowhere else in America. The Central West End, Soulard, and Lafayette Square are living architectural museums. Saint Louis Bank Blog, 2021
Tour the neighborhoods →Your salary actually works here
After federal, state and local taxes and living costs, a $100,000 salary is worth roughly $83,082 in St. Louis — among the highest real purchasing power of any major U.S. metro. The overall cost of living runs about 5–10% below the national average, and housing costs are 15–25% lower. You also spend less of your day in the car: the average commute in St. Louis County is about 23 minutes. SmartAsset, 2025, RentCafe, 2026, Census ACS via FRED (2019–2023)
Compare the numbers →The Hill: toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, and a James Beard winner across town
St. Louis's historic Italian-American neighborhood claims the invention of toasted ravioli (a happy kitchen accident in the 1940s). Across town in Webster Groves, Loryn Nalic of Balkan Treat Box won the 2026 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest — the region's first win since 2017. James Beard Foundation, 2026
Taste the city →Live music on the Delmar Loop
The Pageant and Delmar Hall book national touring acts year-round, and most tickets run $30–$55. Downstairs at Blueberry Hill on the Delmar Loop, the Duck Room is where the late Chuck Berry played 209 monthly shows from 1996 to 2014. Blueberry Hill, 2025
Find the nightlife →"It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London."
— T.S. Eliot, letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 15, 1930, and reaffirmed in his 1953 Washington University centennial address T.S. Eliot official site
St. Louis is the only city in its peer set with a dedicated property tax that makes the Zoo, Art Museum, Science Center and History Museum free every day — a legacy of the 1971 Zoo-Museum District that no other midsized Rust Belt city can match. It sits at the confluence of the two largest rivers in North America, with the Ozarks within day-trip range, and its historic housing stock — from Soulard brick row houses to Central West End Gilded Age mansions — trades at $158 per square foot citywide, compared to $285 in Chicago or over $1,100 in Boston's South End. Redfin, 2026, Goodrich Boston, 2025 The metro added 6,420 residents in 2024, its largest one-year gain since 2010, almost entirely through international migration, and about 3,000 more in 2025 East-West Gateway, 2026; growth stays slow by national standards. Meanwhile the $1.7 billion NGA West campus is now fully operational, anchoring a geospatial-intelligence cluster that employs over 3,000 people. St. Louis Public Radio, 2025
St. Louis has range. It's a city where you can float the Meramec in the morning, eat your way through the largest Bosnian population outside Europe for lunch, and catch a Cardinals game or a touring band at The Pageant by night. It's a place where Romanesque mansions line private streets a few miles from fixer-upper brick shotguns in Carondelet. It's a metro of 2.8 million people with eight Fortune 500 headquarters, a top-20 university, and a craft-beer scene anchored by one of the highest-rated breweries in the world — all within a day's drive of Chicago, Nashville, and the Ozarks.
The citywide median price per square foot is $158 — compared to $285 in Chicago and over $1,100 in Boston's South End. Redfin, 2026 Realtor.com, 2026 Redfin, 2025
