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Originally Posted by edale
Another similarity to the LA comparison with the 'linear downtown' of Wilshire. On my visits to St. Louis, I definitely noticed the prevalence of highrises outside of the core, and the strong central corridor from basically downtown out to Clayton. There are some incredibly vibrant neighborhoods along that corridor-- Delmar Loop, Central West End, Wash U area...all pretty impressively built up and active. The eastern pole (downtown) is the weak spot.
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This is actually a rendering of a prospective view from 100 Above the Park facing downtown.
The most intact highrise fabric is certainly on the city's side, but downtown Clayton is still within a stones throw as well.
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East St. Louis and the shitty nature of the IL side of STL Metro probably hurts Downtown STL a lot. Downtown feels like it's kind of on the edge of the world given the nothingness that exists across the river. The fact that Northern Kentucky is healthy and home to the airport certainly helped Downtown Cincinnati remain important in a way that it surely would have lost given the northern sprawl of that metro.
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I frankly agree with my previously posted Post-Dispatch article talking about how the nature of downtown St. Louis is changing. It's obviously still home to a massive number of jobs, but its ever growing residential population, it being home to all of the area's sports teams, various new bars and restaurants, etc, means it's shifting away from being exclusively a place of work but also a place to live.
As for East St. Louis, interestingly enough it probably had the region's second most important downtown right as the area was peaking post-WWII. That obviously changed rapidly, but you can still see the remnant of the abandoned 150ft Spivey Building in downtown East St. Louis that was built in the 1920s.
As for the rest of Illinois, most of it is vastly different than East St. Louis and its neighboring poverty stricken communities (Cahokia, Alorton, Centreville, etc). The trouble is, just as the Missouri side's population has been moving further west, the Illinois side's population has been moving further east. Even with Illinois' overall population woes, the Metro East still makes up about 1/4 of metro St. Louis' overall population.