St Louis Race/Class/Crime Links

The discussion of race in St. Louis is a lengthy one. The city has seen one of the worst patterns of urban racial segregation and subsequent decay. It is up there with cities like Detroit and Newark in this regard. This post provides some links to background on this topic--add more in the comments.

• There is a great book, "Mapping Decline," by Colin Gordon. The main themes of the book are beautifully mapped/captioned at this site. I also have the book at the house if you want to check it out. It is so detailed that I haven't been able to finish reading it, although I have reviewed most of the maps. On January 29th, 2011, Beth and I went to see him lecture at the History Museum. The Q&A section was, how shall we say, lively.
• The Census Dept recently released Zip Code level data to the public. A cartographer/illustrator put together this map of St. Louis. This blogger did a funny mash-up (we live in the "cool part"). The bottom border of the blue area is roughly Delmar Ave. The big blank spot in the middle is Forest Park (WashU is to the West), and just to the Southeast is an odd shaped rectangular patch which is Tower Grove Park and the MO Botanical Garden.
• Then there is always the crime rankings. We made #1 in 2010, for the first time ever, I think--it's usually Detroit. The local rag had a story on it with a response from the city police. The FBI has a caution up on their crime stats site about interpreting such rankings. We'll end with a Wash U professor's letter to the editor. Everybody who lives here knows that this is exactly what is going on--we are very used to city/county politics and outside groups not getting it.

So, I started with just a book reference and ended up giving you the big tour. I had read most of this before, just never compiled it in one spot. Again, please add any further links in the comments.