St. Louis is turning out to be a great choice for a setting.

If I had to guess, I would say it's gentrification gone wrong.

You're talking about an area that's old and rotted. Houses all over that area are darkened husks of what they once were. Anyone who's had a claim to the area has long since died or lost it to the banks.

Enter developers. Folk have been buying that stuff up and levelling it with intent to build gentrified condos on it. You'll see that fusion of old and new all over town. Lofts, condos, you name it.

In this case, I think 2008 happened. Construction tanked, nobody's buying homes, and now the developers don't have the money to build on the land they cleaned out.

Result; St. Louis Place.

Edit: You are also still quite correct about MLK in the other thread. It's not a road I enjoy taking the bike on unless I feel like running stoplights. However, it does turn into St. Charles Rock Road just outside of the urban blight zone, which tends to segue into the Graveyard District right around U. City, then goes into Small Town America near Bel-Nor/Bel-Ridge and St. John.

East St. Louis, eh? No one from Missouri goes there if they can avoid it. East St. Louis' only purpose is for the gangs in St. Louis to dump bodies at. That's one of the reasons the crime rate in ESL is as crappy as it is. I lived in St. Louis for 15 years, and never ONCE did anyone I know go to ESL. It's a hellhole waste of space, with nothing of value.

St. Louis is not, in fact, near Chicago. They're almost 300 miles apart. Why would St. Louis have a bug problem, too? No subway, no truly monolithic skyscrapers. (The city has a general rule that no building can be higher than the Arch, which is 630 ft. tall. Corporations have been pushing to construct taller buildings for years, but the projects always seem to lose funding, support, or suffer mysterious accidents.)

Another important thing to remember is that St. Louis is an independent city, while most other major U.S. cities are part of a county. This means the the mayor and city officials wield greater power with less oversight than most major cities.

Compton Hill Reservoir Park - Holy crap, how would that place last until the 2070's?

Just looking at it is making certain players wonder what would happen with an earth elemental undermining it...great diversion tactic.

-Tir.

Any chance of the west of st. Louis mentioned: St. Charles, St. Peters and Lake St. Louis where my wife has family.

How about the Missouri River flooded these towns to form a lake and changed the course of the Mississippi river to be west of St. Louis instead of flowing by the Gateway Arch.

In future game scenarios, some geographic features are gone or new topographic chances appeared for gamers' sake.