Communities
St. Louis is a big city composed of tightly knit communities. Many friendships last a lifetime; it is not unusual, despite the odds, to run into neighbors or friends unexpectedly in the midst of the baseball stadium; families retain strong bonds even as children and grandchildren grow to adulthood. Weekly, multi-generational family dinners of many decades’ standing are not unusual. St. Louis is, for better and for worse, middle America. This means that it is not fully claimed by East, by West, by North, by South, nor even by Midwest. It is a city of some dichotomies: under a peaceful surface, racial inequalities and tensions simmer – so much that there are, simply by cultural convention, parallel boulevards a block or two apart where one is traveled almost exclusively by African American St. Louisans and the other almost exclusively by white residents. The various insular communities co-exist in close proximity, but with relatively little understanding of one another. The Catholic church is a powerful force in St. Louis, and the number of residents in religious orders is relatively high. The diocesan court is based in St. Louis and St. Louis University is a Jesuit institution.
Immigrant groups continue to live in ethnically rich and specific neighborhoods, including the strongly Italian Hill Neighborhood, and the predominantly German areas of South St. Louis.