Inspekt

They are just debating how much funding to give you. :wink:

I've lived in St. Louis for 8 years and I love this city.
WashU is the perfect area with the Loop, Forest park, Metro Link, and Target/grocery store/mall all within a 10 minute drive. Forest park is absolutely awesome and everything is free, except for golf. It is much larger than central park in new york and has a 10k biking and jogging track that surrounds the whole park. Best thing, it is directly across the street from WashU.
Where to live. Have fun living in clayton if you like to pay a lot of money for a lot less space and not a whole lot to do. It MIGHT be worth it if you have a kid to send them to clayton schools, but I'd even doubt that. Clayton is a business govt district of St. Louis county, which effectively closes by about 6pm, unless you want to go to a really overpriced bar and/or Tapas restaurant. Most people send their kids to private schools, which are religous and single sex (unbelieveable that there are still all boys and all girls schools...to me at least.) Live in a loft if you want to pay a lot of money for a little bit of space and a new stove. Yay! Oh and many of them make you pay for parking, especially if you live downtown. By the way downtown st. louis has NO Grocery stores (yes 0), No Walgreens, and No Target so it will take you about 20 minutes drive anywhere to get food and supplies. They say they are building a grocery downtown, but honestly, it will probably be small and you'll still find yourself driving 20 minutes to trader joes and target...
I have lived all over St. Louis. By WashU, in Maplewood (10 min south), in South City (booyeah crime studies) and now I live back by WashU in University City. UCity is by far the best deal of all. Look for places near the intersection of Midland and Delmar - it is absolutely beautiful, totally safe, and the best bang for the buck anywhere in St. Louis. The best part is you have a less than 5 min commute to WashU, 15 min to UMSL, and all the places I mentioned above (loop, park, grocery) are within a 10 minute drive. You will not go wrong if you live near Midland and Delmar in University City.
The thing about St. Louis is there "isn't much to do" if you don't know where to go. There are tons of blues bars downtown, the missouri botanical gardens, tower grove park, the HIll (italian spot), the budweiser brewery, city museum, the Landing (bars), Central West End, Clayton, Soulard, South Grand then there is St. Louis county.... There is a lot to do and the beautiful thing almost everything is Free.
As for crime it really isn't that bad. I mean you have to live in a pretty shitty area to be worried. Be smart, it's a city. Most of the crime is concentrated in areas north of Delmar (the loop) and to the East side. I would also avoid South City until you lived here for a year or so and know where are the good and bad spots. Really living in Soulard is for morons who bought overpriced lofts. It's much better to drive there and go to a bar than live next to a bar, and nothing else.