Best PlacesTower Grove East, St. Louis, MO Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Tower Grove East, St. Louis, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Tower Grove East, St. Louis ranks 2,684th of 5,983 U.S. neighborhoods on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on what local pay buys by a wide margin, and the schools rank lowest.

#2,684
of 5,983 neighborhoods
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 5,983 neighborhoods
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in Tower Grove East, St. Louis

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Tower Grove East, St. Louis area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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Popular priorities:

BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

Tower Grove East, St. Louis' strengths and weaknesses

Top 10%What local pay buys
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Tower Grove East, St. Louis with other neighborhoods.

Where Tower Grove East, St. Louis ranks high

  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 91% of neighborhoods
  • WalkabilityBetter than 89% of neighborhoods
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 88% of neighborhoods
  • State fiscal healthBetter than 81% of neighborhoods
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 77% of neighborhoods

Where Tower Grove East, St. Louis ranks low

  • School gradeF, better than only 1% of neighborhoods
  • Crime safetyBetter than only 6% of neighborhoods
  • Cell coverageBetter than only 10% of neighborhoods
  • Nice weatherabout 64 pleasant days a year, better than only 15% of neighborhoods
  • Low vacancyBetter than only 27% of neighborhoods

What it costs to buy a home in Tower Grove East, St. Louis

A household needs to earn about $74,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Tower Grove East, St. Louis home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $101,168, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$74,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,736
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $281,786 home
Median rent
$1,189
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,437
Property tax$205
Homeowners insurance$94

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Tower Grove East, St. Louis' effective rate of 0.87%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 9 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Tower Grove East, St. Louis

Tower Grove East, St. Louis runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
38
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
15%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.1
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1817%
18 to 3427%
35 to 4923%
50 to 6418%
65 and older15%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Tower Grove East, St. Louis.


Who works in Tower Grove East, St. Louis, and how

Work in Tower Grove East, St. Louis centers on professional & technical and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.

Work from home
25%
above the national average
Unemployment
3.5%
below the national average
Job growth
−2.9%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Professional & technical15%
Health care & social13%
Education10%
Hospitality & food9%
Other services8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 69%
  • Work from home 25%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 6%

Life in Tower Grove East, St. Louis

Tower Grove East, St. Louis has more restaurants and bars per resident than 67% of neighborhoods. That concentrates in some parts of Tower Grove East, St. Louis and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
31
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 54.1 per 10,000 residents, more than 67% of neighborhoods
Coffee shops
5
about 8.7 per 10,000 residents, more than 77% of neighborhoods

What the weather is like in Tower Grove East, St. Louis, month by month

Tower Grove East, St. Louis sees roughly 64 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 90 degrees. January highs sit near 42, with lows near 26. The comfortable stretch runs April, May, September, and October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January42°33°26°
April70°57°46°
July90°80°70°
October72°59°48°

Flying in and out of Tower Grove East, St. Louis

St Louis Lambert International sits about 12 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 7.5 million passengers in 2025, with 114 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
STL
St Louis Lambert International, about 12 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
35th-busiest in the US, 114 nonstop destinations
Average drive
18 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Tower Grove East, St. Louis

Schools across Tower Grove East, St. Louis average an F, better than 1% of neighborhoods.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Tower Grove East, St. Louis school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Tower Grove East, St. Louis measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Tower Grove East, St. Louis against the other 5,982 neighborhoods.


Common questions about living in Tower Grove East, St. Louis

Is Tower Grove East, St. Louis a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Tower Grove East, St. Louis ranks 2,684th of 5,983 neighborhoods. It scores highest on what local pay buys, walkability, and a stable housing market, and lowest on the schools and crime. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Tower Grove East, St. Louis expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $281,786. The overall cost of living runs about 21% below the national average. Set against a $101,168 median income, cost of living beats 91% of neighborhoods.

Is Tower Grove East, St. Louis safe?

Tower Grove East, St. Louis is safer than 6% of neighborhoods. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $1,194 per resident a year.


Compare Tower Grove East, St. Louis with other neighborhoods


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Tower Grove East, St. Louis. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Tower Grove East, St. Louis represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Tower Grove East, St. Louis detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Tower Grove East, St. Louis: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Tower Grove East, St. Louis: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Tower Grove East, St. Louis: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Tower Grove East, St. Louis: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Tower Grove East, St. Louis detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.