- Economy of St. Louis, Missouri
The economy of St. Louis, Missouri has a diversified variety of sectors, both historically and currently.
Headquarters
Beer commercials have made the city well known as the home of
Anheuser-Busch Breweries. Two local brokerages,A. G. Edwards andEdward Jones Investments , as well as online brokerageScottrade , have grown into dominant players on America's financial landscape. It is also the site for the headquarters of Energizer, the battery company. Neighboring suburbs hostMonsanto , formerly a chemical company and now a leader ingenetically modified crops, andSolutia , the former Monsanto chemical division that was spun off as a separate company in1997 .Express Scripts , a pharmaceutical benefits management firm, has its corporate headquarters in the suburbs of St. Louis and recently announced plans to construct its new headquarters near the campus of theUniversity of Missouri–St. Louis .Hardee's corporate headquarters lies in the metro area.Enterprise Rent-A-Car 's headquarters are located in Clayton.Emerson Electric 's headquarters are located in the north side of St. Louis.Charter Communications , the nation's fourth largest broadband communications company, is headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country. In addition, early in the 20th Century, Little Rock was home tobrass era automobile maker Clymer. [Clymer, Floyd. "Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925" (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950), p.178.]Corporate departures
In recent years, however, several longtime corporate pillars have left St. Louis. St. Louis was the corporate headquarters of
McDonnell-Douglas prior to its 1997 merger withBoeing . Upon the merger, the area became the headquarters for Boeing's $27 billion-per-year Integrated Defense Systems division and its company-wide Phantom Works R&D operation. Locally, Boeing manufactures theF/A-18 Super Hornet andJDAM smart bombs, and has developed — at times secretly — several unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAV s). However, when Boeing relocated its corporate headquarters fromSeattle, Washington in2001 , it moved toChicago, Illinois — St. Louis was not one of the final candidates.From
1994 until its acquisition in2000 byTyco International , another chemical company,Mallinckrodt , was headquartered in St. Louis County. Many of the former Mallinckrodt facilities are still in operation by Tyco in the St. Louis suburb ofHazelwood, Missouri .St. Louis was the corporate headquarters for animal feed and human-food maker
Ralston Purina . After divesting all of its businesses except the pet food division, Nestle S.A., the world's largest food company acquired it in 2001. Several of the divested business still remain in St. Louis including Energizer, Ralcorp and Protein Technologies, Inc. n/k/a Solae.Trans World Airlines (acquired byAmerican Airlines , which then dismantled TWA's St. Louis hub),telecommunications company SBC (moved to San Antonio), andmilitary contractorGeneral Dynamics (moved toWashington, D.C. ). All major St. Louisbank s have been purchased by out-of-town banks. The city retains a Federal Reserve Bank.Manufacturing sector
St. Louis remains home to railway car plants; two
DaimlerChrysler plants in the nearby suburb of Fenton, whereminivans andpickup trucks are built; and a General Motors plant in suburban Wentzville.Health care industry
The region has built up a formidable
health care industry. This is dominated byBJC HealthCare , which operatesBarnes-Jewish Hospital andSt. Louis Children's Hospital , plus eleven others. BJC benefits from asymbiotic relationship withWashington University in St. Louis ' School of Medicine, which is a major center of medical research. Other major players includeSSM Health Care ,St. John's Mercy , and theTenet Healthcare Corporation chain. In addition there isSaint Louis University School of Medicine which is a leader in several areas of medical research and works with hospitals includingCardinal Glennon Children's Hospital andSaint Louis University Hospital . St. Louis is also home to two companies that produce radiation therapy planning software,CMS, Inc. andMultidata Systems International .Housing costs
Although local housing costs have risen in recent years, they are still significantly below the national average, and are a revelation to new arrivals from the coasts. From the mid-1990s onward, the City of St. Louis itself has seen a major surge in housing rehabilitation as well as new construction on cleared sites. As a rule, other costs of living also are at or below the national average. Wages tend to reflect these facts, likewise being at or slightly below the average.
ee also
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History of St. Louis, Missouri References
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