Coastal transplants will find that Springfield is pleasantly low crime as compared to their home. We only have a handful of killings and driveby shootings a year now, but that didn't use to be the case, to people who have lived here longer than 5 or 10 years crime is skyrocketing. The low cost of living invites people from big cities, and with poverty comes crime. In five years it'll be much worse, we had our first gang shooting at a high school recently, and it was from a St. Louis gang banger who moved here. I expect now that there has been one, there will be more.

Anyway, if you're moving here from out of state and have any money you wont be in places where you have to worry about crime (yet). North of Grand is the current big crime dividing line.