Bel-Ridge, MO

Bel-Ridge is a small city in northern St. Louis County whose identity is tied to a change in status. It began as a village in 1947, then voters approved reclassification as a city in 2015. That gives the place an interesting municipal split-screen: postwar suburb on the ground, newer city label on the paperwork. Bel-Ridge is part of the Normandy Schools Collaborative, and its city operations cover police, streets, parks and recreation, and storm-water sewers. The local hook here is the civic backstory: a neighborhood that changed its municipal clothes without changing its name.