Columbia, MO Reviews

Great Place for Outdoor Activities - 3/13/2024
If you are an active person and love to be outdoors and go to college sporting events, Columbia is a great place to live! I run and bike and go to Mizzou events a lot. I have lived all over the country and few places are better than COMO for trails and greenways. We have the MKT trail and the Katy Trails, along with the Bear Creek Trail and many other greenways! We have Rockbridge State Park with all kinds of biking and hiking trails. Yes, a college town. Great night life and college scene. If this stuff is not important to you, then it may just be an average Read More

No water park here - 10/14/2021
I've live in CoMo for 20 yrs. NOT sure about this state of the art water park??!! There are great parks but nothing else for families. NO zoo, museum, and definitely no water park. VERY college oriented so in my opinion the best time to enjoy Columbia is when college is out of session. Read More

Not a good place to settle. - 11/25/2020
I lived there for a year and hated every minute. Columbia reminded me of the San Francisco of the Midwest. It is overrun with homeless people. Law enforcement is ineffective, but that's because they lack manpower. Crime is ridiculous. I lived in what was supposed to be a decent area, but there was a running gun battle in front of my place one afternoon. I lost count of the number of times the police were observed responding to incidents on my street.

Another thing is the city is oddly overrun with Brown Recluse Spiders. I have lived all over the world, but have never seen an area infested with them like there.

Columbia is a college town and everything is focused on that. There was nothing there I found attractive to compel me to stay. Even the weather was extreme with too much snow in the winter and too hot and humid in the Read More

A Liberal Paradise - 10/4/2020
I've lived in Columbia for 10 years. I went to college here, left, and then returned to take care of my parents. These reviews amuse me. I will be leaving Columbia, but not for the reasons given. Some of you would absolutely love it.

Columbia would hold enormous appeal if you're young, somewhat or mostly liberal, and an outdoor enthusiast. The parks here are outstanding. The city-owned trails like the Katy Trail and Bear Creek Trail wind through miles of woods and neighborhoods, and if you're so inclined, you can use these trails to ride your bike from your house to your job. There are also several hundred acres of open space parks in town. The geography is beautiful. Columbia is a heavily wooded town, with beautiful fall colors. Deer, raccoons and foxes live right in town.

If you are a fan of music, art and theater, you will love Columbia. If your religious persuasions lean toward more modern and progressive churches or Tarot readings, this is your town. Read More

3 year stay (Latino review) - 5/27/2020
I lived in Columbia for three years since 2017 and moved here from California. I came to live with a girl and we eventually got married a few months later. We are both Latinos. You know, I've never experienced so much white racism in my life than in Columbia, Missouri. My wife and I have gotten awful looks from people when we go out in public and we once had an angry old white man approach our car in a parking lot and started harassing us and saying we couldn't be there (I got him away from us, we were parked in a public parking space). The summer weather in unbearable, it's way too humid to enjoy outdoors and the winters are kinda depressing because all the green from the trees start going away during the fall, and you're gonna wait nearly half a year for the green to come back when spring hits in March/April. Did I mention it snows a lot? If you live in a low-income area of CoMo, be prepared to wait a day or two for the city to plow your street (they plow the rich areas of CoMo Read More

Perfect Balance of All Things to Consider. - 4/14/2020
I've been traveling here for approximately 1 year, about 6 times, and have lived here for 3 months. If you are looking for a small to medium sized town with a lower than a high cost of living with options for what to do within the town (bike, hike, gym, shop, eat out) or travel to nearby St. Louis or Kansas City or hop on a short flight from the town or St. Louis or KC as airports, it's a great place to be. With a remote job and travel as a part of my work I am enjoying my time here. A major university and very good medical facilities/services are added benefits. If you want to compare Columbia, MO to NYC, SF, ATX, Denver, Dallas, etc. - ??? - not realistic - but I wouldn't live there either (I just left ATX after 20 years - it is crowded and quickly becoming "The Bay Area of Texas". But if you were to compare - there is no traffic, the cost of living is very reasonable, and there are things to do. For the next 5 years or so I think it's a great choice, a great balance of pro's Read More

Columbia is Awful - 6/11/2019
I lived in CoMo for three years. I've lived in several types of cities and small towns, including two other college towns. Columbia is the most horrible place that I have ever lived. When you take away the college students and other people temporarily living there, you are left with the racist, bigoted townsfolk. Nearly every day there is some old white person protesting/praying outside the Planned Parenthood (they don't even provide abortions at that location anymore). They just sit there, wasting their time looking like fools. Someone actually set fire to the building in protest one night. They clearly have surveillance cameras, not a smart move.

The city can't do anything right. I have never lived in a place where you put the garbage/recycling bags and cardboard on the curb instead of in a bin. On the day of trash collection the whole neighborhood has garbage everywhere because it gets blown around. It looks terrible. The city says that switching to bins would force Read More

A great place to live and raise a family - 2/29/2016
We have it all, location, culture/recreation, education, cost of living and a diverse population. The only drawback is the unpredictable winter weather or occasional flooding if it is wet winter and spring.  Read More

Came for College, Stayed 'til Retirement! - 6/12/2015
When I moved here to finish my education at the University of Missouri, it seemed a good place to remain to raise my young son as a single parent. It was very safe back in 1968 (crime rate is higher now but most parts of town are still pretty safe) and I knew the schools here have been top-notch at least since I was in high school. It was also pleasant to the eye and had plenty of other young adults, including a considerable number of other single moms, living and going to school in Columbia.

Though my career has taken me away from Columbia on a few occasions, I have always returned when my situation allowed. As I grew older I found that there were always people of like mind around (whatever that mind happened to be) and a wide variety of activities to be enjoyed. There are a number of small towns (including several historical Missouri river towns(within a thirty minute to an hour's drive and Lake of the Ozarks is less than a couple of hours away. They give access to Read More

Housing - 3/19/2014
Columbia MO has a housing economy that is really growing. We saw the best numbers in 2012 that we have in a long time. I sell Real Estate here and it is very affordable to buy or rent here. I wouldn't say its the easiest to find and make decent money, but it's possible. Read More