You do not want to live in Venice or Brooklyn, Illinois - unless you like the hood. Their main industry is strip clubs, prostitution, and drugs. Main product is low-lifes. Any where in the general vicintiy of the city of East St. Louis is BAD.
The commute to the airport from the general vicinity of the Chrysler plant is about 35 or 40 minutes on a good day. Good days are Saturday, Sunday, and national holidays.
You will be reasonably close to the
site of the AR15.com BRC.
If you live south of Fenton, costs will be lower. There is a lot of new construction all around, and in that area you should be able to find about anything you want. You can live north of Fenton in Ellisville, Ballwin, or Manchester to reduce the airport commute and still remain close to Fenton. Stay away from Machester west of I-270; the traffic is horrible 7 days a week.
Ranges - From Fenton you will be very close to the Henges range at the Forest 44 Conservation area just west of Fenton on the south side of I-44. The Gemmer gun club has a range at Pacific - a very active muzzle loader club.
There is a range at Busch Wildlife area in St. Charles county, and unsupervised ranges at Logan Conservation Area north of Troy, Mo. (a long way from Fenton), and at Reifsnider Conservation Area between Wright City and Warrenton(pretty far to drive). There are probably conservation ranges south in Jefferson County, but I haven't
checked since that is out of my normal prowl.
There are a couple of places in the area that deal in Class 3 arms. C&S Metallwerkes in St. Charles has a flyer that explains the process - not hard, just takes some time and about
$200. All of the dealers will help aquire the permit.
Babes - there are too many for any one guy to work through. Just remember, don't be shy - if you approach one, you're not going to die if you get turned down (except maybe east of the Mississippi River). Move on, there are plenty to go around. IT offices are loaded with womenz.
My pesonal opinion, biased from being raised in southwest Missouri, is that the city sucks, and I don't have much use for any of the region east of Lindbergh. But that's just my preference.