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According to just-released 2010 Census results, the city of St. Louis experienced an unexpected loss in population from 348,000 in 2000 to 319,000 in 2010. This was surprising since the latest population estimate was 357,000 (2009). The new population figure however provided exoneration for the Census Bureau, which had been challenged six separate times during the decade on its city of St. Louis population estimates. The higher 2009 population estimate was the cumulative effect of those six successful challenges. In fact however, without the challenges the city of St. Louis population would have been 311,000, much closer to the final count of 319,000 people.
Among the world's municipalities that have ever achieved 500,000 population non-have lost so much as the city of St. Louis. The new figure of 319,000 people is 63 percent below the 1950 Census peak of 857,000 people. Indeed, the 2010 population is nearly as low as the population in the 1870 census.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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Wow, Saint Louis is a tight city and all but this is in no way, shape, or form a good thing from any angle you look at it. They need to work on reversing that or something.
no city wants to lose population, but there's more to it than just raw numbers.
also, look at a growth/decline map of the united states and it is clear that st. louis is not alone. every aging industrial city in the midwest has suffered much the same fate. detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh and others will all post population declines. baltimore lost over 30,000. even chicago lost 200,000 people in the past 10 years. not trying to make light of a serious predicament, but just because there are fewer people in the city today doesn't necessarily mean things are worse off than they were in 2000. i didn't live in st. louis in 2000 but from what i hear, things are much better today.
Wow, Saint Louis is a tight city and all but this is in no way, shape, or form a good thing from any angle you look at it. They need to work on reversing that or something.
It's so bad, I red an article many years ago about this.The mayor was very happy to have refugees in St-Louis, particularly Somali refugees.I didn't understand why he was so enthusiastic , but now I understand lol
But apparently it's not enough.
no city wants to lose population, but there's more to it than just raw numbers.
also, look at a growth/decline map of the united states and it is clear that st. louis is not alone. every aging industrial city in the midwest has suffered much the same fate. detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh and others will all post population declines. baltimore lost over 30,000. even chicago lost 200,000 people in the past 10 years. not trying to make light of a serious predicament, but just because there are fewer people in the city today doesn't necessarily mean things are worse off than they were in 2000. i didn't live in st. louis in 2000 but from what i hear, things are much better today.
Indianapolis is pretty good about population growth, it's a good example for the other Midwest cities
Indianapolis is pretty good about population growth, it's a good example for the other Midwest cities
indianapolis is a completely different kind of city than most others in the midwest. it's much younger, much less industrial, grew much later, and had the luxury of annexing its suburbs to boost its population numbers. almost all the population growth in indianapolis has been in its outer stretches, which in any other city would be considered suburbs. indianapolis covers 372 square miles. compare that with st. louis's 61 sq. miles or with cleveland's 82 sq. miles, etc. if st. louis stretched its boundaries to cover 372 square miles, it would be much larger than indianapolis in population. so yes, st. louis would look a lot better on paper if it annexed 25 of its suburbs, but that wouldn't solve any of its urban problems by itself, it would just hide them better. indianapolis does a better job of rigging perception in its favor because of its suburban land grab. the st. louis metro area is larger today than it has ever been (2.9 million), so that is also significant.
Slengel is right in a lot of ways. Unigov expanded the city limits to the county lines, excluding a few cities within the county. So the Indianapolis growth numbers are somewhat skewed, but Indianapolis is hardly unique in this way. Several other cities throughout the US are handled the exact same way from a City/County government standpoint.
Indianapolis lost about 20,000 in this census round in what we consider to be the old city limits, so while not as extreme as some of our neighbors, the decline did occur. We have a great, clean and vibrant downtown and have a proven ability to pull off big events like few other cities in our region can, but we have to do better at making downtown a more attractive proposition for someone wanting to live there. Strengthening our downtown neighborhoods identities is a top priority. Contrary to popular belief, we do have urban neighborhoods here.
One thing we're definitely proud of though is the growth rate of the rest of Indianapolis in what most cities would refer to as their inner-ring or oldest suburbs. We had robust growth there despite a lack of quality public transportation. That's always an encouraging sign.
St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit ect. are wonderful cities and I hate to see the continuous flight from the cores of these cities.
i think my experience is pretty reflective of what's happening in st. louis overall. the building i live in used to have ten apartments. many of the residents were poor with lots of kids. it was renovated in 2008 into five condo units. all are occupied by single or married professionals with no children. so the population and density have dropped by at least 50% in my building alone over the past few years, but the residents who are here now have higher income and are more educated, and the building is fully occupied. property values in most city neighborhoods have spiked dramatically in the past several years as a result of this trend. this same scenario is playing out all across the city. so while the city may be a little smaller now, one could argue that it's also in better shape.
i think my experience is pretty reflective of what's happening in st. louis overall. the building i live in used to have ten apartments. many of the residents were poor with lots of kids. it was renovated in 2008 into five condo units. all are occupied by single or married professionals with no children. so the population and density have dropped by at least 50% in my building alone over the past few years, but the residents who are here now have higher income and are more educated, and the building is fully occupied. property values in most city neighborhoods have spiked dramatically in the past several years as a result of this trend. this same scenario is playing out all across the city. so while the city may be a little smaller now, one could argue that it's also in better shape.
That's the exact scenario that I see happening to many American cities now. The DT cores are getting more expensive and pushing out the poor families and more modest income families. In turn, they are being replaced by wealthier singles and couples. This explains how people are returning to the cities yet the cities lose population. The phenom that's really happening is that money is returning to the cities and that it's coming from fewer people.
If you look at it another way, cities could actually benefit from this model. The tax revenues generated by the more expensive new/renovated housing is greater and the number of residents that tax revenue needs to support is fewer.
So, where did these poor families go in St. Louis? My guess is the suburbs or unincorporated places nearby. Like other metros, the coming crisis is going to be in the burbs as their sprawling infrastructure starts to age and their burden grows to support larger and larger populations. Then, it becomes the suburbs turn to try to "lure" more money back to them. Whatever the case, one thing is for sure, the poor will get screwed and probably have to move again.
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