5 things to know about STL region from latest census estimates... (St. Louis: hotel, homes)

[MUTGR]

Five things to know about the St. Louis region from the new Census numbers | St. Louis Public Radio

..a few interesting facts.

[RisingAurvandil]

Nothing new or surprising. The City declines and the Westplex booms.

This doesn't paint a clear picture, however. Most of the City's losses are likely in North City, whereas the central corridor is booming. So even within the City itself, there are huge contrasts.

[FrankMiller]

It's basically just "sprawl still exists, here and elsewhere".

[mjtinmemphis]

I will. E glad when the city stops loosing population.

[STLCityMike]

Originally Posted by mjtinmemphis

I will. E glad when the city stops loosing population.

Completely agree. This is just more for the haters to feed on.

[tijlover]

Originally Posted by mjtinmemphis

I will. E glad when the city stops loosing population.

If it weren't for our immigrants, our fertility rate would be something like 1.7 or 1.8, and then you'd see even more population loss, all across the country, due to the elderly passing away.

In Japan, with their 1.2 fertility rate, and their stubborn resistance to allowing immigrants into Japan, there's now an estimated 1 out of 7 homes vacant. They lost a million people last year, mostly elderly, and they're not being replaced, leading to a chronic shortage of workers, 1.2 applicants per job, and, not surprisingly, they just opened up their first all-Robot Hotel! And should we included robots into the census?

Tokyo is growing at the expense of the rural areas, with services dwindling, many have no choice but to vacate the rural areas and head for Tokyo.

A preview of what's to come in other parts of the world with low fertility rates?

[Chicago76]

People get too caught up on population numbers rather than looking at what is behind those numbers. Some good signs for the city in the last 4 years according to the census:

-Median household income has grown 3 times faster than inflation.
-Our young school aged child population is becoming more diverse. Four years ago, 62.8% of all 5 to 14 year olds were black. Today that number is 59.9%.
-Our young workers (25-34) are much more educated. 46.1% of them have a 4-year university degree today, compared to only 36.1% four years ago.
-We have more working age adults to support our school aged kids. Today we have an extra 19 25 to 59 year old adults for every 100 5 to 17 year old kids today.
-There are more married couple family households today than there were four years ago even though the total number of households is down.

Modest declines in population (primarily due to smaller household sizes) is probably a good thing because there is a lower fiscal burden for educating school-aged children. This is especially true when we are getting a more highly educated workforce and generally a more economically secure group of residents.

Population decline is a really bad thing when cities are losing more economically mobile, middle class residents. That isn't the case for the city.