urbanSTL

I've posted numerous times that sheer numbers and growth alone do not tell the whole story.  Do you think that the "small" size of Nashville or Austin, especially years ago when it was in the low to mid 1Ms stopped anyone from flocking there?  NYC and Chicago never need to add another person and they will have world class institutions, economies, airports etc that no other US city can compete with.

The US population growth rate has consistently been under 1% for a decade and is currently at .5%, mainly due to immigration.  These cities that are seeing high growth are just robbing other cities of people, especially small towns, which is having devastating effects. 

It's a capitalist mindset of "growth is good", when Portland a decade ago was booming, growth slowed a bit, and Austin became the new high growth boomtown.  I suppose it helps feed into the herd mentality mindset, why is Nashville cool? Because other people say it's cool and are moving there.

cteclipse wrote:I've posted numerous times that sheer numbers and growth alone do not tell the whole story.  Do you think that the "small" size of Nashville or Austin, especially years ago when it was in the low to mid 1Ms stopped anyone from flocking there?  NYC and Chicago never need to add another person and they will have world class institutions, economies, airports etc that no other US city can compete with.

The US population growth rate has consistently been under 1% for a decade and is currently at .5%, mainly due to immigration.  These cities that are seeing high growth are just robbing other cities of people, especially small towns, which is having devastating effects. 

It's a capitalist mindset of "growth is good", when Portland a decade ago was booming, growth slowed a bit, and Austin became the new high growth boomtown.  I suppose it helps feed into the herd mentality mindset, why is Nashville cool? Because other people say it's cool and are moving there.

I’m not sure I get what your getting at here? Of course our current population, and the trend of our current population isn’t the whole story of St Louis, but it’s important.

In the case of St Louis, our stagnant population as a region and how that compares to competitive metros who are growing faster is a negative thing plain and simple. Good growth is good.


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pattimagee wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

Regardless of who is responsible for the influx... I think if we concentrated/improved our numbers on schools and crime the rest of the missing puzzle pieces would fall into place. 

I also think this is true, but also that Pittsburgh's example of a metro doing well despite a stagnant population is worth paying attention to.

PeterXCV wrote:

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

Regardless of who is responsible for the influx... I think if we concentrated/improved our numbers on schools and crime the rest of the missing puzzle pieces would fall into place. 

I also think this is true, but also that Pittsburgh's example of a metro doing well despite a stagnant population is worth paying attention to.

By what measure? Pittsburgh is one of the few regions in the US yet to recover 100% of the jobs lost during COVID. Currently 20,000 fewer jobs today than Feb 2020.

St. Louis reached 100% in October 2022 and as of August 2023 is 20,000 jobs over start of pandemic.

By every economic measure I consider valuable, St. Louis is doing far better than Pittsburgh.

Difference between St. Louis and Pittsburgh nonfarm employment.
1990: STL +149,800
2000: STL +188,409
2010: STL +170,700
2020: STL +223,900
Today: STL +262,000

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

Regardless of who is responsible for the influx... I think if we concentrated/improved our numbers on schools and crime the rest of the missing puzzle pieces would fall into place. 

I also think this is true, but also that Pittsburgh's example of a metro doing well despite a stagnant population is worth paying attention to.

My ex-wife is from Pittsburgh and in my opinion it benefits from two things relative to St. Louis. A corporate community that never gave up on downtown and they don't suffer from the same level of urban crime as we do. With that said, Pittsburgh has some very rough meth infested old coal towns like 20 minutes from downtown. I'd also say that Pittsburgh comes off as a metro with an even older median age than St. Louis. I could easily see that metro losing 200-300k over the next couple decades. St. Louis may be on the verge of a demographic winter, but Pittsburgh feels likes it's been there.

Greater Pittsburgh has been shrinking for 60 years, although estimates suggest that it may be bottoming out.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

Greater Pittsburgh has been shrinking for 60 years, although estimates suggest that it may be bottoming out.

Makes sense, it has a very slow feel. Like even slower than St. Louis. 

I really like it there and don’t understand why it isn’t more attractive (maybe that’s changing). Beautiful scenery and water feature, very urban and walkable (in many parts), excellent architecture, great universities, what remains a strong corporate community.

Idk I guess people REALLY need an ocean and REALLY hate winter.

I didn't realize until reading this Reddit thread how cloudy Pittsburgh was. Sunny days seem to be popular, for whatever reason. Sun with a temperature above 80 degrees just makes it uncomfortably hot outdoors when not under shade. Plus you have to worry about covering every square inch of skin with sunscreen/clothing. Seems like a lot of folks' weather preferences are more for looking at from indoors than for actually being outside in. An overcast day is the best kind in which to spend a few hours outdoors.

https://redd.it/176oogg

Pittsburgh is not much better than Seattle in terms of sunny days.
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ccd ... osrank.txt

I also would not have expected such a big spread between St. Louis (57% sunny days) vs. Little Rock (72%).

That’s why we invented wide brimmed hats and linen clothing. I don’t think people would complain about Midwest summers so much if they actually dressed for it.

Nope, I wear a giant hat and a light long-sleeve shirt all summer. Still sucks to walk anywhere north of downtown, where there are no trees. Give me one of St. Louis' patented gloomy winter days with a high of 40 any time. So much better to spend time outdoors in that.

Couple of thoughts -

the decennial census is the only one that is close to correct - the annual ones are guesswork 

We have awesome neighborhoods and a so-so downtown - that is the opposite of most of American urbanism and downtowns are the measuring stick that people use for civic health. This is why people think Pittsburgh is successful when the demographics are telling you something else. 

In the 1970's the RCGA tried to spin the (at that time) population loss as "Things are so great we kept them where they were!" - you can see how that turned out - We need to add people 

We can blame leadership and half dozen other things but just like middle school your perception is tied to your group, and we are clustered with Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore and other "rust belt" cities. We are also saddled with similar problems. Our demographics are, what I consider, better then those places, but its easier for people with no idea of what is here to think about us in those terms. 

Things are never as bad as they seem, but breaking out of mediocrity is a herculean task.

For us we have to measure progress in decades not years, things in general are better then they were 10 years, and that was better then 10 years before that. The "whole city is sliding" era ended in the late 90's early 2000's. Yes we have neighborhoods that have gotten worse since then, but not as many that have gotten better 
  

My measure of Pittsburgh's success is mainly subjective. Having visited a few times, mostly for conferences, when people visit they really like it, and people I have met who grew up in Pittsburgh but live elsewhere now speak very positively about it, unlike STL folks negative attitude. They definitely have a more vibrant downtown and much better public transportation than us. I don't have evidence for this at the ready either but I also think media presentation of Pittsburgh is a lot more positive than of STL, like that they turned it around and have all these tech jobs. One actually objective advantage they do have over us is that the city proper lost just 0.9% of its population in the 2010s, a much slower decline than their metro overall.

The point I'm trying to make with this example is that I think quality of life things are what we should be focusing on, and not worry too much about the metro area population's fluctuation.

I really don't think that Pittsburgh is represented as being all that cool or nice. 

This meme was recently making the rounds...

Pittsburgh is a very similar peer Metro to STL imo. While having challenges with population growth, both are emerging from a Rust Belt past a little better than others (Detroit and Cleveland, etc.) in terms of key economic indicators such as household incomes, poverty and college education attainment. On these measures, we're in line with Midwest peers like Indy, Columbus, KC. etc. that may be growing but don't provide a better quality of life. 

Also, one way Metros can technically grow is by having outlying counties added to the MSA; Cleveland & Pittsburgh each had a county added this year by the Feds, thus boosting their MSA populations.

That’s a good point. I think StL is already maxed out there. Our MSA includes Macoupin county which goes damn near all the way to Springfield. I don’t think there’s a reasonable argument for including areas north of IL-16 in our MSA.

Not that it has much impact on our MSA population, but I think it’s quite the stretch to include Macoupin, Bond and Washington counties in our MSA. CSA? Sure that works.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote:That’s a good point. I think StL is already maxed out there. Our MSA includes Macoupin county which goes damn near all the way to Springfield. I don’t think there’s a reasonable argument for including areas north of IL-16 in our MSA.

I dream of a merging St. Louis - Springfield MSA. Think Cincinnati - Dayton.

I don’t feel over taxed. I rather like like living in a city that has its house in order financially.

I will grant that it’s ridiculous that our state legislature, which would like to consider itself the most conservative in the country, hasn’t figured out how to repeal our high income tax rate.

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Oct 13, 2023

^ Why would anyone want to bring children into this world these days? Most people can't afford to even if they wanted to.

Because children are the greatest blessing life has to offer and raising them is the truest, fullest measure of a person's physical and mental capacity. That said, its not for wimps, never has been or will be, and inherited-wealthy aside, and barring perhaps a few golden decades between 1950 and 1980, has never been "affordable" without sacrifice for the vast majority of people/families. And yet, here we all are, children (mostly) grown up into (mostly) functioning (semi) adults.

I'll keep ringing the bell that if STL wants to start growing its population again, the best path is by focusing on immigration and taking steps to become more competitive than existing immigration-friendly cities.  Listening to NPR this morning, they cited a study that showed that in 2038 the US will start to have more deaths than births.  By 2080 the population of the US could actually start decreasing.

My take-away is that while STL's population is stagnant today, without focusing on immigration it will inevitably be stagnant and start shrinking even if we take steps to make it more appealing to Americans.  We just can't depend on domestic migration to fuel our growth - we need to focus on becoming a magnet for immigrants and providing resources, housing and jobs so they can be successful and help grow our economy and population.

In an effort to provide help myself, this group seems like a great resource to list organizations in STL that are making a difference already.  I know the International Institute has been highlighted.  What other organizations align to the goal of making STL more immigration friendly and providing resources?

There are a number of ethnicity/nationality based chambers of commerce.