urbanSTL

STLEnginerd wrote:

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

Interesting. What SLPS schools rank higher than Ladue Horton?


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https://www.usnews.com/education/best-h ... s-mo-41180

Both are magnate schools so its a little bit of a deceptive argument.  I can BUY my way into Ladue.  My kids have to apply & be selected for Metro.  Neither system seem particularly fair to the kid who goes to Vashon.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

Another big difference between rich schools like Ladue and poor schools like STLPS is the parental involvement in these kids lives.

Ladue kids are more likely to come from families with a stay at home mom or at least the resources to keep the kid on the straight and narrow.

Kids is poor districts are more likely to come from single parent households or households where both parents might have multiple jobs to make ends meet. The kids are left to fend for themselves because there is no money for extracurricular activities. Not to mention all the other crap that comes from being poor and black in a segregated region like STL. Leads to all kinds of behavioral issues that lower the quality of education for everybody.

Unfortunately our regions are filled with vicious and virtuous cycles. The rich districts get richer and the poor districts get poorer

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2023

Any reason why the SSD couldn't be expanded to cover SLPS territory as well (outside of a city-county merger)?

Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

STLEnginerd wrote:

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-h ... s-mo-41180

Both are magnate schools so its a little bit of a deceptive argument.  I can BUY my way into Ladue.  My kids have to apply & be selected for Metro.  Neither system seem particularly fair to the kid who goes to Vashon.

Yeah the caveat earlier in the discussion is we were talking about non magnate schools.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote:

Debaliviere91 wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2023

STLEnginerd wrote: Both are magnate schools so its a little bit of a deceptive argument.  I can BUY my way into Ladue.  My kids have to apply & be selected for Metro.  Neither system seem particularly fair to the kid who goes to Vashon.

Yeah the caveat earlier in the discussion is we were talking about non magnate schools.

That’s a silly caveat. “St. Louis public schools are bad if you don’t count the good schools”.

What a useless discussion.

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2023

Baltimoron wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2023

Thanks everybody.  As I suspected, I heard that St Louis shares a lot of challenges with Baltimore.  A difference is that Baltimore's metro area outside of the city appears to be more dynamic than St Louis'.  

I guess it is time for me to lay my cards on the table.  I think the rapid drop in household sizes in Baltimore, St Louis, Philadelphia, etc. etc. is a result of a mismatch of population estimates done by one division of the Census Bureau vs. a household count produced by another.  As Baltimore and St Louis appear to steadily disappear into oblivion each year when the population estimates are released, the household count seems to move independently and generally upwards.  That causes average household sizes reported in the 1-year ACS releases to crater when struggling cities report household creation.  The cities are on a hamster wheel.  Reducing vacancy and building new housing just crashes household size because estimated population losses never slow down.  It appears that the situation on the ground really doesn't matter.  

Finally, I think St Louis's average household size of 1.86 is lower than possible in a city with reasonable sized housing units.  Sure newly created units are small, but there aren't enough added each year to rapidly reduce household size for the city as a whole.  Therefore, I think the small new unit situation is a red herring when it comes to rapid reductions in household size.

...what?

Estimates are estimates.  They can be right or wrong but it has no material impact of the reality.  Household sizes are whatever they are regardless.  And demographics are destiny.  The situation on the ground is the ONLY thing that really matters.

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Dec 21, 2023

Baltimoron wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2023

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Dec 19, 2023

...what?

Estimates are estimates.  They can be right or wrong but it has no material impact of the reality.  Household sizes are whatever they are regardless.  And demographics are destiny.  The situation on the ground is the ONLY thing that really matters.

Actually, I disagree that only the situation on the ground matters.   The annual population estimate is considered to be the most reliable gauge of jurisdictional success and public policy revolves around it.  It is also picked up by the press and talk radio feasts on it, at least here.  As far as public perception goes, nothing else really matters.  Here in Baltimore we can talk about reducing vacancy by 5% per year and construction of lots of new apartment and townhomes, but none of that really matters if the estimates of annual population loss don't slow down.  It only makes sense that huge population losses are a drag on investment.  They simply can't be totally ignored.

Also, the correct policy solutions for fast shrinking cities are clearly different than those of slow growing cities.  The disconnect between apparent on the ground growth and estimated fast declining population makes it uncertain which way to turn policy wise and I believe also drives away investment.  I lived in Baltimore in the 90's, a time when the city really was losing lots of people and the situation really was dire.  It is nothing like that now.  The situation in the 90's was desperate and the mayor acknowledged that in city policy.  However, estimated population losses, as a percent of population, are higher now.  I'm also nearly certain that St Louis is also doing better than the populations losses indicate.

Well for what its worth i don't really doubt the household size estimates for either city.  There is going to be a percent error so its not 100% accurate but i'd wager they are decently accurate for comparisons.  The one category where we may not be capturing good data is within undocumented immigrant families but thats a relatively small proportion of the overall population especially in St. Louis.

In so much that bad numbers affect public policy i suppose the numbers matter but i think public policy at the local level is primarily shaped by the electorate who are intimately aware of and responding to the situation on the ground.  State and Federal public FUNDING is often based on population measures, but again i don't see the raw numbers be so far off that it would result in a sea change of funding.  Now certain cities with high undocumented migrant populations could likely be significantly underfunded if those populations were not included in the count.

Also IMO the prescription for slow growing cities or slowly shrinking cities IS pretty much the same.  Get more people.  Silly right?  Well no not really IMO.  Politically difficult.  Certainly.  The most obvious candidates for new residents are foreign born immigrants, particularly those who others are trying to ostracize based on country of origin.  Because we are in a time of high labor demand we can absorb a fair number without harshly impacting the current workforce, so now is the ideal time to bring them in.  As i acknowledged though, it is difficult politically .

The St. Louis region lost more than 3,200 residents in the year ended July 1, 2023, and was surpassed by both Charlotte and Orlando, making it the 23rd-largest U.S. metro by population, down from No. 21, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
While expected, the new figures underscore the area's economic challenges, according to a researcher who studies the data.

"There are always economic consequences to a population that's aging," said Ness Sandoval, professor of sociology at Saint Louis University. He's cited data showing that despite St. Louis posting healthy gross domestic product growth in 2022, it was surpassed for the measurement by Tampa and Austin, making St. Louis the 24th-largest metro for GDP. "The regional GDP is being impacted by population growth," Sandoval said.
The Census Bureau reported that the St. Louis region had a population of 2,796,999 in 2023, down from 2,800,245 in 2022, 2,812,587 in 2021 and 2,819,212 in 2020. In 2010, the agency said St. Louis had 2,787,701 residents.
The St. Louis region from 2022 to 2023 saw 1,517 more deaths than births, the agency said.
It also saw negative migration of 1,747; international migration totaled 3,856, but domestic migration was -5,603.
From 2022 to 2023, the Census Bureau said Charlotte gained 50,458 residents, for a new population of 2,805,115. Orlando gained 54,916, ending at 2,817,933.
Growing San Antonio (population 2,703,999) and Austin (2,473,275) could next pass St. Louis, Sandoval said.
The city of St. Louis and St. Louis County continued to lose residents.
The city lost 4,439 residents, or 1.5%, ending with 281,754 as of July 1. That means it has lost more than 37,000 residents since 2011, according to Census figures, with a loss of more than 18,000 since 2019.
St. Louis County lost 3,732, ending at 987,059. The county is smaller than in 1990, when it counted 993,508 residents.
The region's major Illinois counties also lost residents, with Madison down 820, to 262,752, and St. Clair off 1,247, to 251,018.

Gaining in Missouri were St. Charles County, up 2,861 to 416,659; Jefferson County, up 2,010 to 231,230; Lincoln County, up 1,517 to 64,699; and Warren County, up 516 to 37,806.
Greater St. Louis Inc., the region's primary business group, said in a statement that the new figures were expected and "affirm the reason" it was created three years ago.
"We have to up our game here in order to win this decade," it said. "In any given year, population data like this will ebb and flow, which is why it is imperative that we maintain our focus on and commitment to growth in the long term."
The group said it has set "ambitious targets and a plan of action to grow St. Louis by 2030," and is seeing "positive momentum."
It cited the 2022 GDP figure, plus a report from Site Selection Magazine that St. Louis tops a ranking of all metros along the Mississippi River for total number of corporate facility investment projects, for the period from July 2022 to December 2023. And it pointed to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that the region added nearly 25,000 new jobs last year.
"These major economic wins show that by working together as a metro and speaking with a unified voice, we are winning," Greater St. Louis said. "But there is still much work to do to get our population growing, and we must continue to act with urgency to win this decade and reverse these trends by 2030."
The Census Bureau, in a news release, said that in 2023, counties in the South saw faster growth and more Northeast and Midwest counties had population losses turn to gains. Sixty percent of U.S. counties gained population, up from 52% between 2021 and 2022. All U.S. counties averaged a 0.29% gain, up from 0.17%.

About 73% of U.S. metro areas grew from 2022 to 2023, it said.
"Areas which experienced high levels of domestic out-migration during the pandemic, such as in the Midwest and Northeast, are now seeing more counties with population growth," Lauren Bowers, chief of the Census Bureau's population estimates branch, said in the release. "Meanwhile, county population growth is slowing down out west, such as in Arizona and Idaho."
The Census Bureau said that of counties with population above 20,000, Randolph County, Missouri, some 40 miles north of Columbia, saw the second-steepest decline, at -2.1%. The Census Bureau previously said that for the year ended July 1, 2023, Missouri added a modest 18,988 residents, while Illinois lost 32,826. Kansas City added more than 12,000 residents during the period, to 2,221,343.