urbanSTL

^ again, a city in STLs position should have a line item on every budget to support the census. $5M annually would be transformative. A group of statisticians and economists to challenge the census, understand and communicate data, draft and implement local indicators, AND score every piece of legislation for its effectiveness at reversing population decline.

A group of us on this forum could probably draft a fairly accurate estimate using voter registration, building permits, vehicle counts/registrations, tax reporting.

imperialmog wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

Don't we have to remember there is a methodology issue that may be undercounting city numbers (and possibly to lesser extent some other locations). Mainly the demolition of vacant residences assumes a population loss of two regardless of occupation status beforehand?

Also, now and going forward there may be less reason to trust census numbers due to politics. Mainly sacking of federal employees and how the administration may be manipulating the numbers to undercount certain areas for political gain in both funding elements and in apportionment in state and federal legislatures.

But it’s still all relative and the federal government doesn’t have it out for StL metro more than everyone else.

There’s no justifying it. Region is failing

St.Louis should be a region of 3 million or more. It’s like we’ve failed in every way since the big boom in the late 1800s to mid 1900s & have suffered ever since. We can always blame the separation of the city/county however I’m willing to bet city leader back then were arrogant & confident that people would never leave the city. As we always St.Louis has potential but that’s where it stops at. The reality of the matter is St.Louis not only needs a downtown that’s alive & safe but we desperately need a north side that’s alive & safe. There’s no real way to solve any of it but I really believe North St.Louis could really benefit from a good influx of immigrants. Our eastern counties have potential as well but some of the communities are the poorest in the nation until that’s addressed I just don’t see the metro East growing any. I hope someday in my lifetime that St.Louis is a region over 3 million & the city proper is back over 300k. Again there’s potential but what do we make of that potential.


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If Srl City+County population had kept up with the nation's pop growth since 1980, it'd have 2.084M people. The alarm bell sounded a long time ago.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

If Srl City+County population had kept up with the nation's pop growth, it'd have 2.084M people. The alarm bell sounded a long time ago.

Yes they should have a long time ago but it’s been status quo and just increased competition. I guess I should say it’s officially panic time.

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote:

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

STL is in a sad and depressing place. There’s a negative pall cast all over the region. No excitement, no love or value of life. We’ve lost our respect for others, for God, etc. Kids go away to college and don’t come back, exacerbating the brain-drain.  Tough times.

Ray Hartman wrote this article 20 years ago in the Riverfront Times.

And please stop with the Elon Musk / Handmaid Tales “we need to procreate” BS. Have kids, in City, tons of youth in our area. False narrative from you on that, bible thumper.

Nothing like an anti-contraceptive idiot who voted to cut entitlement programs when the poor are the ones who need it most. If only Christians voted the way they talk.

I mean, the religious stuff aside, we do have a pretty serious issue with not enough kids being born. Complex reasons for that and not just a St Louis problem.

One way to grow population is to procreate. Nothing more nothing less.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

One way to grow population is to procreate. Nothing more nothing less.

I have not and will not be procreating. In the stead of my progeny could we bring 4 undocumented immigrants to be residents of STL city?

You'd be OK with that right?

Pre covid earnings tax collected   - 2019 - 184,405,968
Post covid earnings tax collected - 2023 - 218,976,082

source
https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/d ... uments.cfm

In that time period the census tells us we lost over 20,000 people in the city and the earnings tax collection increased by 19% - Slightly above the rate of inflation.

The census yearly estimates are always wrong, to the point that its useless to even consider them. The city has lost population since 2020 but not nearly what has been estimated.

The metro has grown, but who knows by how much, we are probably in with our peer city pack - Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Milwaukee - Its tough in this country to break out of your demographic prison. I know people bemoan leadership, fragmentation and a whole host of other things that while true, if "fixed" probably would not make a huge jump in population gain. 

We are an old, gray, rust belt city - and that is not destination material in the national narrative. But, yes, lets continue to fix the region and look or create strong visions and visionaries where we can - Look at the bigger arc's of history, things change but are often triggered by the most odd or benign circumstances.

We have all of the textbook ingredients for a great city... just keep working on it.

Our city is so horrible, yet I get numerous calls, texts, emails, postcards from people who want to buy my house.

Auggie wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

DogtownBnR wrote: ↑

Mar 13, 2025

At what population level (decline) (roughly) does it become impossible for the City to maintain basic services & maintenance of infrastructure? Just curious, as it seems at some point a merger is forced with STL County. Not saying that solves a damn thing, but the State & regional "leaders" have to be smart enough to know STL is the economic engine of the State. The fact that "leaders" have not made the population decline issue a focus is baffling. I get that tons of others things go into the equation, but "leaders" have failed us. 

We have a bad reputation, a population that continues to sh-t on the City & pounce on every headline "I told you how bad the City is, stay away". It almost seems like some want to see the City fail so they can tell you how nice it is in Chesterfield, Kirkwood, etc. The " we have a 'fill in the blank' out here, why do I need to go to the City" mentality reigns supreme. We the people of the region are also the issue. I am also very frustrated with the lack of solutions from regional government. 

In the end, we have no beaches, we have no mountains. We need JOBS, quality of life and cannot afford endless crime, lack of basic services, etc. We gain some jobs, we lose some. Seems like we are spinning our wheels at times. We have to get people here with our robust & diverse job offerings. We have to keep college kids here by offering them a career in our companies. They usually go where they find a job, marry a partner from college or a more desirable destination (beach or mountain). A dream job keeps them here. If college kids were leaving in the 90's, they must be leaving in droves now. 

In any event, the decline will continue until we FINALLY get visionary leaders in this region. Leaders that think outside the box, focus on the right things & understand our past failures. Otherwise, we'll continue to follow this decade after decade trend in the City. 

This isn't an issue the city is facing. First, fewer people means less demand for services. Trash trucks aren't picking up trash from vacant streets. Second, the city has been attracting and retaining higher income people while losing low income people in droves, meaning tax wise, the population loss doesn't have nearly the affect that it may have had in the 1960s or 1970s, when it was the opposite.

Regardless of population, the physical infrastructure would still need to be maintained. The City has infrastructure for a City of over 800K. Your comment would be accurate with regards to services. Now, if the tax base has increased as DB stated, then it would be more likely that the infrastructure could be maintained. I do believe if the population continues to decline at alarming rates (assuming the census is even slightly accurate), there will eventually be a significant impact on the tax base, especially if the earnings tax is not continued in the future. I get that is unlikely, but you never know. 

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Mar 14, 2025

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 14, 2025

Our city is so horrible, yet I get numerous calls, texts, emails, postcards from people who want to buy my house.

Honestly... I really think we need to just start pumping some money into the Prop NS fund and have a wing that is white-boxing and finishing every PropNS house and building new houses on every empty lot they can acquire in south city. Sell em at cost to an applicant that meets some form of requirements (preferential to those priced out of the housing market or those that are a net-add to population/earnings tax). Costs us $0 if we break even, profit if its a new resident, and we gain future residents at a faster rate than our current pace... 

We are losing all these people, yet there aren’t many houses on the market and they don’t stay long. Part of that issue is consistent across legacy midwest cities especially - people are only willing to move to certain areas of the city so those parts keep rising in price and become really competitive, because there’s a whole swath of the city people are just not willing to build or buy (most of north city in our case). So, we are somehow “short” on housing, despite apparently losing people left and right. This is why I show so much concern for our permitting office that has obviously fallen apart.

Yea, I think it would be a good revolving use of funds to fill out half full blocks in near north city and south city with rehabs and new builds and sell at cost to keep houses on the market in the city.

If we can fill out these on the verge blocks, then developers might be enticed to take up these entire city blocks in north city as blank slates.

You can cope about Metro all you want, SLPS is a joke and most people with kids aren't going to mess with it. You need to split SLPS into 3-5 smaller districts to allow at least parts, if not the majority of the city, to have a shot at retaining families in meaningful numbers. As it stands, it is unreformable. Continuing to beat around this bush for another 30-40 years won't get you anywhere.

Worship the Taylors all you want - STL's business community sucks, whatever's left of it after getting strip mined. Which yes, was partly their fault. Too few of the best young people are motivated to stay here, and justifiably so. The jobs suck, if they even exist at all. When the likes of *Maritz* are considered leaders, you've got a problem.

Some things probably aren't changeable on the local level. Financialization of the entire economy made living on the east coast and close to the money spigot a serious advantage. Shipping the country's manufacturing base to everywhere and anywhere but where it was developed took away a solid base for a local economy. The natural attractions are ok, underrated imo, but you have to deal with kinda sh*tty weather a lot of the time. Crime really isn't that much of an issue comparatively, though local services and perception of things being sh*t (sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly) are.

All in all, I don't know whether these numbers are accurate. Tbh, it doesn't feel like it on the ground. Things feel fine. Not like a collapse or like 1 out of 10 people are leaving every year. Keeping pace with the rest of the native-born segment of this country, given the headwinds going against this region (and the entire rust belt), is enough of a W for now. Keep building on it. Bite the bullet, quit coping, and split up SLPS so at least south city is an option for families. Find a way to have a relatively responsive municipal government east of Skinker. Keep pushing for general municipal consolidation where it makes sense. Do not allow low standards under the guise of "well some x ideology is more important". Give corpo types sh*t for allowing the local economy to be gutted, don't fawn all over them because they bought stadium naming rights.

tl;dr not great not terrible

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... -2024.html

The Census Bureau says St. Louis City lost over 5.6k from domestic migration, added 2.4k from international migration, and added 173 from having more births than deaths. The city was one of 4 counties in the MSA to have positive natural change.

It's also worth noting that the estimated decline is significantly lower then 2021, 2022, and 2023. Those three years averaged -2.2% while 2024 was -1.1%.

Still can't wait to see the 2030 census reveal that the population is undercounted by 7-10k.

stlgasm wrote: ↑

Mar 15, 2025

Both Baltimore City and Detroit City increased in population between 2023-2024. In that same timeframe, St. Louis City registered the 2nd highest population loss in the entire country.  Talk about a rude awakening.  BALTIMORE!  DETROIT!! The two most maligned cities in America have figured out how to grow again, but St. Louis continues to slide (and we can't even used the city-county divide as an excuse, because Baltimore is also an independent city).  We've got our work cut out for us, St. Louis.  But Auggie says things are going great and we should stay the course!  Happy 314 Day!

My bad for not really caring what the Census Bureau has to guess when they gave Detroit a +11k revision after the city sued them.

Or how about when Erie County, NY (Buffalo) magically gained over 33k people from 2019 to 2020?

Or maybe when Cuyahoga County, OH (Cleveland) magically gained 27k from 2019 to 2020?

The idea that our population loss is on pace with New Orleans is pure fantasy.

stlgasm wrote: ↑

Mar 15, 2025

Both Baltimore City and Detroit City increased in population between 2023-2024. In that same timeframe, St. Louis City registered the 2nd highest population loss in the entire country.  Talk about a rude awakening.  BALTIMORE!  DETROIT!! The two most maligned cities in America have figured out how to grow again, but St. Louis continues to slide (and we can't even use the city-county divide as an excuse, because Baltimore is also an independent city).  We've got our work cut out for us, St. Louis. Happy 314 Day!

Yea, these are the type of things that made me pretty doom yesterday. It’s ultimate panic time

Trololzilla wrote:How sure are we that local housing stock is actually being purchased by people that intend to live in them and not by private equity/Blackrock types?

Private equity doesn’t seem to see future value growth in STL SF and small MF housing.

The problem I have and am seeing with the local market is the sale churn in that housing with smaller retail investor types from out of state (and plenty in) who don’t know what they’re doing …they’ll buy, fail to maintain, and sell on just to repeat the cycle.

walker wrote: ↑

Mar 15, 2025

Trololzilla wrote:How sure are we that local housing stock is actually being purchased by people that intend to live in them and not by private equity/Blackrock types?

Private equity doesn’t seem to see future value growth in STL SF and small MF housing.

The problem I have and am seeing with the local market is the sale churn in that housing with smaller retail investor types from out of state (and plenty in) who don’t know what they’re doing …they’ll buy, fail to maintain, and sell on just to repeat the cycle.

Private equity probably owns 15-20%  plus of North County.  Blackstone specifically.  PE has a much harder time investing in the larger ground up projects like The 100.  

[quote=walker post_id=397818 time=1742041317



The problem I have and am seeing with the local market is the sale churn in that housing with smaller retail investor types from out of state (and plenty in) who don’t know what they’re doing …they’ll buy, fail to maintain, and sell on just to repeat the cycle.[/quote]

But, but, the painted brick looks so fresh and clean!