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Missouri’s fertility rate is in the top half of the country. Much higher than Illinois’ rate.

Even the best state, SD, is below replacement level.

Drives home the importance of immigration and illustrates how Republican pooling is suicidal

soulardx wrote: ↑

6:18 PM - Apr 28

"I’m just trying to get people to move from the mindset that this is 2010 St. Louis. You don’t have 36,000 births anymore. You have 27,000 and it’s declining, one of the fastest declines in the country. Because of it, we’re aging very fast, and so we have to shift. The region has to make a choice that we start to organize our economy around senior citizens. There’s lots of money to be made from senior citizens, but we will never be viewed as Nashville or Austin as a place for young people."

That's such an ridiculous take that I have a hard time taking anything this guy says seriously anymore.  

He's in every local publication every other week talking about how the demographic sky is falling, and his solution is to just accept it and become a retirement community.

The real answer is jobs. It has always been jobs, and it will always be jobs. That's one thing I actually like about the new Greater STL CEO, that he is hyper-focused on jobs. I know we're all about urbanism here, but jobs are the single greatest factor in attracting young families. No one is moving to Houston, or even Nashville or Austin, for the urbanism, weather, or world class culture. It's jobs. 

Yeah, niche take but I'm really tired of Ness being treated like some kind of oracle by the local media. He's tracking demographics, sure, but he doesn't have any ideas to improve things other than boilerplate stuff like "schools and crime should be better" and "we need to try harder to retain college grads." Like yeah bruh, ofc.

He rarely talks about practical solutions at the same level of detail, likely because many of the commonsense solutions already exist here. Regionally, we have strong schools, and even within St. Louis some of the magnet schools outperform suburban districts. Housing remains relatively affordable. Residents here have more disposable income than in all peer metros. We also have major free amenities like the Saint Louis Zoo, Saint Louis Art Museum, and Forest Park.

Those are exactly the kinds of assets cities usually try to build in order to attract families. We already have them. What we have not solved at scale is sustained job growth. Until more high-quality jobs are created, population growth will remain difficult. That is why Boeing matters so much here. It can add 5,000 to 20,000 jobs over the next decade to support F15 orders going from
87 to 268, new fighter jet, the refueling drone.

Generally, I think there is very little to be done from a policy perspective to increase fertility.

Prime fertility is the 20s. Waiting until age 30 to start a family basically guarantees a person will not have more than 2 kids on average, usually just 1.

The best way to increase fertility is increasing stability for people by age 22-23. That means gainful employment and accessible housing that can accommodate children.

Unfortunately, we’ve built a system that doesn’t allows young people to have much, if any, real skin in the game until they are 30. By that time, it’s basically impossible to have a large family

Wow, you all hate Ness. LOL.  Supposes he's the new Patrick Rishe.  For years, Rishe was quoted constantly about the value of sports to the region and beyond. Don't see him quoted so much anymore. I also see he is now at Wash U.

No matter, I agree that *jobs* are the ultimate driver of any region.  Regarding Boeing, I've seen younger people *who moved here for Boeing* getting a tour of my building many times now.  100% anecdotal but a good anecdote at least.

I don’t hate Ness. I do think he’s a unique feature for STL, other regions don’t have a demographic researcher running around creating sound bites and headlines. It feels that he’s excited to disparage the region in order to help himself professionally.

I wish him the best… I just wish that best was talking about Pittsburgh.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

1:59 PM - Apr 29

I don’t hate Ness. I do think he’s a unique feature for STL,  other regions don’t have a demographic researcher running around creating sound bites and headlines. It feels that he’s excited to disparage the region in order to help himself professionally.

I wish him the best… I just wish that best was talking about Pittsburgh.

Probably something too that for sure.

And, as discussed here ad naseum, local media loves nothing more than to file stories on the demise of downtown/the region, as locals can't stop clicking on said stories. 

We obviously should work on increasing domestic and international immigration to the region, but fertility rates are low everywhere in the developed world, so that is just a stop gap and only buys you another generation. None of the pro-family policies around the world have made a dent in this issue so it just seems like we’ll have to figure out how to do more with less. I’m always an optimist though and don’t think it will be catastrophic or as big of a problem as many on the right make it out to be.

Also I have not seen this shared by Ness or any of our local media, but Missouri led the Midwest in domestic population growth in 2025. That’s a very solid number, imagine what it could be if the St. Louis region were growing.

STLcommenter wrote: ↑

3:40 PM - Apr 29

We obviously should work on increasing domestic and international immigration to the region, but fertility rates are low everywhere in the developed world, so that is just a stop gap and only buys you another generation. None of the pro-family policies around the world have made a dent in this issue so it just seems like we’ll have to figure out how to do more with less. I’m always an optimist though and don’t think it will be catastrophic or as big of a problem as many on the right make it out to be.

Also I have not seen this shared by Ness or any of our local media, but Missouri led the Midwest in domestic population growth in 2025. That’s a very solid number, imagine what it could be if the St. Louis region were growing.

thanks for sharing that map!  Love it.

I have to admit that I find those Missouri numbers kinda shocking. Where are all those people coming from and moving to. Specifically.  Is KC even growing on the Missouri side?

pattimagee wrote: ↑

4:20 PM - Apr 29

I saw this shared this morning, but thought it was equally shocking... but with the population density of the coasts, I guess it doesn't take too much to make a big impact: 



There's some other replies in there that are interesting as well - and now I'm seeing the same map shared further downthread in that tweet, so I guess its from the same source, lol

thanks for sharing that too.

the twitter algo keeps pumping me the Ness interview so I need these kinds of tweets to remove Ness. lol

Jeez. I'm old enough to remember when out-of-control population growth was widely considered to be the greatest threat to humanity.

Funny how things change.

I think some of the growth in Missouri is around Mid Missouri, SW Missouri as well.  Springfield and Columbia are growing quite a lot.  I am not sure about the Missouri side of Metro KC.  I don't get there much and it is hard to tell on paper, thought the city has shown some impressive growth?  I am not sure if that is annexation or infill only on the north side.

Force strength and violent crime by Missouri’s 4 largest cities.

The most “dangerous” city is America isn’t even the second most dangerous in its own state

very interesting graphs!

How many officers per violent crime. How many per property crime? How do those numbers compare with the county? Suburban towns?


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gary kreie wrote: ↑

6:49 PM - 20 days ago

How many officers per violent crime.  How many per property crime?   How do those numbers compare with the county? Suburban towns?


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we have 1 officer per 4 violent crimes, KC has 1 per 6.33 and Springfield has 1 per 6 violent crimes......

Thanks.


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