agree with this 100000000000%. Currently, St. Louis has the 15th most African Americans in U.S. metros, a disproportionally higher number than it's 21st ranked metro size.goat314 wrote: ↑Dec 20, 2022I also think St. Louis does a really poor job retaining black professionals. This is hurting us demographically too. Many of the young black professionals I know jump at the chance to go to DC, Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, NYC etc. The perception is that St. Louis is generally just a racist city that is not welcoming to black professionals. Although, many people would like St. Louis to be more like Portland, Denver, Austin, Nashville, etc. The reality is that St. Louis demographically is a major Afro-American hub and whatever the city can do to improve the quality of life of black residents in the metro area, the better the region will do overall. We have a nice sized HBCU in Midtown, that should be a major selling point to attract and retain educated black people to the metro area. I'm very envious of how DC and Atlanta, now Texas and the Carolinas have promoted themselves as meccas for the black middle class, sucking away a lot of black talent from markets like St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, etc.pattimagee wrote: ↑Dec 19, 2022^Agreed - a few years ago when Steve Smith was talking about adding 10K residents to midtown I was sitting with someone doing really rough, 'back of the napkin' math and the metro area is roughly 7 to 8% ages 20-24-ish and if you can change the tides on a small portion of that ~200K population (obviously there is nuance here), you can make a pretty big impact in an area like midtown.goat314 wrote: ↑Dec 17, 2022I'm hoping continued development in Midtown makes St. Louis more "sticky" for recent college grads. I remember when I went to Florida State how many people were still there 5-10 years after I graduated. I think one of the areas SLU and to a lesser extent Wash U failed is creating environments around the campus that were genuinely attractive to younger people and recent college graduates. I'm glad in the last couple of years, somebody most have gotten the memo. Much of the success of places like Austin, Nashville, etc. was keeping their young people stuck right out of college, which creates a young and vibrant vibe around the universities and creates demqnd for more housing, services, etc. I hope our major corporations and civic leaders are taking notes.
Goat, how bout you move back? get it started yourself.
