urbanSTL

For reference, the Census estimates say the City of Chicago and Chicago Metropolitan Area are both hemorrhaging residents.

If the Stl region population growth had kept up with the nation's since 1970, it'd have 1.3M more people. Another Stl City+County.
Just 1% per year.

There's a lot fleeing and flocking and occasionally hemorrhaging with media reporting and the Census.

I never thought my distrust of the media and anti-government extremist views would extend to the Census counts but....

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

Mar 30, 2023

For reference, the Census estimates say the City of Chicago and Chicago Metropolitan Area are both hemorrhaging residents.

There are a number of cities that are hemmoraging residents. Some of them at faster annual rates than St. Louis ever had in the last 70 years. Won't know if its short term or now but also may be entering a new suburban sprawl era after 2020 as well.

Other factors that could be in play is significant drop in birth rates and higher death rates now so it may not neccesarily be people moving but instead people dying or not being born.

So you're saying it's Children of Men.

framer wrote: ↑

Mar 30, 2023

So you're saying it's Children of Men.

Yes, complete with declining (to zero?) fertility due to industrial pollution, e.g., microplastics in your privates.

° Seems like an AI chatbot reply

Politicians figured out the threat to their power by immigration a long time ago when cities were gaining power ~1900. Thus the non-reapportionment of US reps after the 1920 census and the immigration restrictions passed in 1924. Then they used urban renewal, suburban subsidies, and highway building to further diminish the power of cities after WWII. 

The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)
https://history.state.gov/milestones/19 ... ration-act

^^Hard disagree on the AI piece. I say nuke it from orbit.

On your second point, totally agree; They (suburbanites) will not come back in large numbers. At best, some small percentage of their adult children may move to the city as young adults and some even smaller portion may stay and raise families, but even that perennial phenomena will wain, perhaps permanently, if the City doesn't get a handle on the crime/perception of crime problem. Speaking only for myself, out of the cohort of lets say 20 people from my suburban social circle that moved to the City circa 2007-2010, only about four of us are left and I'm the only one with children. Half have left just since 2020. Yes this is anecdotal but apparent continued population decline seems to confirm it (setting aside the documented problems with the Census, etc.). This trend may be slowed but I highly doubt it can be stopped and definitely not reversed, at least within the metro area alone.* 

Rather, the City needs a campaign to recruit upwardly mobile minorities from other cities with ballooning costs of living, e.g., Atlanta GA and Raleigh/Durham NC, to fill the gap. Two words: FREE REAL-ESTATE (ok, maybe three words).  On the northside, for any person or household with an above-median income, with real-estate improvements tax fully abated for 5-10 years. Yes, this might be "regressive," but the City needs new residents who will both earn and spend in the City and without public support, so we can grow and maintain the tax base necessary to continue supporting those who do need it. 

*The one variable that may change this a serious response to climate change that restricts energy consumption and thereby makes the suburban life-style cost prohibitive. This is even less politically likely than immigration reform or the City getting control of crime. 

SB in BH wrote: ↑

Apr 04, 2023

^^Hard disagree on the AI piece. I say nuke it from orbit.

On your second point, totally agree; They (suburbanites) will not come back in large numbers. At best, some small percentage of their adult children may move to the city as young adults and some even smaller portion may stay and raise families, but even that perennial phenomena will wain, perhaps permanently, if the City doesn't get a handle on the crime/perception of crime problem. Speaking only for myself, out of the cohort of lets say 20 people from my suburban social circle that moved to the City circa 2007-2010, only about four of us are left and I'm the only one with children. Half have left just since 2020. Yes this is anecdotal but apparent continued population decline seems to confirm it (setting aside the documented problems with the Census, etc.). This trend may be slowed but I highly doubt it can be stopped and definitely not reversed, at least within the metro area alone.* 

Rather, the City needs a campaign to recruit upwardly mobile minorities from other cities with ballooning costs of living, e.g., Atlanta GA and Raleigh/Durham NC, to fill the gap. Two words: FREE REAL-ESTATE (ok, maybe three words).  On the northside, for any person or household with an above-median income, with real-estate improvements tax fully abated for 5-10 years. Yes, this might be "regressive," but the City needs new residents who will both earn and spend in the City and without public support, so we can grow and maintain the tax base necessary to continue supporting those who do need it. 

*The one variable that may change this a serious response to climate change that restricts energy consumption and thereby makes the suburban life-style cost prohibitive. This is even less politically likely than immigration reform or the City getting control of crime. 

While I do think St. Louis should do more to appeal to a diverse demographic, why would "upwardly mobile minorities" want to live in St. Louis? If they can afford to live in established hubs like Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, DC, etc. There also smaller markets like Charlotte, Tampa, Orlando, etc. that offer much of the same at lesser premium.

I say minorities in particular because I just don't believe you're going to get more than a token contingent of white folks to move to the City, much less the northside, regardless of what incentives you throw at them. (Other than the aforementioned suburban refugees who live almost exclusively in the central corridor or near south side and typically don't stick around). I say "upwardly mobile" because we need to stabilize and then grow the tax base and the City is currently mostly poor/working class.

At the moment it seems nobody wants to live in St. Louis over the established hubs. My point is we may be able to attract this demographic away from places with high and growing cost of living via the attraction of free real estate and tax abatements, any other incentives we might be able to throw in, and cultural amenities where I think StL punches above its weight. Not sure how that would stack up against the other smaller markets you reference except that obviously we can't compete on weather. 

A friend's frustration.

We know these annual estimates have a huge margin of error and 2020 census was a organizational disaster run at the start of covid

Its worth noting that the recent issues the city of St. Louis is having is not unusual, especially after 2020 and is increasingly the norm. We just may be entering the 2nd era of suburban flight due to some of the same issues that reappeared decades ago on a national basis. Though the biggest difference this time is the WFH issue.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Apr 06, 2023

We know these annual estimates have a huge margin of error and 2020 census was a organizational disaster run at the start of covid

Assuming you're suggesting that because there are more registered voters in '23 vs '12, it indicates, at worst, a stagnant, if not growing, city population?  Could it also be that a larger % of the citizens have registered to vote in the last 11 years, given, well, everything?

Or we've lost more children than we've gained with adults...

Which makes sense with a growing central corridor population and shrinking in the north/south neighborhoods.

^,^^ its both. Voter registration is up, percentage of households with kids, and the number of kids they have, is down. When StL (and cities in general) were at their peak, the average family had like 15 kids and now they have -3. Yes, I'm being facetious, but not that much. And that's before we add in white flight, were the majority of such people moving out to the burbs were families with kids.

City of St. Louis labor force and employment during the same period. Labor force leveled off in 2018. This supports the claim that fewer children is the primary challenge.

You can make a list of things that would help but it’d look like the typical list. Affordable housing and childcare. Better and more stable schools. Lower street crime. More trees and parks.

addxb2 wrote:City of St. Louis labor force and employment during the same period. Labor force leveled off in 2018. This supports the claim that fewer children is the primary challenge.

You can make a list of things that would help but it’d look like the typical list. Affordable housing and childcare. Better and more stable schools. Lower street crime. More trees and parks.

It’s interesting, Norway, a country that seemingly has all that and more, had their lowest birth rate on record last year. So who the hell knows


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There is also the large number of people retiring that is also contributing to this. 

This decade may have a lot of shifts in patterns both metro area and nationally.  Metro area is I could see development patterns shift in different directions.

Nationally a number of areas start losing population that hasn't before or not in a long time. We may be back to the 70s and 80s nationally in urban flight. Certain growth areas may start running into affordability issues that will start to slow growth.

^Population decline may hit the burbs especially hard. Not enough cheap labor, credit, materials (namely energy) to maintain all of those extra miles of infrastructure. Increasingly expensive fossil fuels and an insufficient supply of replacement renewable energy might make sprawl in general less economically viable. WFH may mitigate some of that for those with email jobs, but for people who's jobs involve more than a computer and internet connection, it may become necessary to live closer to work. 

Of course that doesn't mean those people will move back to the City, but rather that rural small towns along with suburbs with urban amenities, like Webster or Kirkwood, may become more dense, with the "strip malls and subdivisions" type of suburb gradually hollowing out.

We are decidedly not back to the 1970s and 80s in terms urban flight. People in this forum who think that need to get some perspective, like there are problems but no they are not comparable to the decade when New York City went bankrupt and St. Louis lost 27% of its population.