Population Loss, Not Gain, For St. Louis
Last month I did a reader poll asking What Will St. Louis’ Population Be In The 2010 Census? The following week the poll results showed optimism:
Q: The 2000 Census had St. Louis’ population at 348,189, the 2009 estimate at 356,587. Where will the 2010 count be?
- More than 356,587: 82 [ 58.57%]
- Between 348,189 and 356,587: 36 [25.71%]
- Less than 348,198: 13 [9.29%]
- who knows, will just have to wait for the results 7 [5%]
- Other answer… 2 [1.43%]
I was in the #2 camp, thinking we had held steady. Wrong!
The city of St. Louis lost nearly 29,000 people during the past decade, a decline of about 8 percent of its population. (Census: St. Louis Population down 8 Percent)
On the plus side, an 8% decline is less than 2000 (12.2%) 1990 (12.4%) and way less than 1980 (27.2%). Still stings though.
As the numbers get examined in the coming weeks, months and years I think we will see much of the population loss occurred in the poorer tracts. Past loses eroded the middle class – both black & white. The 2010 Census didn’t collect economic data such as household income so analysis will be difficult.
We all need to remember the good things we have going on, the numerous walkable commercial districts, the renovated architecture, etc. That didn’t change yesterday. I love this city no less today than I did a week ago.
The population loss does affirm my belief that we need major restructuring at City Hall. Every employee, elected official, department, process needs to be evaluated. I don’t want to change the city charter, I want to replace it — start from scratch. We must do something different or in ten years I’ll be saying a 6% loss isn’t as bad.
– Steve Patterson
I wonder how much of the discrepancy in counts has to do with border neighborhoods like the areas west of Skinker, south of the river Des Peres, or the extreme northern area bordering the Mississippi? Don't some of these areas share zip codes with the County? The population of Clayton jumped substantially from 2000, and I wonder if some of these residents should actually be counted as part of the City of St. Louis? While the current numbers don't look positive, when I look around at many of our City neighborhoods, I see a lot of progress and positive change (even with the recession going on).
Census tracts are not based on zip codes, they are quite small areas. I too see positive change.
As an African American living on the north side where much work needs to be done, I have a difficult time with folks complaining and fighting against development. We can no longer have all low to moderate income folks stuffed vs stacked in one area. Diversity is a must!!! Oh, but some folks call that gentrification. Schools are horrible, more focus is given to discipline so you can have a conducive climate to teach in…most teachers don't live in the city, most policemen, don't live in the city, don't know the requirement for firemen. All the folks who left were not white folks, black folks have headed for the hills.
Newsflash, the city is broke, handwriting on the wall when we charged a mere $11 for trash pick up, when you have to furlogh folks so all can have a job. It's hard to balance a budget on air. Time for all hands on deck and time for folks to stop fighting what needs to be done, which only serves to run more people away because they know you may not be a “desirable” neighbor which everybody deserves. I am sorely disappointed and ticked off!!!
karen, i think what you're calling for is by definition the opposite of gentrification. gentrified areas are not generally diverse. they result from the displacement of low-income folks by upper- and middle-income folks.
I might also add, it is not personal, we need some type of sliding scale for the number of alderman that are needed to govern a city of this size! That's where we can start in changing the city charter, I don't say throw the entire thing out, but do we need all of these aldermen setting up fiefdoms where they are merely the head honcho over long ago vacant and abandoned land, vacant lots and empty buildings. This did not just happen over night. Provisions need to be made to have X amount of aldermen for X amount of people. Again, I'm just saying! Talk to me….
Redistricting will give each alderman an equal number of consituents. If someone is now “the head honcho over long ago vacant and abandoned land, vacant lots and empty buildings”, their ward is going to get a lot bigger.
I am all for St. Louis City Charter Reform, Steve! Let me know when the movement begins (again) for this change.
I don't think “city hall”, per se, and the charter, specifically, are at the core of the problem. The fundamental issues, crime, schools, jobs and taxes, won't be solved by investing the effort needed to craft, and to convince the voters to adopt, especially now, a new city structure. Plus, both the police and the schools are seperate entities, with their own governance and their own sets of challenges, that a new charter would not impact.
The three big issues/reasons I see for the continued decline in our census numbers are urban flight, by both blacks and whites, continued economic decline, both in the city and regionally, and changing family structure – “traditional” families have fewer kids and we have a higher percentage of singles, single parents and empty nesters residing in the city than we did in the past.
What the census shows is a continued move away from density – more vacancies and fewer occupants per unit, in the city, and continued growth on the urban fringe – which creates challenges for the lovers of the traditional urban form. Gentrification will help take up some of that slack, but what's really needed are more good jobs. Successful urban areas (NYC, DC, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Denver) all have strong and growing employment centers in their CBD's, while less-urban areas (Tampa, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, Bentonville, O'Fallon) don't. And, by definition, these are office uses, not manufacturing or distribution (which occurs either in one-story suburban structues or off-shore). The clearest metric here is that St. Louis city has not seen a new office building built downtown in over 20 years, while multiple high rises have been constructed in Clayton and low-rise offices continue to be built along the I-64 corridor all the way out to Wentzville.
“Fixing” our downtown will be critical to fixing the rest of the city. And while McKee's Northside project won't directly impact the CBD, its success would play a critical supporting role. Fixing downtown also requires attracting real jobs with real workers. Residential lofts and data centers certainly help absorb vacant square feet, but they don't provide the sustained incomes and people on the streets that support street-level retail. While “cube farms” may not be everyone's ideal job, their higher-than-retail paychecks create the disposable income that support all the cool stuff that make great urban ares great.
Just a correction Steve: The 2010 Census DOES include all kinds of economic data, but it has not been released yet. They rush to put out the basic counts for redistricting purposes, and then roll out all the other tables and variables later. A schedule can be found here: http://www.census.gov/populati…/
Interestingly, Clayton (whose population rose 24% since 2000) now has a higher population density than the City. Clayton's density (people / square mile) is 6375, and St. Louis's is 5158. (In 2000, Clayton's density was 5130, and the City's was 5625.) This shows that people like higher population densities fine, especially if coupled with excellent schools, low crime rates, and no municipal income tax.
While superb city planning cannot alleviate all problems, it certainly could make St. Louis attractive again. If it is attractive, there are more residents and visitors, more money, which leads to better schools and so on.
Much of the underlying failure has nothing to do with whether there are a million alderman or one, nor city charters nor other abstract changes which may be improvements in themselves. Instead it is a failure in governance.
Mayor Slay just stated that he supported McKee's vision on the Northside, that whatever he might do would be a win-win for St. Louis.
It is clear Slay has not the slightest idea on how to build viable cities, nor apparently does much of the political/corporate establishment in St. Louis.
Slay's attitude that anything McKee could do would be a winner is exactly how the city got into the position it is in.
St. Louis is still a nice city because of the past. Without going into long drawn out specifics, there are many cities in the world with a much higher quality of life, with dynamic and forward thinking planning processes that include a comprehensive understanding of peoples needs and what makes cities really work.
Until there is a seismic shift in thinking and understanding of cities and city building, St. Louis city will continue to lose population.
This failure impacts the county and ultimately the region negatively.
Agree, maybe 80%. While the charter structure provides the framework, it's how the people use the framework that really makes a difference. Our aldermen can continue to focus almost exclusively on their individual wards, or they can move to a more wholistic, consensus-based view of the city – there's absolutely nothing written in the charter to prevent this! Our challenges are much more cultural than legal, as the multitude of county cities illustrate – there seems to be some weird local comfort level in assuming that what's happening 5 miles away doesn't really impact “me” . . .
Steve, your willingness to love a city despite an 8 percent population loss is touching.
It seems to me that gay ownership of St. Louis City properties has expanded, which means new high end businesses and more money for the restoration of buildings and houses, but not necessarily big families. Hence the City is doing better in some sense, but with fewer people. At least that is what I am seeing in the 25th Ward
I would say their is a couple of changes that can happen relatively quickly depending on the State House and an April election.
First, The current legislation to give St. Louis back control of its police department includes a state Senate amendment requiring the number of alderman to decrease from 28 to 14. I might be mistaken, if so correct me. I think this a win-win idea. The city simply has too many aldermen for its current population, time to bring some fiefdoms down just as the county desparately need to drop the number of muni's down.
Second, Earnings tax vote in April. The reality is if city residents vote to abolish it a very big rethink and some very hard choices will have to be made.