Shedding Demographics: Why St. Louis’ Population is Declining

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St Louis Old Courthouse

If there ever were an eclectic city, St. Louis would top all the charts. Also known as the ‘Gateway to the West’, it thrives with a vibrant art and music scene along with excellent parks, museums, breweries and more besides.

As per the latest US census data, the city’s population stands at 272,610 in 2024. Some major reasons why people move to St. Louis include an affordable standard of living, plenty of opportunities for fun and entertainment and inexpensive housing. The city was even ranked among the 20 most fun cities in the US.

Despite all this, St. Louis’ current population is in a free fall. Its growth rate was a negative 2.5% in the previous year. Why is that?

In this article we take a look the reasons behind the mass exodus of families and young folks from St. Louis, Missouri.

A major population dip

Shortly after World War II, St. Louis’ population peaked at a whopping 856,000. The city’s boundaries seemed to be on the verge of bursting apart at the seams. Most people had to move to the suburbs for a comfortable life.

However, in the decades that followed, the story was more or less the same – people began leaving the city by the thousands. This was especially true of those from the Black community. This section of the population started moving out from the 1970s and the pattern was present even in 2021.

Even in 2023, St. Louis city and county shed nearly 15,000 residents. Just think about it – St. Louis had over 300,000 residents in 2020. The numbers have fallen ever so low since then.

Reasons why people are moving out of St. Louis

Many major cities across the US are witnessing a major shift in their urban population. The main question is why are people choosing to move out of the St. Louis area? There may be several personal and subjective reasons involved. However, the following four are the most common.

Road accidents

News of fatal road accidents is extremely common across the city and county. Some of the most dangerous roads and intersections across St. Louis include I-64 and McKnight Road, Grand Boulevard, Hampton and Oakland Avenue and I-44 and Jefferson Avenue. Grand Boulevard is considered to be among the deadliest in the US.

Locals site the following reasons to be the driving causes of accidents:

  • Traffic congestion
  • Confusing road design
  • Crumbling pavements and potholes
  • Unsafe pedestrian crossings
  • Drivers willfully disobeying traffic laws
  • Narrow lanes
  • Over speeding

Many drivers have had to take a longer commute just to avoid infrastructural threats. Since it’s a logistics hub, St. Louis’ accidents always involve the possibility of a commercial truck being involved. In any case drivers tend to zip along at a speed of 40mph or more across the interstates.

St Louis Gateway Arch

Gateway Arch by Joe Howard – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

One can only imagine the damage a crash can cause. Even if there are no fatalities, victims are left with debilitating conditions. According to TorHoerman Law, some of these include broken bones, lacerations, paralysis, brain trauma, spinal cord injuries, etc.

Then, a tough legal battle awaits them after recovery. Without a St. Louis car accident lawyer, it’s often difficult to get fair compensation. It can take months to several years (depending on the case’s complexity) to settle. Naturally, the residents do not wish to deal with such hassles and move out in search of calmer waters.

Lack of access to quality schooling

As mentioned earlier, thousands of people enter St. Louis each year with hopes of an affordable standard of living. The city’s cost of living is 6% lower than the national average. This means the monthly costs for a family of four would amount roughly to $3,800 (excluding rent).

Sadly St. Louis’ public school system is lacking due to racial concentration and funding disparities. The problem of troubled schooling is hardly a novel one as the situation has remained stagnant since the early 2000s.

While some schools are performing better than the district’s average, most are not reaching their potential. In 2019 almost 50% of the most underperforming schools in Missouri belonged to St. Louis. A citywide plan is needed to overcome decades of academic failure. If not, families will continue to leave the city.

Arbitrary climatic conditions

Climate change has indeed affected the entire world, albeit to varying degrees. Nonetheless, cities like St. Louis are most vulnerable to its devastating effects due to unpredictable climatology.

In the past 20 years the city has experienced 22 natural disasters including earthquakes, floods and severe storms. The major issue with these disasters is the fact that they’re often too arbitrary. Residents must always be prepared for impending doom. Living in such a manner can become too stressful to sustain.

In a 2022 study St. Louis Missouri was termed as the most dangerous city in the US. The three main reasons for such a ranking were the increasing number of road accidents, natural disasters and violent crime rates.

The third was another factor why people wanted to leave the city. However, the statistics have improved since then with crime rates dropping to an all-time low in 2023, dipping by 21%. This may be attributed to targeted crime prevention investments (though the real reason is unclear).

Even so St. Louis’ population loss needs to be addressed at the earliest, as made clear by its demographer, Ness Sandoval. He emphasizes the fact that it is impossible to stay in a major metropolitan area with a declining Black population.

Top image by Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, NPS from St. Louis, MO, USA – Runner Fountain and Old Courthouse and Arch, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

8 Comments

  1. Crime is not falling. They are almost 400 officers short. Crimes get reported but depending on the crime. No report is done. Also if there are 3 people are robbed at one call. That goes into stats as one incident. Investigate before you write.

    • Exactly. Traffic accident?? Lol! We moved from Houston, TX. If it was traffic accident, people would’ve left Houston in droves! While in fact, Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the US.

      Same with climatic arbitration. Houston in 2023 experienced three digit temperatures for at least two months in a row during their summer. They had tornadoes as well as hurricanes in summer of 2024 yet also experiencing cold snaps which their infrastructure is completely unprepared for. Lost electricity for days in the same month of July 2024 due to tornadoes and hurricanes. Climate arbitration in STL?! Please, do your studies before writing articles, otherwise keep them in your diary!

    • The most exteme weather occured over 100 years ago.Killer mega tornados in 1896,1929 killed hundreds.The biggest heatwave was in the 1930’s.Climate change? Not!

  2. Not just the city but county also. crime, government corruption. Dozens of redundant cities agencies. No one cares. Just out for themselves.

  3. I live in saint louis mo and am recently pregnant I don’t wanna raise nor have My child here this place is so corrupt and nothing here really especially when it comes to police safety and the judicial system black women with or without families I would stay clear of here trying My best to move as soon as possible women have no rights or nobody to fight for them and are treated unfair

  4. The City of Saint Louis does nothing to improve or even show support. Neither does the
    State. The State of MO has Abandoned the Wainwright building moving 600 employees to the suburbs. The downtown roads are in terrible disrepair. Broken and poorly timed traffic lights. Many are unnecessary. The broken traffic lights cause more wrecks and people to go thru red lights. After waiting ten minutes for a light to change and not one car coming from the cross traffic we all ran the light including the police car. Parking is ridiculously expensive. I had to quit the downtown YMCA due to meter parking far exceeded to gym cost while empty parking garages are boarded up. At a recent downtown neighborhood association meeting the police, county and city attorney offices, Cori Bush’s office and more were in attendance. No one from the city attended. Fix the lights. Fix the streets. Make parking accessible. There are many good things about living downtown. I would guess those making decisions for downtown probably don’t live downtown.
    Without support from the city or the state of MO downtown will continue to decline.
    And those of you with your loud vehicles and those of you from the suburbs coming downtown with your loud exhaust and to commit crimes, please stay in the suburbs. People living downtown are not the ones ruining downtown. It’s people and criminals from the suburbs mostly.

  5. Pretty interesting the article does nothing to touch on the actual problem. The people. “Where did you go to high school?” being the common greeting is the real issue. Anyone with ambition leaves the wretched place which just leaves a crowd of losers reminiscing about their high school years. By far and away one of the most narrow-minded, least welcoming cities in the US and that goes double for the pricks in the county pretending like negative things don’t apply to them. Have a better time talking to a bag of potatoes than your average St. Louis resident.

  6. Crime crime crime!!! St.Louis is hundreds of police officers short of authorized staffing. St. Louis is simply not safe even in mid town, soulard, or business districts now days. Broad daylight car jacking, murders, shootings, car thefts, car break ins, Robbery’s. Mass closures of businesses , especially retail and restaurants. You can drive mid city all around and not see one marked patrol vehicle. I grew up working downtown since late 1980’s. It’s so bad I will not even take my kids to a ball game down there, in fear of a stray bullet finding its way in my car. Crimes not down, they have changes policy on reporting crime statistics to reduce public knowledge on how dangerous the city of Saint Louis is to date. Just look at the 2024 Census. Say no more. People are leaving the city by the thousands, residents and workers. Take a look at East Saint Louis Illinois, cause that’s Saint Louis in a few more years. What a shame.

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