Friday, March 29

City of St. Louis population fell below 300,000 last year, new census estimates show


ST. LOUIS — The number of people who live in the city of St. Louis fell below 300,000 in 2021 and the metropolitan region also saw a decline in population, the U.S. Census Bureau said in new estimates released Thursday.

The numbers, though estimates, reinforce concerns about stagnant growth in a region that appears poised to be overtaken in the coming years by fast-growing metro areas like Orlando, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina.

As of July 1 2021, the Census Bureau estimated that just 293,310 people resided in the region’s core city of St. Louis, down from the 301,578 people counted in the 2020 Census. 

The entire metro area, meanwhile, had about 2.81 million people as of July 1. That was a drop of about 10,000 people in a little more than a year: the 2020 Census counted 2.82 million in the region.

The numbers drew another call from the St. Louis metro’s new business and civic booster group for regional unity and a redoubling of efforts by area leaders to draw residents and focus on “inclusive economic growth.” Much of the city’s population losses have been of Black residents leaving the disinvested neighborhoods of north St. Louis.

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“At the start of last year, we established Greater St. Louis Inc. out of the a core belief that growth must be a top civic priority for the St. Louis metro,” said Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall. “These numbers tell us what we expected and underscore the urgency of focusing this metro on growth and more opportunities for all. Stagnation is the existential threat to everything we love about the place we call home.”

St. Louis County, which grew by just a couple thousand people from 2010 to 2020, to just above 1 million people, fell to 997,187 people last year, the estimates show.  

People also continued to leave the Metro East counties that, along with St. Louis city, have shed population over the last decade. St. Clair County fell to just under 255,000 as of July 1, from 257,400 in the 2020 Census. Madison County fell by a little more than 1,000 people, to 264,490. Monroe County was estimated to have 30 fewer residents than the 2020 count, dropping to 34,932.

The bright spots were in the western and southern suburbs of the region, primarily St. Charles County. It was estimated to have grown by almost 5,000 people in the 15 months since the 2020 Census, to just under 410,000 people. Franklin County, too, grew by a couple hundred residents, to a little more than 105,000. Jefferson County added about 1,000 people, growing to almost 227,800.

Still, the growth in the Missouri suburbs and exurbs wasn’t enough to offset the region’s overall slide in the urban core. Hall, at Greater St. Louis, said area leaders need to focus on the region’s strengths laid out in the group’s “2030 Jobs Plan” such as advanced manufacturing biomedical and logistics.

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“There are bright spots and momentum that we must lean into now with urgency,” Hall said. “The STL 2030 Jobs Plan reinforces that the St. Louis metro has the assets to grow if we align and unlock the value with a growth mindset. We remained focused on continuing the momentum our investors and community partners helped create in our first 14 months.”

Missouri as a whole, meanwhile, added residents, unlike Illinois. Missouri was estimated to have about 6,168,187 residents in July 2021, about 13,000 more than were counted in the 2020 Census. Illinois lost about 140,000 people, according to the estimate, falling to 12.67 million. Much of that was concentrated in Chicago, which lost about 100,000 from its metro, according to the estimates. 

The estimates were the first to cover much of the pandemic, which led to population drops in the nation’s largest and most expensive cities such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco as people fled tightly packed areas and also found new freedoms to work remotely in locales without the traffic and high cost of living.

Some of the nation’s fastest-growing cities continued their upward trajectory, including places that, without a major change in migration patterns or regional efforts, appear poised to soon overtake St. Louis in population.

Orlando added almost 20,000 people from the 2020 census to July 1, growing to 2.69 million. Charlotte grew even faster, adding 40,000 people in that time to reach an estimated 2.7 million people, surpassing Orlando.

Some of St. Louis’s peers in the Midwest also notched growth between the 2020 Census and the 2021 population estimates. The Kansas City metro added about 7,000 people, growing to just under 2.2 million. The Indianapolis region added about 15,000 people, reaching almost 2.127 million. The Cincinnati region grew by about 3,000 people in that time, to 2.26 million.

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Originally posted at noon Thursday, March 24.

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St. Louis metro area lost population in latest census estimate

* 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) ** 2021 population estimate (July 1, 2022) Source: Census Bureau.

County 2020 Census * 2021 estimate ** Change % change
Franklin, Mo. 104,682 105,231 549 0.52%
Jefferson, Mo. 226,739 227,771 1,032 0.46%
Lincoln, Mo. 59,574 61,586 2,012 3.38%
St. Charles, Mo. 405,262 409,981 4,719 1.16%
St. Louis, Mo. 301,578 293,310 -8,268 -2.74%
St. Louis County, Mo. 1,004,125 997,187 -6,938 -0.69%
Warren, Mo. 35,532 36,518 986 2.77%
Bond, Ill. 16,725 16,596 -129 -0.77%
Calhoun, Ill. 4,437 4,369 -68 -1.53%
Clinton, Ill. 36,899 36,793 -106 -0.29%
Jersey, Ill. 21,512 21,333 -179 -0.83%
Macoupin, Ill. 44,967 44,406 -561 -1.25%
Madison, Ill. 265,859 264,490 -1,369 -0.51%
Monroe, Ill. 34,962 34,932 -30 -0.09%
St. Clair, Ill. 257,400 254,796 -2,604 -1.01%
Total metro 2,820,253 2,809,299 -10,954 -0.39%

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