A New Millennium | Snapshot | Demographics | Economy | Housing
Infrastructure | Public/Social Services | Public Facilities | Quality of Life | Conclusion

DEMOGRAPHICS

The analysis of how many people live in a given geographic area is based on three factors: the number of births, the number of deaths, and how many people move out or move in.

BIRTHS AND DEATHS

In the City of St. Louis during the 1990s there was a decline in both births and deaths. There were 8,255 births in 1991 and 5,979 births in 1998. There were 5,423 deaths in 1991 and 4,824 deaths in 1998. Births declined not only in absolute numbers but also in relative proportion to the number of deaths, especially in the middle years of the decade. The relationship between these two vital statistics will have an impact on total population change and should be closely monitored over the course of the 5-year plan.

URBAN SPRAWL AND DOMESTIC MIGRATION

The defining characteristic of the St. Louis region for the last several decades has been a period of population stability coupled with geographic sprawl. In the twenty years from 1970 to 1990, the region's population increased by less than 7,500 people. At the same time, almost 200,000 housing units were built, very few of them in the City of St. Louis, as the geographic size of the metropolitan area doubled from 400 to 800 square miles. The overbuilding trend has continued in the 1990s with an estimated net regional population increase of 65,000 people and 80,000 more housing units being built. Virtually none of this growth has occurred inside the city limits, resulting in high levels of housing vacancy and abandonment in the City itself. Census Bureau estimates for 1990 through 1998 show a net outmigration from the City of 81,710.

The estimates for total population change during the period 1990 to 1998, including births, deaths, and the movement of people, prepared by PRIZM/Claritas, indicate considerable change at the neighborhood level. Looking at the City in the three general areas of northside, central corridor, and southside, there is a nearly identical population loss on the north (29,394) and south (29,539) sections and a modest (662) population gain in the central corridor.

Within these general areas, there are neighborhood clusters that appear to be more severely impacted than others are. The northside neighborhoods of Visitation Park, Academy, and Fountain Park are three of the five neighborhoods with the largest percentage loss of population (19 to almost 23 percent). Just north of them, The Greater Ville and Wells/Goodfellow neighborhoods were among the top five neighborhoods in the number of people lost between 1990 and 1998 (over 5,000 between them). The Fox Park and Forest Park Southeast neighborhoods on the southside had high percentage losses of population (22 and 27 percent). The Bevo Mill, Tower Grove South and Dutchtown neighborhoods were reported to have lost high numbers of people, but the reality of immigration raises a question regarding the accuracy of the estimation in this area.

Compton Heights was the only neighborhood outside of the central corridor to show both a high percentage and numerical change in population. Downtown, the Skinker/DeBaliviere, and DeBaliviere Place neighborhoods showed the highest percentage and numerical gains.

The migration of residents from the City to outlying parts of the region poses serious threats to the long-term stability of the City. As people leave, the tax base erodes, leaving fewer resources for City services. Equally important, they leave behind aging infrastructure, abandoned buildings, and a host of other problems which the City must address despite its depleted coffers. The movement of City residents from north to south and central neighborhoods also poses new challenges for the City as it strives to provide programs and services in areas where people live, even though existing facilities often remain located in abandoned neighborhoods.

To address this problem, the City has put renewed emphasis on its City Living program and is working with area real state agents, developers, and others to market the City as a place to live and work. Results to date from this program have been limited, but the emphasis on downtown residential activity in the Downtown Now! plan, as well as other initiatives underway in various City neighborhoods, offers hope for a slowdown, if not a complete reversal, of the City's outmigration problem in the years ahead.

AGE COMPOSITION

Another factor affecting a metropolitan area is the age makeup of its population. An aging population typically requires more services, putting additional strains on limited financial and human resources. Surprisingly, the senior citizen population in St. Louis is declining, not only in absolute terms, but also as a percentage of the population. The 25-44 year-old group saw a large increase between 1980 and 1990 and appears to be stable in the 1990s. The 45-64 and 5-17 year-old groups are moving back toward their 1980 proportions, after a decline between 1980 and 1990. The under 5-year-old group has been one of the most stable, although its 1997 level is below the proportion in 1980, after slightly rising during the 1980s. And the 18-24 year-old group appears to be maintaining its relative proportion in the 1990s, after a significant drop in the 1980s.

The so-called Baby Bust generation, the group that followed the Baby Boomers, represents the largest generation group in the City. The City has obviously lost a significant number of Baby Boomers. A housing policy issue of no small importance is how many people from the Baby Bust generation, who are now 20 - 35 years old, the first time homebuyer age, can the City hold on to.

[Table II-1, 1997 POPULATION DISTRIBUTION BY RACE]

RACIAL COMPOSITION

There are also apparent changes over the last five years in the dynamics of immigration and its affect on the demography of the City of St. Louis. Until 1990, racial and ethnic groups other than African Americans and whites comprised only 1.5 percent of the population of St. Louis. As recorded in the 1990 census, the largest minority groups other than African Americans were the Asian groups of Chinese (5,325), Japanese (3,522), and Koreans (3,108).

There are indications the place of origin and the number of immigrants to St. Louis changed dramatically in the later portion of the 1990's, to the point there are obvious impacts on specific City neighborhoods. Recent immigrants reflect the traditional pattern so prevalent during the great European migration of 100 years ago of creating identifiable neighborhood areas.

As a source for documenting immigration patterns in the last several years, a study was conducted of the English as a second language (ESL) program in City public schools. The St. Louis Public Schools provided data on students enrolled in the ESL program for 1997 through 1999. The data was analyzed to identify the location by zipcode of the student's residence at the time of their enrollment, and their national origin. While students in the ESL program live in 25 zipcodes, eighty-five percent of the students came from four zipcodes: 63116 (38 percent), 63109 (19 percent), 63118 (18 percent), and 63111 (10 percent).

The ethnic diversity in 63116 is the most complex. The ESL records document places of birth from 28 nations in this zipcode with 90% of the students coming from 10 ethnic groups. The top 10 places of birth for ESL students for the last three years were Bosnia, Vietnam, Mexico, Somalia, Albania, Iraq, Nigeria, Croatia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia.

This data indicates that recent changes in immigration may be affecting the demography of St. Louis. The effect may be underrepresented in current population estimates for the City. For example, the PRIZM/Claritas estimate for the 63116-zipcode area calculates a population decline of approximately 16.5% from 1990 to 1998. The ESL data, however, show that there probably have been a substantial number of immigrants moving into this area. The problem of a population undercount also may be a consequence in the 2000 census if language and other cultural issues are not considered in the census forms and personnel training.

POVERTY

At the time of the 1990 census there were 95,271 persons in the City living below the federal poverty level. By 1993, after the recession in the early years of the decade, the number of persons in poverty had risen to 118,802. In 1996, the number had declined to 102,132, or 29.5 percent of the City's population. The data for the years after the 1990 census are estimates. The Census Bureau estimates the number of persons in poverty, but also reports a 90 percent confidence interval. That means it was most likely the actual number of persons in poverty in St. Louis in 1996 (the most recent year for which data are available) was somewhere between 82,494 and 121,770.

The large number of people included in the domestic migration figure cited above has an impact on the poverty statistics. Because those persons moving out are disproportionately middle income, the percentage of persons in poverty increases to about 30 percent, even as the absolute number of persons in poverty declines. The residual effect of the outmigration is a City population that is increasingly poorer. At the same time as the rate of poverty increases, the geography of poverty expands. As indicated in the City's 1998 Empowerment Zone application, about three fourths of its census tracts have at least 15% living in poverty, and an increasing number of tracts (at least 20) have poverty rates of 40% to 74%.

While the number of persons in poverty is a large percentage of the City's population, among children the number is approaching a majority. For 1996, the estimated number of persons in poverty under the age of 18 is 43,875. This is an estimated percentage of 47.7%. While the estimates for the total number of persons in poverty may show a decline over the course of the 1990s, the number of children in poverty may be increasing. As an indicator, while the percentage of students receiving free/reduced lunch in St. Louis Public Schools declined from 84.3% in the 1993-1994 school year, to 80.88% in the 1997-1998 school year, the number of children participating increased from 34,743 to 35,945. Because the district enrollment increased over the time period, the percentage declined, even while the number of poor students actually increased. Another indicator of the potentially increasing number of children in poverty is that 86.7% of the births for the period 1993 - 1997 were to single mothers.

Economic status has been shown to be the primary factor in low test scores in school as well as the greatest predictive factor in high-school dropouts. Thus, children from low-income families are likely to do poorly in school and in turn be unable to earn a good wage when they are adults.

[Table II-2, INDICATORS OF CHILDREN AT RISK]

On the plus side, the Medicaid expansion bill that was passed in Spring 1998 will be tremendously beneficial in protecting the health of these children. About 90,000 of the 160,000 Missouri children who were without health insurance can now get Medicaid coverage. However, there are still many children who are not insured who will not receive adequate medical care. Although the immunization rate has improved, many children still do not have the proper inoculations when they are about to enter school. Continued efforts need to be made in this area.

St. Louis also has one of the worst lead poisoning records in the nation. In 1997, nearly a quarter of the 13,833 children who were tested throughout the City suffered from lead poisoning. In some zip codes, more than 40 percent of the children tested were poisoned. The City now has a major effort underway to rectify this problem.

St. Louis, for the past seven years, has benefited from a national model for children's advocacy; a collaborative called Vision for Children at Risk (VCR). VCR's research component, Project Respond, has been the region's primary source for pinpointing the prevalence and targeting the location of negative social indicators involving children. Twice, VCR has hosted regional Children's Summits to secure commitments from public, private, and nonprofit institutions to support a Children's Agenda addressing those indicators. VCR additionally has had a major local role in coordinating the implementation of the U.S. Department of Justice's anti-juvenile delinquency program, Safe Futures.

Housing and social service program needs for persons in poverty, especially households with children, will likely increase due to the effects of welfare reform as the more difficult assistance cases are required to seek employment.