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why has St Louis been hemorrhaging population for over 60 years that is a question I'm sure many of
St Louis's past mayors have pondered as they doze off after a long day of underserving the
people of St Louis the Gateway city has about 30 solid reasons for the plunging
population they've experienced since the late 1940s today we're looking at 10 of
the biggest reasons just give you an idea of how much their population is dropped in 1950
at the census their population was 856 796 people now that's the city itself not the
whole metro area in 2020 their population was 301 578 people and in 2021 they dropped down to 293
000. it's going to continue those numbers make St Louis one of the fastest shrinking cities in
the United States the City's population has declined by an average of 1.2 percent per
year since 1950. we are going to find out why got it get it good let's take a look
number 10 white flight after World War II in the 1950s and 60s many white residents of St
Louis moved to the suburbs leaving the city with a shrinking tax base and a growing population of
poor and minority residents this happened in a lot of major cities after World War II prior
to World War II there really wasn't suburbs we didn't have them they were small towns outside
of major cities sometimes suburbs and track homes started popping up and this became very attractive
to working white families this was due to a number of factors including the desegregation of schools
the rise of the civil rights movement and the perception that the city was becoming less safe
in a lot of cases the cities were becoming less safe crime rates Rose as Jobs after World War II
sort of faded away this in part had to do with a lot of the failure of major cities in the midwest
that's where a lot of the manufacturing was going on for World War II and the 1950s that's why
their last decade that they Peru was actually the 1940s which showed up in the 1950 census
number nine the declining of manufacturing St Louis was once a major Center for manufacturing
but many of these jobs have been lost to Automation and Outsourcing and like I said
the end of World War II that's when it began this has led to the decline in the city's economy and
the decrease in the number of people that were able to find good paying jobs inside the city
back in the day we had tons of warehouses and manufacturing plants in major cities warehouses
all that good stuff we still have those just not on the scale that we had many years ago a
lot of the factories a lot of manufacturing were outsourced or they moved out towards the suburbs
too the city I grew up in Torrance California that's a perfect example during World War II
and afterwards all the aerospace companies moved out to the suburbs like El Segundo
Hawthorne Gardena Long Beach and all the workers lived in places like Torrance California Redondo
Beach Lomita Lawndale El Segundo that type of thing that's what happened in Los Angeles
this happened to many cities St Louis is just another one of them a lot of the Cities though
switched to other Industries St Louis has just not as good as they probably should have
number eight the crime yeah St Louis has a long history of crime it has contributed to
the City's population decline in a big way I mean in recent years it's gotten better but
St Louis has a long long history of violent crime and just crime in general I watched the
news thing about the crime in St Louis years ago it was like on 60 Minutes or something
like that they were talking to a guy who was wheelchair-bound he said he fell asleep at the
bus stop waiting for the bus because the buses were always late he woke up someone stole his
prosthetic leg and his false teeth he'd take his false teeth out of his mouth while he was
kind of resting I don't know why but he put him on his leg while he was dozed off someone took
his prosthetic leg and his false teeth you got to be a low down criminal to seal man's false teeth
number seven bad schools yeah St Louis has a history of having some bad schools matter of fact
area Vibes right now gives them an F but that's just right now they've got a history of this like
I'd said one thing St Louis does do is they have a good student to teach ratio the national average
is 16 students to one teacher St Louis is 14-1 so that's good lower the better the sad thing is
their test scores are 50 percent lower than the national average and their High School diplomas
are six percent lower than the national average meaning the amount of kids that actually get their
high school diploma they do have one other strange stat their bachelor degrees they're actually nine
percent higher than the national average as in the amount of residents that have bachelor's
degrees the schools aren't as dangerous as they once were 70s and 80s apparently it was really
really bad that's gotten a lot better and they're a lot safer just they're not where they need to
be I imagine I mean obviously a school should be the safest place your kid can go that's just
not the reality of modern day America pretty sad when it's safer for you to go in the army
than actually go to school and that's how it is a lot of schools in the United States these days
number six lack of investment yes this is a thing that's becoming more and more of an
issue in cities it always has been to a degree but it's getting worse like so many other Rust
Belt cities even though some people don't consider St Louis a Rust Belt City it was definitely what
they used to call a factory belt City back in the day when they had major manufacturing going
on in this part of the country and I have to say this they still have manufacturing just not what
it used to be if I don't say that I'm gonna get 20 people I work at a plant near St Louis what
are you talking about the lack of investment has a lot to do with the lack of tax dollars
they have a low tax base like we talked about earlier that means less money to go into City
projects part of that is the poor transportation system St Louis public transportation system is
outdated inefficient and it makes it difficult for people to get around the city the system is
not well connected it's not reliable and it's dirty people report finding things
on the floor like drug paraphernalia handcuffs false teeth old clothes while researching this I
I did hear it's been getting a little cleaner in the last few years handful of years I should
say they've made some improvements but over time it just wasn't there it wasn't a nice
thing to be involved in public transit in St Louis now hopefully with the infrastructure
deal this is another thing I learned with the infrastructure deal that the federal
government passed last year they're getting some money to help things like their public transit
number five lack of Tourism and amenities St Louis is a major city it's one of the most known
cities in the U.S but they just don't pull in the tourism dollars like many other major cities they
don't have a lot to offer they got the St Louis Zoo you can go see a Cardinals game and they
have the St Louis arc on the Mississippi River those are all great things to see the ark might
be kind of hard to see because it's actually the arch who was leaving the comment I know it's the
St Louis Arch not the St Louis arc I made that joke years ago uh on a video about St Louis I
had a guy tell me I was Un-American because I didn't know the difference anyway the St Louis
Arch is actually called The Gateway Arch and it is in the Gateway Arch national park right there
on the Mississippi River in St Louis and it's really cool but it's not enough to bring people
in like they should when you look at the top 100 cities in the United States St Louis is ranked
34th for tourism and when it's foreign tourism they're ranked 57th they barely beat Des Moines
number four High Cost of Living this one just blows me away St Louis is not a great
place to live but they still got a High Cost of Living when somebody doesn't want to live
someplace or somebody doesn't want something it should be cheaper that's how the world
Works living in St Louis is like paying top dollar for a short sleeve business suit you
bought at 7-Eleven it's something you don't want but you still gotta pay top dollar for
it but now is it high compared to Beverly Hills New York Los Angeles San Francisco
no it's not that high but the cost of living in St Louis is relatively High especially for
a city with its economic problems the cost of housing food and transportation are all higher
than most the other economically challenged cities in the Midwest
number three a lack of job opportunities yeah they don't really have a lot of jobs going on
in St Louis compared to other major cities they've been struggling with this for years and that's one
of the main reasons people have been leaving this is just human nature think back to when
we used to follow the herds or we used to hunt and gather when you couldn't survive in an area
you moved someplace else we're still the same creatures as we've always been it's just what
we need to survive has changed St Louis has a relatively low unemployment rate but many
of the jobs that are available are low paying jobs and don't offer many benefits the city's
economy is struggling and there's not enough high paying jobs to attract new residents or businesses
number two it's got a bad reputation part of St Louis's biggest problem is its reputation
to put it plainly St Louis has a poor image both nationally and internationally and this
has made it difficult to attract new residents and businesses the city is often associated with
crime and poverty and this has made it a less than desirable place to live I read
about Pruitt iGo which was a housing project that was up from 1954 to 1972 and it became
Infamous for its poverty crime and segregation but it was demolished in 1972 so 40 years later
that's still an image a lot of people have in their head about St Louis if you ever want to
watch something interesting there's a lot of videos about Pruitt iGo I've watched a few
of them that place was a total nightmare originally the plans for it were supposed
to be a lot different and it probably would have been a really nice place but politicians
and people in charge of the budget started cutting back on all the things that would
have made it nice and basically turned it into a prison Without Walls that's what it kind of
looked like a old prison but that is one of the biggest challenges St Louis has always faced is
their image I mean there's other cities that face the same image Detroit Chicago they have
horrible reputations and it really helps bring down the city or stop it from moving forward
all right before we get to number one don't forget we have another Channel called on this
day there is a link for that down below please go over and subscribe all right on to number one
and number one recent challenges now we've talked about all the different things that have affected
St Louis and stopped it from growing and forced it to lose population for more than 60 years well
some things have happened in recent years that have kind of put another nail in the St Louis
coffin so to speak the first one was the opioid epidemic Saint Louis was hit hard by this and
it contributed to the City's population decline the city has one of the highest rates of opioid
Addiction in the country and this has led to an increase in crime and homelessness and the
second one is the copen 19 pandemic this hit every city in the United States and it hit St
Louis pretty hard too and it negatively affected the population now if the city was in good shape
and people wanted to live there if they left because the pandemic they would have come back
but if it's a place that's not worth coming back to they usually stay where they went to and that
really happened a lot in St Louis a lot of jobs closed down so people moved in with relatives
in other states and they just never came back to St Louis the pandemic has led to job losses
and business closures and it made it more and more difficult for people to stay in the city
all right that's today's video hope you guys enjoyed it hope you got some
information of it now go out have a great day and be nice to each other