Demographic Winter in St. Louis

And a TikTok Funeral

Many of us are digital refugees at the moment. No, not because of our winter storm and the fact we’re freezing. I’m not a winter person- at all. I go from active in the Spring and Summer to barely moving once it gets below 60. Last winter, I was comforted by TikTok. Now we are forced to slums of YouTube shorts, Instagram and Facebook reels, and other platforms after the collapse of the TikTok algorithm due to the US takeover. At its peak, TikTok was like a buffet of sweets that never made you fat. There was no social media as informative, entertaining, and engrossing. Everyone had a different algorithm. Mine was a lot of history, nostalgia, BookTok, film, international travel, sports, street interviews, and comedy. After the American takeover of our domestic TikTok (the rest of the world still gets the magic) my feed was 25% AI slop, 25% sponsored content, and 45% things I have absolutely no interest in like hunting, fishing, and carpentry.

The stated plans for TikTok is to localize the feed. No, thank you. Maybe that would be cool if I lived in New York or London, but what the hell does a local St. Louis feed look like? Toasted ravioli reviews and beer recommendations? A Missouri feed? Hunting, monster trucks, and square dancing? I deactivated my TikTok, despite the many cool accounts I’ll miss, and the content I uploaded. My challenge now is finding as many of the accounts I followed on other platforms. Others are missing their political content, especially in light of events in Minnesota and Iran, but I intentionally minimized the political content on my feed.

St. Louis Major Demographic Decline

I’ve been following Ness Sandoval for a long time and you should too if you care for the future of St. Louis. He is the man with all of the demographic data and can help you understand what the future of St. Louis may look like.

My commentary. Sandoval points out St. Louis is in the beginning of a demographic winter due to low rates of birth, low rates of immigration, and kids who grew up here and leave after school. The numbers tell the truth, but they only confirm what I’ve been seeing for years.

• St. Louis Love. I will push back on Carol Daniel (who I’m a fan of). Native St. Louisans have a fierce love of place. Even when we leave we represent St. Louis. It’s not the lack of love and loyalty that makes us leave. Rather, it’s the lack of opportunity, dysfunction, violence, a lower standard of living, and wanting a better future for our children.

• St. Louis Future. No matter who is elected mayor, county executive, or to the Board of Aldermen and County Council, the future of St. Louis is pretty easy to see. The city will likely fall to around 200,000 to 225, 000, there will be a clear white majority, there will be very few children, the city will become extremely progressive politically, the city will become relatively affluent, there will be a low percentage of native St. Louisans in the city, you may not even be able to get St. Louis Style Pizza or a St. Pauls in the city. The working-class population needed to support the lifestyle of these city residents will largely reside in St. Louis County and the Metro East. This servant class will be generational St. Louisans with more local taste and flavor combined with immigrants. Federal immigration policy being the major wild card. Under all scenarios the population of St. Louis County is at the beginning of a serious decline. Immigrants could help stem the bleeding and contribute to the quality of life. If a Republican remains in the White House after 2028 or 2032 and continues the current immigration policies of the Trump Administration that will have a long term and very damaging impact on places like St. Louis. It is likely that St. Louis City will either merge with the County or re-enter the County as a municipality as both shrink. Locals pointing to growth in places like St. Charles County and JeffCo don’t travel very much. The growth there is very moderate and will slow and then decline.

• Black Population. Sandoval points to numbers showing Black St. Louisans aren’t just leaving the city- they’re leaving the region entirely. This isn’t unique to St. Louis as we’ve seen the same in NYC, Philly, Chicago, Detroit, LA, the Bay and other cities. The winner is always the South. The metros of Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Dallas, and even Phoenix. When I was living in Dallas and wearing my St. Louis hats not a week would go by without someone coming up to me asking me where I went to high school in St. Louis. There are so many St. Louisans in the DFW that there are niche businesses opening to cater to them selling St. Louis style Chinese food, Vess soda, red hot riplets, and more. These St. Louisans were majority Black and it was always the same story. St. Louis has too much violence and not enough opportunity and we want better for ourselves and our children. Last month I was in Atlanta, I can’t even count how many Black friends from St. Louis are in the Atlanta metro. I met one for lunch after Jummah. He grew-up in Jennings, became a nationally known journalist covering hip-hop, and then went to law school and became a lawyer. The exact kind of person St. Louis needs to keep but can’t make a rationale argument as to why he should stay. When Houston had a flooding incident a few years back my Facebook told me that sixteen of my friends had reported that they were safe. Nearly all of them were Black St. Louisans I’d went to school with who moved to Houston.

• White Population. White people leaving St. Louis City has been a story since the 1950s. White people leaving north county since the 1980s. The north county hoosiers I grew-up with are mostly lifers. Ambition begins at the Arch and dies somewhere past Troy. I was an anomaly in that I couldn’t wait to get out and see the world and I’ve never lost that desire. St. Louis isn’t losing that many of this demographic. Who we are losing are college-educated middle- and upper-class kids who attended Catholic and other private schools, or districts like Clayton and Ladue. They’re taking their talents and money to places like Nashville, Denver, Austin, Chicago and Phoenix. Some are even headed to places like Brooklyn, Portland, and San Franciso. While these individuals have a propensity to be annoying and difficult to deal with at times, they also have a lot of money and create jobs. As a region, St. Louis cannot afford to lose them. As Sandoval points out, the only way to keep or attract such residents, is to make the city a desirable place to live and stay. A healthy city produces future residents for St. Charles (Unless Chesterfield becomes the new metro base and launch pad Michael Staenberg wants it to be) Even that is a tough sell. We don’t have the beaches of Florida, the mountains of Colorado, or the energy and wealth of the coasts. Difficult to see why any talented young person should choose St. Louis over a hotter metro unless they have local and family ties. Kansas City seems to have figured it out. Maybe we can learn something from them.

• Lack of diversity. When I see a metro that is largely Black-White I feel like I’m living in the past. So many new residents have shared this sentiment with me as well. My wife, who moved here from Northern Virginia, had three questions. Where are the Hispanics? Where are the Asians? Why do I hear gunshots? If you look at my daughter’s school district in suburban Dallas there is no racial majority. Within a short drive you have Korea Town, mega mosques, gigantic Hindu temples, Little Vietnam, Ethiopian, Arab, Laotian, and other enclaves. These aren’t the refugees that St. Louis may attract for a few years while they’re getting on their feet. These are families, many who came from places like California and Chicago, who have bought homes, are making good money, and raising children. That’s modern America and that’s something that frightens a lot of people including many in St. Louis. When I lived in Brooklyn, Queens, and Northern Virginia I also saw this level of diversity. This diversity adds to my quality of life in countless ways. The continuation of rates of immigration can impact future demographics, but what’s baked into the cake is a lot of citizens with roots in Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, and the MENA region. If your metro isn’t attractive to people from those backgrounds, then you may find yourself in trouble. Take St. Louis as an example. Look at what is going on with South Asian and Musim owned businesses on Manchester Road in Ballwin and Manchester and in Chesterfield, with Asian businesses on Olive starting in University City and extending to Chesterfield, Bosnian businesses in south county. Without these businesses, and residents that fuel them, St. Louis City and County would be in far worse shape. A huge win for St. Louis would be becoming a major hub for two or three more immigrant groups, and not just Bosnians. Again, we have to look to federal immigration policy and remember that we are also competing with other cities. St. Louis got Bosnians and Nashville got Kurds largely due to the federal government in the initial stages. But places like Carrolton, Texas and Hazelton, PA are getting Koreans and Dominicans because they find it a desirable place to relocate to from SoCal ad NYC. Can we replicate that? Market ourselves as more affordable, less crowded, and lower taxed alternative? Perhaps, but not without addressing issues of public schools, public safety, and image. No one wants to leave Caracas and jump from pan into the fire unless they can help it. If St. Louis looks and feels like a mid-sized city in a developing nation, as we currently do, it will be more than the NFL and NBA who will take a pass on us. (I will not share my other ideas now such as making a sales pitch to Hasidic Jewish communities in New York to relocate as a group. Who needs upstate New York when you have St. Louis County?)

• Red State vs. Blue State. The MSNBC-FOX mind virus is also present in the demographics debate. Progressives see these numbers and shrug off economic and public safety concerns and point the Missouri being a Red State, abortion and gun laws, and the like. The Dallas, Houston, Austin, Nashville, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Columbus metros are all in Red States. Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham are in reddish states. Doesn’t seem to be hurting them. Conservatives point to crime and hint about racial demographics. All of these hot metros have serious crime problems, because the United States of America has a serious problem with violent crime, public safety, and antisocial behavior. Yet that doesn’t stop them from doing well. So, yes, crime is an issue St. Louis is dealing with, and many don’t move here, or leave her, because of crime, but our issues are deeper than that.

Take a watch and listen and subscribe to Carol Daniel’s podcast. As Sandoval points out, most of us will be dead before we can really see how this plays out. As for now, we can argue about it.

Books Read in January and Films Watched

Books

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol Fiction

James by Percival Everett (fiction) HIGHLY REC

Ring of Fire: A New History of the World at War by Alexandra Churchill

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang (I recommend- particularly like the engineering society v. lawyerly society framing)

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano Fiction (I struggled in the middle, but a great read)

Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir by Chantha Nguon

Duet: An Artful History of Music by Eleanor Chan

A Map For the Missing by Belinda Huijuan Tang Fiction (I gave this book five stars)

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Good book, but I prefer the Davor Garrow bio on Dr. King)

Currently reading:

The War That Made the Middle East: WWI and The End of the Ottoman Empire by Mustafa Aksakal

The Feast of the Goat Fiction by Mario Vargas Llosa

A Bend in The River Fiction by V.S. Naipaul

Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz. New York’s Explosive 80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial that Divided the Nation by Elliot Williams

Will soon begin

Volga Blues by Marzio G. Man

The Revolutionists by Jason Burke

Films

Follow my Letterboxd

Best of the month?

Manila in the Claws of Light (Philippines)

Mean Streets

Back to the Future

Pop Aye (Thailand)

Marty Supreme

The Nightingale (China)

Good Will Hunting