STL Pop. 500,000: A thought experiment
Date Posted: April 3, 2014
Posted In: Ideas,
From Mayor Slay’s Blog: Architect Dan Jay has been checking in with a widening circle of thinkers around town inviting them to participate in and contribute to a thought experiment:
What would the City of St. Louis look like with a population of 500,000?
More specifically:
Which city districts or neighborhoods most likely would become centers for new residents? In which order and by what increment would they add population? Over what period of time? Through what mix of amenities, service improvements, and housing types? By what logic?
More concretely:
If St. Louis’ Central Business District — the square mile bounded by Chouteau, Cole, the Riverfront and Tucker — grew in population from 872 residents, in the 2000 Census, to 3,721 residents, in the 2010 Census, what might its housing and residential profile look like if, over time, the city’s overall population grew from the 2012 estimate of 318,294 to 500,000? What portion of so significant a population expansion might Downtown and its environs reasonably be expected to bear — compared, say, to areas with high vacancy, or to neighborhoods with stable housing stock, or to those that are in transition?
More minutely:
How might YOUR block, or neighborhood, or neighborhoods adjacent to you (even extending out to inner-ring suburbs) change and look if they accommodated some logical part of a steady citywide population growth of up to 200,000 additional residents?
Most broadly:
How might various population growth scenarios look on a time-lapse aerial map?
Some, no doubt, would be skeptical about such an exercise. They may want to know:
What’s a “thought experiment?”
It’s more than a parlor game, but less than a planning process. Think of it this way:
Any formal civic goal of St. Louis attaining a city population of 500,000 would be sure to set skeptics’ eyes rolling. St. Louis, after all, has lost population over each of six consecutive decennial censuses. The rate of loss has slowed dramatically. But St. Louis is part of a region that collectively, over four decades, has achieved virtually no population growth.