What Does “New Thinking” for the Future of St. Louis Mean?

This article originally appeared on the excellent St. Louis Energized blog where Ben explores the positive opportunities for a better St. Louis and often posts his incredible photos of the city.

In the wake of disappointing Census results released last week, many St. Louisans are calling for “new thinking” for the future of St. Louis. Some of these demands are pointed directly at the region's current political leadership, while some are coming from the leaders themselves. Calling the population drop in the City of St. Louis "absolutely bad news," Mayor Francis Slay proclaimed that "this will require an urgent and thorough rethinking of how we do almost everything."

It would be hard for any St. Louisan to disagree. The Census revealed a dismal rate of growth across the entire region (less than half the national rate), and a particularly troubling population loss in the region’s core.

And in this instance, “core” does not mean downtown, the “inner city,” or even the entire City of St. Louis. In addition to the loss of 29,000 residents in the City (an 8% decrease), the much larger County of St. Louis also suffered a population loss of almost 2%. The Census results gave lie to any notion that a weakening urban core does not affect the surrounding suburbs, as the continuing exodus sends residents to ever-farther-flung areas.

New ideas clearly are necessary for the sake of the future of St. Louis. But what does “new thinking” look like? It depends, of course, on who you ask. Everyone promotes the things they happen to be thinking about, and there are widely-varying worldviews on where the region should go from here.