Born in the MSA: What Does It Mean that St. Louisians are from St. Louis?

The East-West Gateway Council of Governments blog recently covered "Born in the MSA" data showing that St. Louis is, to no one's surprise, a largely homegrown city. Nearly three-fourths, 69.4% of St. Louis MSA residents were born in either Missouri or Illinois, a percentage that ranked sixth among 34 peer MSAs. This says something about St. Louis. But what?

From the EWG blog: "St. Louis often is criticized as stodgy, not open to change, too insular, and not up-to-date. Image-wise, it sometimes is viewed as unattractive to people looking for a high energy, fun, robust metro area... Seldom is an attempt made to justify these claims with a metro metric quantified by substantive data."