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I'd swap Minneapolis and Detroit's ranks. The Twin Cities GDP had already surpassed(on several occasions) Detroit's, though the latter may retain it's rank as #2 in terms of metro population for another solid decade.
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Current ranking based on influence:
1. Chicago
2. Detroit
3. Minneapolis
4. St. Louis
5. Cleveland
6. Cincinnati
7. Indianapolis
8. Kansas City
9. Columbus
10. Milwaukee
Hate to be a party pooper but this is also my 2030 ranking too. Maybe Indianapolis could overtake Cincinnati. Cleveland might overtake St. Louis especially if the OMB officially combines it with Akron, which IMO it should. In both cases it would be just barely.
Edit: if not already obvious, large gap between 1 and 2. Gap between 3 and 4. Small gap between 9 and 10.
You do get the impression that St. Louis is barely hanging on. Without checking, I don't think the city proper has even 400,000 people now..
Right now it’s actually barely at 300K according to recent estimates. However, I don’t know that I have an impression of St Louis as being particularly unhealthy.. that could be wrong though? But I will say City proper population in a number of cases and population rate in general has become a less significant factor in economic health-take Scandinavian cities with small populations generally considered amongst the most vital cities in the world.
You do get the impression that St. Louis is barely hanging on. Without checking, I don't think the city proper has even 400,000 people now..
Huh? St. Louis hasn’t been near 400k since the early 90s. There’s a good chance it will dip into the high 290s by the time the official census is released. Metro area still going strong though.
City population is relatively meaningless; metro size and influence are really what matter in today’s world. Nobody here thinks Jacksonville is a “bigger city” than San Francisco, do they? Is Indianapolis a “bigger city” than Boston and Washington, DC? St. Louis City, like every single rust belt city, may still be shrinking but it’s also getting wealthier and more educated. Raw numbers do not tell the whole story. As explained earlier in the thread, reduction of household size has a LOT to do with population decline in older cities. Multi-family buildings that once housed 4 or 5 families may now only house one or two. Lots of big families have been replaced by smaller ones, often childless couples. Times have changed and cities are a reflection of those changes. Though St. Louis has its struggles with decay and abandonment, population loss does not automatically equal vacancy. The majority of St. Louis City neighborhoods are intact, vibrant and perfectly livable. And some of the best urban housing stock in the Western Hemisphere.
City population is relatively meaningless; metro size and influence are really what matter in today’s world. Nobody here thinks Jacksonville is a “bigger city” than San Francisco, do they? Is Indianapolis a “bigger city” than Boston and Washington, DC? St. Louis City, like every single rust belt city, may still be shrinking but it’s also getting wealthier and more educated. Raw numbers do not tell the whole story. As explained earlier in the thread, reduction of household size has a LOT to do with population decline in older cities. Multi-family buildings that once housed 4 or 5 families may now only house one or two. Lots of big families have been replaced by smaller ones, often childless couples. Times have changed and cities are a reflection of those changes. Though St. Louis has its struggles with decay and abandonment, population loss does not automatically equal vacancy. The majority of St. Louis City neighborhoods are intact, vibrant and perfectly livable. And some of the best urban housing stock in the Western Hemisphere.
I might also argue that white flight is negatively impacting St. Louis’ city proper population. Many families may be seeking to escape the malaise and stigma of the city for the suburbs. Same thing has been happening to Detroit, Cleveland, and other rust belt cities for decades.
City population is relatively meaningless; metro size and influence are really what matter in today’s world. Nobody here thinks Jacksonville is a “bigger city” than San Francisco, do they? Is Indianapolis a “bigger city” than Boston and Washington, DC? St. Louis City, like every single rust belt city, may still be shrinking but it’s also getting wealthier and more educated. Raw numbers do not tell the whole story. As explained earlier in the thread, reduction of household size has a LOT to do with population decline in older cities. Multi-family buildings that once housed 4 or 5 families may now only house one or two. Lots of big families have been replaced by smaller ones, often childless couples. Times have changed and cities are a reflection of those changes. Though St. Louis has its struggles with decay and abandonment, population loss does not automatically equal vacancy. The majority of St. Louis City neighborhoods are intact, vibrant and perfectly livable. And some of the best urban housing stock in the Western Hemisphere.
The main difference between St. Louis and Kansas City is that the latter was able to annex a good chunk of its future growth on the Missouri side, while St. Louis cut off all possibility of doing that in 1871.
Hence "Better Together's" repeated efforts to undo the Great Divorce on the other side of the state.
Were Kansas City confined to the city limits it had in 1944 (the year it annexed the city of Marlborough at its southern edge, the first of a wave of annexations that lasted into the early 1990s and led to the city spreading across four counties), its population right now would probably be somewhere around 220,000. Like St. Louis' northwest side, a good chunk of central Kansas City, including much of its older black neighborhoods, has reverted to prairie.
As has been noted, St. Louis remains the larger metro with the stronger economy. Where KC is gaining, IMO, is in national popular image, helped along by two recent sports championships. The population growth at the metro level is also greater — the gap between the two metros is slowly shrinking — and were it not for the destructive "border war," its economy would probably be a good bit stronger than it is, though I have to agree that the Sprint/T-Mobile merger (which in practice works out to T-Mobile taking over Sprint) and AMC's brush with bankruptcy also won't help in the near term (though if, as is rumored, Amazon buys AMC, the theater chain's bacon could be saved once again, and I doubt Amazon would move company HQ to Seattle).
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