May 10, 2024 • 49 mins
On this episode of The Middle we're asking you: how can cities that are losing their population turn things around? We're joined by Ness Sandoval, a professor of demography and sociology at Saint Louis University and Wall Street Journal reporter Dante Chinni. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country #urbanflight #shrinkingcities #populationloss #crime #jobs #opportunity
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Middle is supported by Journalism Funding Partners, a nonprofit
organization striving to increase the sustainability of local journalism by
building connections between donors and news organizations. More information on
how you can support the Middle at Listen Toothmiddle dot com.
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson coming to you
(00:21):
from Saint Louis Public Radio this week. But our house
DJ Tolliver is at Nashville Public Radio because I guess, Tolliver,
you like hot chicken more than toasted ravioli.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Toasted violi that won't sound too good.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
That's where that's famous in St. Louis. So we've also
got a studio audience here in Saint Louis for the
first time. So if you hear people clapping and laughing
or booing, that's them Tulliver. We also have some new
Middle listeners this week.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, indeed, let's welcome the listeners of Cincinnati Public Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Welcome, Welcome Cincinnati, and let's talk for a minute about
the three cities that we're talking about here. Saint Louis
is shrinking in size every year. It actually peaked in
population around nineteen fifty, just after the Gateway arch was
designed when it was the eighth largest city in the country.
Cincinnati's population is actually growing slightly after decades of declines,
(01:13):
but it's still much lower than it was at its peak.
And Nashville is growing relatively fast, and the twenty twenty
census recorded the most people living in that city ever.
So what we want to know this hour is what
you think cities that are shrinking can do to turn
things around. You can call us at eight four four
Middle that is eight four four four six four three
three five three, or write to us at listen Toothemiddle
(01:36):
dot com and we'll get to your calls in a moment.
But first, last week we asked you do you trust
our court system? And I got to say I was
pretty shocked at how many listeners do not listen to
some of these voicemails that came in.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
My name is Kelly and I'm in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
My name is Sam Dunham.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
I live in Anchorage, Alaska.
Speaker 7 (01:56):
I'm Cassandra calling from Las Vegas. Hello, this is David
from Louisiana.
Speaker 8 (02:02):
My big concern regarding the courts is of course, concerning
the Supreme Court, which seems to be accountable to nobody.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
It seems to me the reason that it's become a
politicized issue because we have a system where we have
a political figure who chooses who our judges are going
to be.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I trust the courts because I have to, even if
I don't always agree with it, I have to trust
that they are still going.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
To do their job. While it's clearly not a perfect system,
I think people should take a beat and look at
the magnificent achievement that a functional court system is within
the context of history and the world. It does allow
us to track down corruption and hold people accountable in
a way that you simply can't do if you live
in a country without a court system that at least
strives to be fair and impartial.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that full show by subscribing to The Middle podcast
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app or
wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so our topic this hour.
Many cities, including Saint Louis where I am this week,
lost population during the pandemic. In fact, between April twenty
twenty and July twenty twenty two, during the height of COVID,
(03:09):
this city lost five percent of its population. But even
after COVID, Saint Louis, like so many other cities across
the country, continue to see population drain. Saint Louis recently
dipped below three hundred thousand for the first time since
the eighteen hundreds, and according to a study from the
University of Illinois, Chicago, thousands of American cities could be
(03:29):
virtual ghost towns by the year twenty one hundred because
of population decline. So what is happening and what can
cities do to turn things around? Tolliver, what is that
number for people to call?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
email us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Let's meet our panel joining me here in Saint Louis.
Ness Sandoval, Professor of demography and sociology at Saint Louis University,
Nest Welcome, Thank you very much, And from Detroit, another
city with its own long standing struggles with population loss.
Dante Chiney, director of the American Communities Project at Michigan
State who reports on demographics and politics for The Wall
Street Journal.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
Dante CHINNI, welcome to you, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And before we get to the phones, it seems to
me that there are three things that might cause a
city to grow or shrink in population, and they would
be opportunity, cost of living, in quality of life. And
I would including quality of life things like crime and
education and transit nest saut of all by missing anything.
Speaker 10 (04:28):
I think those are the three core factors that impact
a city's population. I would add another one. How a
person imagines their life in the city. Are you capturing
the imagination of a person when they come to a city,
like do they want to make the city their life?
Their American dream? Can they find it there? And so
(04:49):
a lot of cities that we see that are growing
today are capturing the imagination of a younger population, and
so they want to experience life in those cities, and
cities that are speaking, we're no longer part of that imagination.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So how are those cities, I mean, let's say Nashville,
we said it's at the highest level it's ever been.
How is that capturing the imagine?
Speaker 10 (05:09):
I think part of its jobs, part of it's a
good university. You have a fair amount of recreational activities
around football and other sporting events. So that captures that
you have the music in its industry, so that that's
capturing a younger generation of what life would be like
in those cities. Dallas is the same way Houston. So
(05:30):
we see these cities that are capturing the imagination of
people who are movers. We have to remember to grow,
you have to have people move into your city through migration.
The second way you grow is you have more babies,
right and the people dying. And the reality is is
that the current estimates for the United States, by this
(05:52):
the Congressional Budget Office, around twenty forty two birds and
that will be the same and we see already in
many cities in the United States that's out numbered berts. And
so this is if you're going to grow and you
already have more people dying and are born, the only
way you can grow is through migration.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Migration, Dante Chiney, you just heard in Nsanoval mentioned some
cities in Texas. A lot of the fastest growing cities
are in the Sun Belt, Texas, Florida, places like that.
Is that do you think because of the cost of living,
opportunity politics?
Speaker 9 (06:25):
What I think when you look at the growth in
the South. I think economic opportunities a lot of it.
I think climate, which some of that actually may end
up reversing in the next twenty years. I mean, I
know in Michigan they're thinking that they're going to get
climate refugees at some point here, and I think, you
look at I'm still astounded by the number of people
moving to Phoenix, where there it's one hundred and ten
(06:47):
degrees and there's no water, but they keep coming, you know,
and at some point, you know, it's you know, a climate,
better way of life, better economy. Whether or not that continues
that that's a really complicated question.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I don't know. The trends in many of these cities
have been going on for decades. But how much did
the pandemic accelerate the flight from cities?
Speaker 9 (07:06):
Donte Jenny, So I would say that cities had three
big challenges right now. One is this what happened with
COVID and people fleeing the cities. I'm going to say
for the record, I know I may be an outlier
on this, but I actually think this is somewhat overstated.
I think this idea that like I read countless stories
about everybody was leaving New York. I went to New
York recently. It still looks like there's a lot of
(07:26):
people there are. The population haven't moved as much as
people think they have. I also think that, like you know,
there was an immediate reaction and people left these places.
I actually think some of that is actually kind of
fixing itself a little bit. People are coming back. But
the longer term problems for the cities. There's medium term problem,
which is I do think the way that we're working
is changing. That's the one thing that's come out of
(07:47):
COVID that seems like it's a real thing. Few people
going in the office, which means we've got a lot
of buildings in cities that you don't know what you're
going to do with. You're going to have to convert
a lot of them. That's a real challenge. But the long, long,
long term problem I think we're talking talking about here.
Any won't talk about population changes and population growth is
for a long time the cities. The boom in cities
(08:08):
of the past twenty twenty five years, twenty five thirty
years maybe has really been about this idea of young
people moving to cities because they they wanted to be
in a different place than they were. They don't want
to be in supervia. They want to live in a
different place their parents lived. A little bit about what
the professor's talking about in terms of like capturing the
imaginations of people. But when they decide they want to
have kids, that's a different question. So I think a
(08:30):
lot of what you're seeing in a lot of cities
is people come to cities when they're young, they're in
the twenties. They want to have a good time. They
want to good bars, we want nightlife, they want all
the good things that come and being in the city.
But then the schools come into the equation.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, and then they've got to move to the burbs.
Let's let's go to the phones and again. Our number
is eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. Connie is joining
us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Connie, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 11 (08:53):
Go ahead, Hey, thank you, it's good to talk with you.
I think we did first take out why we want
a safety If the cities are declining, should they be?
Perhaps their time has ended, but I think we want
to say that they probably aren't. I know, Saint Louis
at least has a wonderful history. It's got a wonderful heritage,
it's got wonderful people there, and it's an efficient way
(09:15):
to provide services in the area and to enhance the
quality of life. I think the way we can bring
people in simply it's through immigration. There's a lot of
biases and prejudices that need to be overcome. But once
we do that, I think we welcome people, welcome young families,
welcome children.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I think that a lot of our problem will be solved.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Okay, Connie, thank you for that. Nas Sandoval. Immigration, you
brought that up. You brought up migration from different cities
in the country, But what about immigration from other countries.
Speaker 10 (09:47):
It's part of the solution. There aren't enough immigrants coming
into the United States to solve every problem in every city,
and so we have to recognize for a city of
Saint Louis, it will not solve the challenge for the
city of Saint Louis. It's one factor that will help
Saint Louis City turn things around. But Saint Louis City
(10:07):
needs American citizens moving to the city. I would say
that when we think about it, is the city dying.
Many people who are leaving the city are just moving
two miles away to the county, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Which is the case in many many cities, that that
in fact, the metro areas in these places are still
growing and it's just the city itself that may be losing.
Speaker 10 (10:30):
I would argue that the city county here in Saint Louis,
it's essentially demographically one unit, because so many people are
crossing that border every single day for work, school, and
they're moving. If you look at the tax return DOTAM,
we see that this Saint Louis City and Saint Louis
County are dependent on each other. And so the reality
(10:51):
is what we're seeing our administrative changes by city boundaries.
But within the metropolitan region there's tremendous there's tremendous pot
nation movements. We have to recognize that there is some
out migration, but for the most part, it's fairly steamed well.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And it'll be interesting to see if it just sort
of ebbs and flows, and sometimes people move to the
suburbs and sometimes the city's hot again, Tulliver, you know,
when I was growing up, I used to fly through
Saint Louis from Champagne Illinois on twe Transworld Express, and
when you got to Lambert Airport in Saint Louis, you
could go almost anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yes, it's not really like that anymore. In fact, there's
only one TRANSI Atlantic route these daysrom Saint Louis, and
it goes to Frankfurt, Germany. But listen to this clip
from nineteen sixty one about the promise of what was
known as Lambert Field.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Over ten million passengers and visitors passed through this building
each year.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
More than two.
Speaker 8 (11:42):
Hundred and twenty thousand landings in takeoffs, commercial, private, and
military were logged last year. From here, Saint Louis's range
out over the entire globe. Lambert Field is big business,
a big business operated at a profit by the City
of Saint Louis.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's always interesting to fly into Saint Louis because the
runways are still very big because of the history, but
the planes often not so much anymore. Maybe, although Southwest
has been making a big push into Saint Louis. We
will be right back with more of your calls on
the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If
you're just tuning in the middle, is a national call
in show focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically,
(12:23):
and philosophically, or maybe you just want to meet in
the middle. This hour, I'm at Saint Louis Public Radio
and we're asking you what cities that are losing population
can do to turn things around. Tolliver, can you give
that number for people to call in?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Mm HM, it's eight four four four Middle. That's eight
four four four sixty four and three three five three.
You can also write to us that listen to the
Middle dot com or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I'm joined by Saint Louis University Professor of Demography and Sociology,
Nes Sandoval and Dante Cheney, director of the American Communities
Project at Michigan State University. And before we go back
to the phones nests, Sandoval, what about the numbers? Do
you trust the numbers from the census about how many
people are in these cities?
Speaker 10 (13:02):
I believe these these are estimates, and I believe they're
very good estimates. We have to remember they are an estimate.
There's administrative data underneath these numbers that we can verify.
So the births and deaths come from the centers for
these disease control the housing survey, we can look at
the housing permits and so they we have to remember
(13:23):
that it's that these are estimates, and with any estimate
there's a margin of air. I think we should focus
on the trend, and so if you see a trend
over two or three years, the estimate is probably correct.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Datchini, what about the political implications of the cities that
are rising and falling in population. You know, obviously more
people in a city, more people in a state, you
have more electoral votes, you have more congressional representation, et cetera.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Yeah, so the congressional representation and the and the and
the electoral college representation a little different. So you know,
people think about, you know, these all these scenert you're
going in Texas. That must mean Texas is growing. It
means a lot for Texas in terms of electoral votes.
But what it really means this is the cities grow. Look,
there's a saying that I'm sure the professor hers that
(14:09):
we talk about the journals all the time, which is
density makes democrats. So the more dense a population is
an area, the more likely it is to vote democratic.
This is even true if you look at small rural areas,
the urban core such as it is in them, will
be democratic. So for instance, in Texas, Dallas is growing,
fort Worth is growing, fort Worth is now democratic, and
(14:30):
Terren County around Fort Mirth is now democratic. So in
terms of drawing up those congressional seats, obviously you can
draw seats a lot of different ways, but if you
really were drawing a true representation, the urban parts of
Texas are blue and getting bluer. But Texas is massive,
and what it really means in terms of the electoral
votes is Texas keeps gaining seats. Those are red electoral votes,
(14:54):
even though in terms of what's happening in those urban areas,
the urban areas are getting bluer. See one of the
really quick point when I throw itt yeah about Nashville.
Nashville is really interesting because it is growing. It's a
really interesting city. I love visiting it. But it's one
of those places where the county and the city are
one thing. So Davidson County in Nashville, so it's almost
(15:16):
like the suburbs in the city are one thing in Nashville. Now,
there's also suburbs outside of there, obviously, but Davidson County
is it's pretty much contiguous with the city of Nashville.
So you're getting some of that Saint Louis City, Saint
Louis County thing. That's all David's County. It's all Nashville
in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Let's go to the phones and Robert, who's in New Milford, Connecticut. Robert,
welcome to the middle.
Speaker 12 (15:38):
Go ahead, thank you for taking my crowd. Guys. I'm
actually in human resources and I actually hire engineers for
tech companies, and I have a little bit of insight
on the industry and I feel during pandemics, some of
the cities they actually took advantage of attracting remote workers
by offering them ten or fifteen dollars for relocation to
(15:59):
the cities. And another thing that universities can do is
take advantage of being non profit and you know, you
know every tech you know tech college they have opt
for these tech students for you know, universities, we are
studying for a computer. They can attract foreign students to
come to their colleges. And another thing cities can do
(16:23):
is attract the foreign investors who are basically legally buying
their way into US, you know, citizenship they're basically green
carters for sales. If they invest I think five or
eight hundred thousand dollars and employ two US citizens, they
can open up a business and you know that could
be a huge market.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
So you think that, you think that there are ways
for cities to incentivize workers to come into the city,
even if it may cost more, even if it may
not be as good of a quality of life as
they can get in some suburbs somewhere.
Speaker 12 (16:55):
Well, quality of life obviously improved if there is investment
from foreign companies and investors. I mean, it just goes
hand and hand.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Robert, thank you for that call, Nes Sandoval, What do
you make of that?
Speaker 10 (17:09):
It's an interesting point. So when we look at population change,
we look at household change, and so we always have
to remember, like if you lose five thousand residents, you
have to understand what were the types of households that
you have lost. So if you look at the city
of Saint Louis as an example, almost all of the
population changed since twenty nineteen is from black families with
(17:33):
children leaving the city. It's basically one component of the
households leaving, and they're leaving Wye it's a very complicated story,
but part of its schools, part of its crime, part
of its opportunity structure. And they're moving two or three
miles to Saint Louis County, Saint Charles County, where that
opportunity structure is in place. It's accessible. But you have
(17:56):
white households moving into the city. In fact, there are
more white households in the city today than they were
in twenty ten. So this, I would argue, is the
city of Sagus is not dying. It's going through a
great metamorphosis of demographic change. It's losing families with children
and it's gaining would be called solos and binks, solo
double liak them no kids, right, and it's this is
(18:17):
happening throughout the United States. And so these are larger
changes where suburbs are just more conducive to families with
children and cities are attracting single and double them no
kid family, Yes, msters. I remember empty nesters are coming
back into cities as well.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And let's go right back to the phones. Let's go
to Jim. What do you think, what do you think
cities can do here to turn things around if they're
losing population.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
I'm in Missouri St. Joseph, Missouri right now, but we
actually are from Saint Louis, originally in the Maplewood neighborhood.
And there's no reason for young families to be living
in the city of Saint most proper really anymore. There's
a general feeling of lawlessness, that it's unsafe, that schools
(19:04):
are poor, schools are not very high quality, put it
that way, and for families, just the suburbs offer more
because they have better schools, there's better environments for the
kids to grow up in. So to try to get
families back into Saint Louis, Copper, they're going to have
(19:25):
to get a handle on the crime. They have to
have some housing and some schools that are up to
the same standards that you'll find out in the suburbs,
you know, like out in the county.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Jim, thank you for that, called Dante Chinney. When you
hear that, I'm sure there are many listeners, many people
who have decided to move out of cities. And again,
I don't want to pick on Saint Louis. This isn't
just about Saint Louis. There are all kinds of cities
dealing with these issues. But what about the idea of
you know, people saying the schools aren't good enough, the
crime is a problem, and when they leave, it sometimes
(19:59):
can make the problems even worse.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
Yeah, it's well, this is exactly what we were just
talking about before, was the changes that are happening in
Saint Louis happening are happening in Detroit too. Like the
people that are leaving Detroit are are black families that
people are moving in? It is Detroit is it's still
heavily African American, but it's the white population in Detroit's growing,
and it's young professionals with jobs. What do you do
(20:23):
to get the families to stay? Because the other thing
that families bring to a city is they bring stability,
right like otherwise, if you're just turning over twenty somethings
every every ten years, you know it does I mean, yes,
the city's vibrant and exciting and things like that, but
you know, like neighborhoods are built around families, and how
(20:43):
do you get people to stay. I will say we
live in I live in Washington, d C. It's where
we live. We raised two kids in Washington, d C.
The kids went to public schools in Washington, d C.
It's doable. But that's because there's a section of Washington,
d C. Where it's like, Okay, that's school's good enough,
and we're going to make a go of it there.
But the one thing that happened in DC is the
(21:04):
real estate got so expensive the families that stayed could
not afford to pay for the house and the private
school anymore, and all of a sudden, the public schools
in upper Northwest DCE all got very good. The one
thing I would say about the schools in general, what
made the schools quote unquote good was the parents that
stayed there with the kids had all been to college,
and it just it's honestly, so much of it is
(21:25):
driven by the population within the school. So I understand
why people flee the cities. My families flee the cities.
And I understand the idea that, like the suburban schools
are you know, quote unquote better and safety things like that.
But what you're going to have to do to get
these families to stay, this is what the cities have do.
It's very complicated. You're going to have to develop like
a neighborhood or two where like Okay, this area is
safe for you now, okay, and then we can grow
(21:47):
that a little bit. Okay, now this area is safe
now Okay. Like these schools, it's going to cost a
little more to live here, but you can live here.
It's safe and the schools are better. You have to
kind of do that block by block and neighborhood by
neighborhood to try to convince the families to stay.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Start small, Tolliver. I know that there are some messages
coming in online.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yes, a lot of them. Sherry suggests, offer free or
significantly reduced college. You'll be getting inundated with young blood,
many of whom was stuck around after getting embedded in
the community. John and Harvard, Illinois writes, why would I
live in a hugely expensive city who services, schools and
amenities have eroded into unusable junk when I can move
a bit away to a suburb and still have access
to the city institutions like museums and sports teams junk.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
That's harsh nessa and all. When you hear about the
cost of living Kansas City that is currently cheap, stay
that way for long.
Speaker 10 (22:40):
It'll be difficult. I even think if you focus on
Saint Louis. I looked at Detroit. We can see that
there are parts of the city that are just not
affordable for a young family. And I don't even use
the word for affordable anymore attainable to get a taable
to have that American dream of that house just about
a blow from here, home sold for a million dollars.
(23:03):
That is not attainable for a young family. In many
of the neighborhoods that are desirable, you have homes going
for seven hundred thousand dollars in a city that's quote
unquote dying. The city is not dying. There's tremendous demand
to live in somebody these neighborhoods. I'll give you one
interesting fact. Same of the city is the second most
popular city in Missouri for out of state movers. So
(23:26):
they're coming into the city from Boston, New York, Houston, Dallas.
But there's only a set of neighborhoods that are getting
this benefit. And in those neighborhoods, you see the neighborhoods
change in terms of income education. Some of the neighborhoods
have on average a meeting household income like one hundred
and fifteen thousand now, which was not the neighborhood twenty
(23:47):
years ago. So some of these neighborhoods QUO are going
through gentrification, tremendous amount of displacement happening there, and so
parts of the city are on fire, other parts are declined.
So we have to recognize that. I would say that
there are at least four different Saint Louis cities. It
depends which part of the city you're in, how you're
(24:09):
experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Let's go to Rita, who's in Houston, Texas on the phone. Hi, Rita,
welcome to the middle.
Speaker 13 (24:15):
Go ahead, Hey, I have to.
Speaker 14 (24:17):
Say something really interesting. My mother was born in nineteen
twenty two in Saint Louis and her father owned a
grocery store.
Speaker 13 (24:24):
The depression moved basically forced.
Speaker 14 (24:27):
Them to him out of business because he couldn't offer
credit anymore people couldn't pay. They moved to California. Most recently,
I went back, I say maybe five years ago. I
went back and my cousin took me around to my
grandfather's store that was still standing, but it was boarded
up and it was a terrible neighborhood. He took it
(24:48):
to me to my great grandfather's house. That was a
beautiful house at one time, but the roofless came in
and he said, I could buy that house for a
dollar if I put it two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in to fix it up. He goes, but you
can't live here. The crime is so bad that you
would not want to be here. In fact, I bought
(25:10):
an old car. I couldn't even drive my new car
into this neighborhood with the freight fear of getting carjack So, you.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Know, my God, But so, Rita, you feel safe in Houston.
You like being in Houston.
Speaker 14 (25:23):
I'm actually in the outside area. I'm in sugar Land,
which is probably one of the most diverse areas in
the country. We have people from all over the world
that live in sugar Land, and it is absolutely stunningly beautiful.
There's not a gum wrapper on the sidewalk. It is
so clean, there's no homeless people. It's like a fricking
utopia compared to you know, Saint Louis, which actually is
(25:47):
an amazing city with a ton of history. I was
on a layover and I had to stay another day.
My cousin went to work. I'm like what am I
going to do? I want to go to the museum.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I went the.
Speaker 14 (26:00):
Downtown History Museum and well, I think mural of Charles
Lindbergh on the wall. I mean it's just amazing. But
it really talked about what killed Saint Louis was racial issues.
It was supposed to be the New York and the
Midwest that racial issues destroyed that city. Tell you what,
(26:22):
doing better with racial issues can bring that city back.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay, Rita, thank you very much. I want to go
to our guests and Tolliver, you got to watch out
because Rita could be a great fill in for you
some day.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I mean, she's got a lot to say. Keep going.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Actually, that's Sandival. What about the issue of race, I
mean that's a that's a big, big part of this
in a lot of cities, isn't it. I mean there
are there are cities that have had a history of
segregation in this country, and there are also newer cities
that don't have that same history of segregation.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
That is correct. So when we look at the list
of cities from COVID that are losing population, there are
cities that have had this history of racial surrogation. Baltimore Detroit, Chicago,
Saint Louis. These are all cities that developed under this
era of racial surrogation. Houston, Dallas, Phoenix are all cities
(27:14):
that developed after racial surrogation, and so the opportunity structure
is is very different in Houston compared to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroitver.
You have spatial you have spatial surrogation, and the magnitude
of spatial surrogation in these cities does not exist in Charlotte.
(27:34):
It does not exist in Houston and Dallas, although it's
there that what we're talking about, the clustering and the
concentration is nowhere near the levels. And so when people
go to Charlotte, they can live in an integrated neighborhood
fairly easy. Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, and Saint Louis is still
a very surrogated Milwaukee, Chicago very diverse cities at the
(27:56):
macro level, but the neighborhoods themselves in the city are
still fairly surrogated.
Speaker 9 (28:01):
Dante Jinny, what are your thoughts on that, Well, I mean,
it's that's the story of Detroit, right Detroit's. Detroit's population
collapse was tied to white flight. That really began the
fifties and sped up after the riots in the sixties,
and that's really the story. And like the other thing,
I think that hurt Detroit. No mass transit system, which
(28:21):
means everybody in a car. The city was built around
the car. The highways were quick ways to get out
of town. You could live in the suburbs and work
in the city. So I think it's definitely it's a
huge part of the story of Detroit. Troit's still about
it trods about eighty percent African American, seventy seventy eight percent,
something like that. It's very very African American city, very
black city. That said, it's like I love going to
(28:41):
I don't feel I don't feel threatened with I'm in
Detroit at all. I love the city of Detroit. The
one thing I would say about the caller to the
caller's point is this, yeah, yes, it's wonderful. There are
no gum wrappers, no, no, almost, And that's not everybody's
idea of utopia. Is the same thing as the one
thing i'd say. New York City is a mess, but
(29:02):
I love it. I love New York. It's a beautiful mess,
and it's not everybody wants the same thing. People want
different things where they live. So some people want that urban.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Such as a Well, I'm glad that you brought up Detroit,
because you're right, there was a time when Tolliver, the
motor city, really seemed like the economic capital of the country.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah. I actually have a clip here that's going to
transport us back in time to the Detroit of the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 15 (29:27):
From any angle, the face of the city is in
part it's skyline, so it is with the unmistakable silhouette
of the towering Renaissance Center. The Hallmark profile look great
at Detroit.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Super City USA. Well, well, well, welcome home, Well, come home,
Welcome to Supercity USA. You know, the guy sounds like
Elvis Taliver. I know it's not Elvis, but it sounds
like Elvis singing that song.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I'm convinced, man, let's move to Detroit. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Also, I think we need to make like a jingle
like that for the middle, with like a singers and everything.
I think that could be good. We will be right
back with more of your calls on the middle. This
is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're asking you this
hour what can cities that are losing population do to
turn things around. You can call us at eight four
four four Middle that's eight four four four six four
three three five three, or you can reach out at
(30:21):
listen to Themiddle dot com. I am joined by Saint
Louis University Professor of Demography and sociology, Ness Sandoval, and
Dante Cheney, who's director of the American Communities Project at
Michigan State University. And let's go right back to the phones.
And Michael, who's in Birmingham, Alabama. Hi, Michael, welcome to
the Middle. What do you think?
Speaker 13 (30:40):
Yeah, thanks for taking the call. Yes, welcome to Birmingham, Alabama.
You were talking about a city with historic segregation, and yes,
Birmingham for decades has lost population, but in the last
census is starting to see an uptick in population and
it's course focused on the downtown core. And I think
(31:03):
part of the reason Birmingham is being a bit of
a turnaround is because it's worked very hard to create
an authentic place. And in fact, Birmingham just hosted the
main Street Now Conference, the main Street Organization national conference
that usually doesn't come to a city this small. I
(31:24):
think Birmingham has done a really good job over the
last decade or so in revitalizing its downtown historic core,
taking those historic buildings and turning them into lofts, having
a wonderful walkable downtown community with cool restaurants and cafes
coming in, bakeries, cultural assets that are all walkable, and
(31:48):
people are recognizing that if you want an urban experience,
you can have it in Birmingham, and yet you're only
a half hour away from getting out to the natural
beauty of Alabama. So I think creating an authentic place
is one way that you can help revitalize downtowns.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Great, Michael, thank you for that. I'll say, Dante Chinney
that I was just in Kansas City, which has a beautiful,
walkable downtown with restaurants and cafes and all kinds of stuff.
Really nice to walk around it. But I also wonder
whether suburbs, as people move more into the suburbs, that
they're going to you know, young people are going to
(32:25):
want to recreate spaces that are like cities basically with
exactly what Michael's talking about.
Speaker 9 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean you can try. I mean I think
and I think, look, I've seen it's the way the
suburbs developed. Particularly if a suburb of evolves around the
idea that there was a small town there next to
the big city and then stuff popped up around it,
you can kind of try to recapture some of that stuff.
There's some of that stuff in Detroit on the west
side of the city and Royal Lokinferndale, these cities that
(32:52):
are really close suburbs of Detroit, like within a couple
of miles, but have their own distinct feels. But the
infrastructure was there in those cases that they that it
was when Detroit was really was further away. The sprawl
had to get out to them, so there were towns there.
To build that from scratch is difficult. It's very very
difficult to build a downtown atmosphere from scratch. You can try.
(33:13):
I mean, I live in DC, Like I said, Bethesda tries.
I mean there's kind of an satz downtown, yeah, which
is fine. I like it. It's nice, but it doesn't
feel like the city.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah's you're talking about places like the main Line outside
of Philadelphia that are these old city, old towns that
have been there for a long time. It's on a
train line and so they've got their own character. Let's
go to one of our new listeners in our new
city of Cincinnati, Ohio that just started airing The Middle.
Vince is with us High Vins. Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 16 (33:42):
Thank you for taking my call. I want to say
that the easiest things that can be done is to
change the perception. There are no real such things as
good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, good parts of the city, bad
parts of the city. It's whether people are perceiving that's
the case. It's actually a.
Speaker 17 (34:01):
Case or not.
Speaker 18 (34:01):
Because I mean, for the people living there, it's where
they live. That's a good thing for them. They'd rather
be living there than nowhere else, or rather than nowhere
at all. The big concern then is how do you
change the perception. And you change the perception by putting
your feet on the ground and actually doing things. So
(34:21):
as the previous caller was talking about their cousins saying, oh,
I could buy that house for a dollar, and X
y Z, well buy the house for a dollar, do
something with it, change it. If you're going to give
taxing centives to a business to come into the city,
then say, oh, this neighborhood that needs revitalization. Well, you
can have the.
Speaker 17 (34:41):
Tax executive incentives, but your executives have to live in
this area. Cincinnati's doing something that's really interesting is that
its Poort Authority is buying houses that are dilapidated, that
need work and stuff like that, revitalizing them and telling
them specifically to low income families that would not normally
(35:05):
be able to get these houses. It's completely restructuring and
revitalizing the city itself. You don't need to have these
this white flight to.
Speaker 16 (35:14):
The suburbs because the suburbs are just the little boxes
made of Ticki tak esmob Right.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Well, I mean there are some nice suburbs out there too,
But thank you for that call, Vince. I'm going to
get to another one. Tyler is in Chicago. Hi, Tyler,
go ahead, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 19 (35:32):
Hey, thank you for having me. Yeah, my question hopefully
isn't too much off topic, but you know, I'm from Chicago,
which is an extremely developed city also seeing a you know,
fallen population. My question is how much the reaction to
the COVID pandemic may have affected larger cities, you know,
on the size of Chicago. If that is for some
reason the shutdowns they have done, we're kind of forcing
(35:56):
people to maybe move out. And you had mentioned earlier
in the show, you know, Arise and people moving to
more of the Sun Belt states like Florida and Texas.
A lot of those cities, you know, when we were
completely shut down, they were completely open, and I wonder
if they changed anyone's perspective of a city, even of Chicago,
in my opinion, is amazing. You know, if people maybe think, well,
(36:17):
if this ever happens again, if I'm living somewhere you
know else, maybe the result would be a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Great question, Tyler Nest Sandoval. What about that the reactions
to the pandemic and how that changed migration pattern.
Speaker 10 (36:30):
Yeah, I think there is an element to people reassessed
where they wanted to live with the option from remote work.
I think we see it in Silicon Valley where people
were able to move, and we see that some cities
are benefiting from that migration, especially in Montana and Idaho, Denver, Colorado.
(36:53):
Remote work is here to stay right. Companies invested in it.
There is a demand for labor, and trying to convince
people to move is very difficult when you have a
partner that needs to move with you to bring families.
It's a lot easier to hire somebody who's willing to
do remote work. And the infrastructure is built now for
(37:13):
many companies to hire people without having to work around
the idea of a moving company finding a house, and
so that remote work is going to be here, and
that's that's difficult for companies who are building an idea
around tech companies because there's those tech companies that have
the infrastructure for remote work. And so this I want
(37:36):
to come back to this idea of perception because we
live in an era of social media. So we have
to recognize that we have great sociological studies that show
that people overestimate the actual phenomenon that that we're studying,
and so social media is very important understanding that people
(37:58):
are probably over emphasizing the amount of crime that's happening
in the city compared to the actual crime that's happening
in the city, and so that perception is very important,
and it goes with school districts as well, the perception
of a quality school district, and so to change in
those perceptions, it's very difficult, regardless of what the actual
data says.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
What do the data say right now that crime is
coming down, Yes, but people's perception feel like it does.
Speaker 10 (38:25):
Not correlate to the actual data.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Let's go to Anna, who's in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Anna,
what do you think? Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 20 (38:33):
Hey, thanks for having me. So I was born in
Saint Louis and I moved to Baltimore to go to college,
where I've lived here for the past six years. So
I have perspective from both cities and their similarities as
well as their differences. But I agree, I think the
thing that people need to change the most is their
perception of these cities. All my life, growing up in
(38:54):
Saint Louis County, I was told void the city dangerous,
there's too much crime. When I moved to Baltimore, my
family said, you're crazy, there's too much crime there.
Speaker 16 (39:03):
How could you ever go there?
Speaker 20 (39:05):
Despite the fact that crime has been declining for the
past two years lowesst thomicide rate in a decade in
both cities, there's still this perception, which is often rooted
in racism, with Baltimore being a majority of black city,
that it's just a dangerous place, and that's simply not true.
So I think what people need to do is actually
go out visit these cities and check their perceptions at
(39:28):
the door.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Anna, thank you for that, you know, Tolliver, I want
to go to you because you are a person that
will you walk, You don't, you don't drive, you walk everywhere? Yeah,
and you are you ever? Are you ever afraid of
as you walk around at all?
Speaker 7 (39:43):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And I've been to a lot of the cities that
you you know, the two cities she's mentioned. I never
felt afraid in Chicago growing up. I think, you know,
I fear, you know, like hops, more than I would,
you know, just some random guy on the street, you know,
just just to be honest, you know.
Speaker 12 (39:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, let's get to Nick. Who's in Detroit. Hi, Nikki,
what do you think cities could do to turn things
around if they're losing population?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Well, I think one of the things that Detroit did
so well is to get really creative restaurants and bars
and stuff that made people come down who used to
be afraid to go into the city and realize that
it's a great place and they can drive around and out.
There's grocery stores downtown. Now there's new buildings, there's new housing,
But we still have the school problem downtown that's building
(40:31):
up the schools is I'm go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I was just gonna say, you think that the nightlife.
Is the night life more important than the schools, do
you or what do you think?
Speaker 21 (40:41):
Well, because my kids are out of the house, so
I'm I'm in Detroit right now to go to drinks,
you know, and I have been looking to move down
there as empty nester. But I think it's it's like
you're saying that the younger people are the empty nesters
are moving down because the nightlife. But to get the
young families.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
You need to build up the schools. But when I
was going I went to college down there, and there
were no grocery stores. There was no you had to
go out to the suburbs to buy anything. And now
that all those stores are coming back to the city,
so you can stay right downtown. Yeah, Nikki, it's a
great city.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Thank you, Thank you for calling in. And you know,
Dante Cheney, one of the nice things about doing a
show like this that's live in the evening as people
are on their way to drinks or sometimes they've had
the drinks, and then they call and we can tell
we can tell when that happens. What do you make
of What do you make of Nicky's comments about nightlife
and the importance of it.
Speaker 9 (41:35):
Yeah, look, Detroit is a lot of fun man Like,
I love going downtown to Detroit. The things she talked
about though with this idea of there are more experimental
restaurants and things. Look, one of the advantages that Detroit
has in these other cities that are kind of that
are that have struggled for a long time is it's
cheaper to do work there. So if you've got an
idea for a restaurant, it's not expensive to get a
(41:58):
place and try it. And there was a lot of
this and Detroit where people took these tiny little places
that I'm going to do this here, I'm going to
do this, I'm going to do this random restaurant here,
and it ended up creating like a lot of really
good restaurants, a lot of really good bars, and most important,
experimental because it doesn't cost an arm and a leg
to get into the game in terms of the nightlife
part of it. You can get in cheap and if
(42:18):
it works, you got a hit. And if it doesn't work,
you're not out of a lot of money. It leads
to works more experimental, interesting nightlife.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Let's go to Al. Who's in Ketchum, Idaho? Al, welcome
to the middle, Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
I wanted to take the contrary point of view that
a falling population is not only going to improve your lifestyle,
it's going to give you more open space, reduce the
cost of housing, congestion, resource use, emissions, everything. I mean,
as Sir David Attenborough said, all our environmental problems are
(42:52):
either caused by, made worse by, and eventually made unsolvable
by our ever growing human population. See it in our
emissions nineteen eighty. Since then we have reduced our emissions
per capita in the US. You're part risen by fifty percent.
That's why we're not getting anywhere.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Al. Are those birds in the background, By the way,
are we hearing birds in Idaho? Behind you?
Speaker 7 (43:18):
You are?
Speaker 6 (43:19):
My backyard is full of bird feeders, trees and birds.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
That's nice. So that's that's why you don't want the
city to be growing too fast. Thank you for that call.
I want to bring that up. I'm glad you brought
that that point up, Nests Sandoval. Not everybody wants their
city to grow. Is there are we focusing on growth
at all costs. There is there a good thing about
a city that is shrinking.
Speaker 10 (43:41):
When you talk about historic cities like Saint Louis or Detroit,
there's an infrastructure that's in place, and so if you
have a declining population, there have to be tough decisions
about the infrastructure. I think Detroit had this discussion over
a decade ago in recognizing that many of the people
are not going to come to back the parts of
(44:02):
the city, and so yes, you may you may have
to rethink and replan how we give part of the
city back to mother nature. There are lots of communities,
there are lots of cities in the suburbs that we
call them nimby not in my backyard, who actually do
not They're not very favorable for economic development. They don't
(44:25):
want attainable housing there. They want to preserve their way
of life. They want low density, which is fine, and
so not everybody wants economic growth UH in their in
their suburban areas. But I think for the core city,
the principal city, like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, you have an
infrastructure in place that can support higher density, that can
(44:46):
support UH economic development, and so I would, I would
encourage these cities not to give up and try to
encourage population to come back. Just an interesting point about
Saleu City. It's different than Detroit because Sanilu City was
a majority black city. Right now, the white population is
larger than the black population, and if the trends continue,
(45:09):
the white population will be the majority. In Saint Louis City.
It's already the majority in terms of households, and so
we're about five to seven years away for that to happen.
So Sanlu City is not dying. There's a metamorphosis going on.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Let me finally go to you, Dante Cheney, and ask
you whether you think that there is a generational issue.
We've heard from younger people, we've heard from older people.
Is there something about our generations that affects whether people
want to be in cities and whether they don't want
to be in cities right at this moment in time.
Is that feeding into what we're dealing with.
Speaker 9 (45:45):
I think there's always a generational aspect to this, and
that you probably want what you didn't have as a kid.
A lot of times if you grew up in the suburbs,
there's a certain romanticity the city's a romantic idea at
least when you're young for a while. But again, what
is it? What does it mean when you're ready to
be to become like your mom and dad? That's the
question generationally right now? Where are we cities? Cities had
(46:07):
a really nice run for a lot of young people
wanting to move back into them and after college to
have this kind of vibrant downtown life. Is that going
to continue? I look, I might be the outlier here,
but the idea that, like the cities are all going
to be empty one hundred years sounds bizarre to me.
I do think I expect to see that to continue. Like, look,
when you're young and you want to have fun, and
(46:27):
you want to meet people, and maybe you want to
meet the person you're going to be with for the
rest of your life, it's easier to do that in
a city than it is out in the.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Or or just open up your phone is what people
do these days. I guess that's a different thing. Why
I go to a bar where you can just open
up your phone. We are out of time, except for
Tolliver has a quiz for our guest. Tolliver, the flora
is yours.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I'll keep a short and sweeen. All right, which American
town has the smallest population? And this is a trick question,
all right? You for Wyoming, manaw Wee, Nebraska, Hibbertscore Main
or Lost Springs.
Speaker 9 (47:02):
Small the boundaries with the smallest population.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, m Nests Sandoval, Dante Chenney, And you guess.
Speaker 10 (47:09):
I would say Wyoming.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
The town in Wyoming, Lost Springs, Wyoming. Dante, what do
you say?
Speaker 9 (47:13):
Well, you said it's a trick question, so I'm not
going to say Alaska. But I was going to say
the town in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
They all have the population of one one person.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Wow, I was not expecting that.
Speaker 9 (47:27):
I will say, that's easy to provide separates, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
All right, Well, uh, let me thank my guests, Saint
Louis University professor of Demography and sociology, Nests Sandoval, and
Dante Cheney, director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State,
and a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thanks to
both of you.
Speaker 9 (47:44):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
At Tolliver. What do we have on tap for next week?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Next week we'll be taking a look inward sort of.
We'll be asking what can media organizations do to gain
or regain your trust. You can call us at eight
four four four six four three through five three or
right in it. Listen to The Middle dot com. While
you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
The Middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joanne Jennings, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, and John Barth, who
is celebrating his birthday today, Happy Birthday, John. Our intern
is Anika Deshler. Our technical director is Jason Kroft. Our
theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. I want to
thank our friends here at Saint Louis Public Radio, Ryan Schulti,
(48:24):
Wayne Pratt, and Brian Heffernan. And thanks to the more
than four hundred and ten public radio stations that are
making it possible for people across the country to listen
to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you next week.
The Middle is supported by Journalism Funding Partners, a nonprofit
organization striving to increase the sustainability of local journalism by
building connections between donors and news organizations. More information on
how you can support the Middle at Listen Toothmiddle dot com.
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson coming to you
(00:21):
from Saint Louis Public Radio this week. But our house
DJ Tolliver is at Nashville Public Radio because I guess, Tolliver,
you like hot chicken more than toasted ravioli.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Toasted violi that won't sound too good.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
That's where that's famous in St. Louis. So we've also
got a studio audience here in Saint Louis for the
first time. So if you hear people clapping and laughing
or booing, that's them Tulliver. We also have some new
Middle listeners this week.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, indeed, let's welcome the listeners of Cincinnati Public Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Welcome, Welcome Cincinnati, and let's talk for a minute about
the three cities that we're talking about here. Saint Louis
is shrinking in size every year. It actually peaked in
population around nineteen fifty, just after the Gateway arch was
designed when it was the eighth largest city in the country.
Cincinnati's population is actually growing slightly after decades of declines,
(01:13):
but it's still much lower than it was at its peak.
And Nashville is growing relatively fast, and the twenty twenty
census recorded the most people living in that city ever.
So what we want to know this hour is what
you think cities that are shrinking can do to turn
things around. You can call us at eight four four
Middle that is eight four four four six four three
three five three, or write to us at listen Toothemiddle
(01:36):
dot com and we'll get to your calls in a moment.
But first, last week we asked you do you trust
our court system? And I got to say I was
pretty shocked at how many listeners do not listen to
some of these voicemails that came in.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
My name is Kelly and I'm in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
My name is Sam Dunham.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
I live in Anchorage, Alaska.
Speaker 7 (01:56):
I'm Cassandra calling from Las Vegas. Hello, this is David
from Louisiana.
Speaker 8 (02:02):
My big concern regarding the courts is of course, concerning
the Supreme Court, which seems to be accountable to nobody.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
It seems to me the reason that it's become a
politicized issue because we have a system where we have
a political figure who chooses who our judges are going
to be.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I trust the courts because I have to, even if
I don't always agree with it, I have to trust
that they are still going.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
To do their job. While it's clearly not a perfect system,
I think people should take a beat and look at
the magnificent achievement that a functional court system is within
the context of history and the world. It does allow
us to track down corruption and hold people accountable in
a way that you simply can't do if you live
in a country without a court system that at least
strives to be fair and impartial.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that full show by subscribing to The Middle podcast
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app or
wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so our topic this hour.
Many cities, including Saint Louis where I am this week,
lost population during the pandemic. In fact, between April twenty
twenty and July twenty twenty two, during the height of COVID,
(03:09):
this city lost five percent of its population. But even
after COVID, Saint Louis, like so many other cities across
the country, continue to see population drain. Saint Louis recently
dipped below three hundred thousand for the first time since
the eighteen hundreds, and according to a study from the
University of Illinois, Chicago, thousands of American cities could be
(03:29):
virtual ghost towns by the year twenty one hundred because
of population decline. So what is happening and what can
cities do to turn things around? Tolliver, what is that
number for people to call?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
email us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Let's meet our panel joining me here in Saint Louis.
Ness Sandoval, Professor of demography and sociology at Saint Louis University,
Nest Welcome, Thank you very much, And from Detroit, another
city with its own long standing struggles with population loss.
Dante Chiney, director of the American Communities Project at Michigan
State who reports on demographics and politics for The Wall
Street Journal.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
Dante CHINNI, welcome to you, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And before we get to the phones, it seems to
me that there are three things that might cause a
city to grow or shrink in population, and they would
be opportunity, cost of living, in quality of life. And
I would including quality of life things like crime and
education and transit nest saut of all by missing anything.
Speaker 10 (04:28):
I think those are the three core factors that impact
a city's population. I would add another one. How a
person imagines their life in the city. Are you capturing
the imagination of a person when they come to a city,
like do they want to make the city their life?
Their American dream? Can they find it there? And so
(04:49):
a lot of cities that we see that are growing
today are capturing the imagination of a younger population, and
so they want to experience life in those cities, and
cities that are speaking, we're no longer part of that imagination.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So how are those cities, I mean, let's say Nashville,
we said it's at the highest level it's ever been.
How is that capturing the imagine?
Speaker 10 (05:09):
I think part of its jobs, part of it's a
good university. You have a fair amount of recreational activities
around football and other sporting events. So that captures that
you have the music in its industry, so that that's
capturing a younger generation of what life would be like
in those cities. Dallas is the same way Houston. So
(05:30):
we see these cities that are capturing the imagination of
people who are movers. We have to remember to grow,
you have to have people move into your city through migration.
The second way you grow is you have more babies,
right and the people dying. And the reality is is
that the current estimates for the United States, by this
(05:52):
the Congressional Budget Office, around twenty forty two birds and
that will be the same and we see already in
many cities in the United States that's out numbered berts. And
so this is if you're going to grow and you
already have more people dying and are born, the only
way you can grow is through migration.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Migration, Dante Chiney, you just heard in Nsanoval mentioned some
cities in Texas. A lot of the fastest growing cities
are in the Sun Belt, Texas, Florida, places like that.
Is that do you think because of the cost of living,
opportunity politics?
Speaker 9 (06:25):
What I think when you look at the growth in
the South. I think economic opportunities a lot of it.
I think climate, which some of that actually may end
up reversing in the next twenty years. I mean, I
know in Michigan they're thinking that they're going to get
climate refugees at some point here, and I think, you
look at I'm still astounded by the number of people
moving to Phoenix, where there it's one hundred and ten
(06:47):
degrees and there's no water, but they keep coming, you know,
and at some point, you know, it's you know, a climate,
better way of life, better economy. Whether or not that continues
that that's a really complicated question.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I don't know. The trends in many of these cities
have been going on for decades. But how much did
the pandemic accelerate the flight from cities?
Speaker 9 (07:06):
Donte Jenny, So I would say that cities had three
big challenges right now. One is this what happened with
COVID and people fleeing the cities. I'm going to say
for the record, I know I may be an outlier
on this, but I actually think this is somewhat overstated.
I think this idea that like I read countless stories
about everybody was leaving New York. I went to New
York recently. It still looks like there's a lot of
(07:26):
people there are. The population haven't moved as much as
people think they have. I also think that, like you know,
there was an immediate reaction and people left these places.
I actually think some of that is actually kind of
fixing itself a little bit. People are coming back. But
the longer term problems for the cities. There's medium term problem,
which is I do think the way that we're working
is changing. That's the one thing that's come out of
(07:47):
COVID that seems like it's a real thing. Few people
going in the office, which means we've got a lot
of buildings in cities that you don't know what you're
going to do with. You're going to have to convert
a lot of them. That's a real challenge. But the long, long,
long term problem I think we're talking talking about here.
Any won't talk about population changes and population growth is
for a long time the cities. The boom in cities
(08:08):
of the past twenty twenty five years, twenty five thirty
years maybe has really been about this idea of young
people moving to cities because they they wanted to be
in a different place than they were. They don't want
to be in supervia. They want to live in a
different place their parents lived. A little bit about what
the professor's talking about in terms of like capturing the
imaginations of people. But when they decide they want to
have kids, that's a different question. So I think a
(08:30):
lot of what you're seeing in a lot of cities
is people come to cities when they're young, they're in
the twenties. They want to have a good time. They
want to good bars, we want nightlife, they want all
the good things that come and being in the city.
But then the schools come into the equation.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Right, and then they've got to move to the burbs.
Let's let's go to the phones and again. Our number
is eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. Connie is joining
us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Connie, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 11 (08:53):
Go ahead, Hey, thank you, it's good to talk with you.
I think we did first take out why we want
a safety If the cities are declining, should they be?
Perhaps their time has ended, but I think we want
to say that they probably aren't. I know, Saint Louis
at least has a wonderful history. It's got a wonderful heritage,
it's got wonderful people there, and it's an efficient way
(09:15):
to provide services in the area and to enhance the
quality of life. I think the way we can bring
people in simply it's through immigration. There's a lot of
biases and prejudices that need to be overcome. But once
we do that, I think we welcome people, welcome young families,
welcome children.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I think that a lot of our problem will be solved.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Okay, Connie, thank you for that. Nas Sandoval. Immigration, you
brought that up. You brought up migration from different cities
in the country, But what about immigration from other countries.
Speaker 10 (09:47):
It's part of the solution. There aren't enough immigrants coming
into the United States to solve every problem in every city,
and so we have to recognize for a city of
Saint Louis, it will not solve the challenge for the
city of Saint Louis. It's one factor that will help
Saint Louis City turn things around. But Saint Louis City
(10:07):
needs American citizens moving to the city. I would say
that when we think about it, is the city dying.
Many people who are leaving the city are just moving
two miles away to the county, and so.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Which is the case in many many cities, that that
in fact, the metro areas in these places are still
growing and it's just the city itself that may be losing.
Speaker 10 (10:30):
I would argue that the city county here in Saint Louis,
it's essentially demographically one unit, because so many people are
crossing that border every single day for work, school, and
they're moving. If you look at the tax return DOTAM,
we see that this Saint Louis City and Saint Louis
County are dependent on each other. And so the reality
(10:51):
is what we're seeing our administrative changes by city boundaries.
But within the metropolitan region there's tremendous there's tremendous pot
nation movements. We have to recognize that there is some
out migration, but for the most part, it's fairly steamed well.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
And it'll be interesting to see if it just sort
of ebbs and flows, and sometimes people move to the
suburbs and sometimes the city's hot again, Tulliver, you know,
when I was growing up, I used to fly through
Saint Louis from Champagne Illinois on twe Transworld Express, and
when you got to Lambert Airport in Saint Louis, you
could go almost anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yes, it's not really like that anymore. In fact, there's
only one TRANSI Atlantic route these daysrom Saint Louis, and
it goes to Frankfurt, Germany. But listen to this clip
from nineteen sixty one about the promise of what was
known as Lambert Field.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Over ten million passengers and visitors passed through this building
each year.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
More than two.
Speaker 8 (11:42):
Hundred and twenty thousand landings in takeoffs, commercial, private, and
military were logged last year. From here, Saint Louis's range
out over the entire globe. Lambert Field is big business,
a big business operated at a profit by the City
of Saint Louis.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's always interesting to fly into Saint Louis because the
runways are still very big because of the history, but
the planes often not so much anymore. Maybe, although Southwest
has been making a big push into Saint Louis. We
will be right back with more of your calls on
the Middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If
you're just tuning in the middle, is a national call
in show focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically,
(12:23):
and philosophically, or maybe you just want to meet in
the middle. This hour, I'm at Saint Louis Public Radio
and we're asking you what cities that are losing population
can do to turn things around. Tolliver, can you give
that number for people to call in?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Mm HM, it's eight four four four Middle. That's eight
four four four sixty four and three three five three.
You can also write to us that listen to the
Middle dot com or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I'm joined by Saint Louis University Professor of Demography and Sociology,
Nes Sandoval and Dante Cheney, director of the American Communities
Project at Michigan State University. And before we go back
to the phones nests, Sandoval, what about the numbers? Do
you trust the numbers from the census about how many
people are in these cities?
Speaker 10 (13:02):
I believe these these are estimates, and I believe they're
very good estimates. We have to remember they are an estimate.
There's administrative data underneath these numbers that we can verify.
So the births and deaths come from the centers for
these disease control the housing survey, we can look at
the housing permits and so they we have to remember
(13:23):
that it's that these are estimates, and with any estimate
there's a margin of air. I think we should focus
on the trend, and so if you see a trend
over two or three years, the estimate is probably correct.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Datchini, what about the political implications of the cities that
are rising and falling in population. You know, obviously more
people in a city, more people in a state, you
have more electoral votes, you have more congressional representation, et cetera.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Yeah, so the congressional representation and the and the and
the electoral college representation a little different. So you know,
people think about, you know, these all these scenert you're
going in Texas. That must mean Texas is growing. It
means a lot for Texas in terms of electoral votes.
But what it really means this is the cities grow. Look,
there's a saying that I'm sure the professor hers that
(14:09):
we talk about the journals all the time, which is
density makes democrats. So the more dense a population is
an area, the more likely it is to vote democratic.
This is even true if you look at small rural areas,
the urban core such as it is in them, will
be democratic. So for instance, in Texas, Dallas is growing,
fort Worth is growing, fort Worth is now democratic, and
(14:30):
Terren County around Fort Mirth is now democratic. So in
terms of drawing up those congressional seats, obviously you can
draw seats a lot of different ways, but if you
really were drawing a true representation, the urban parts of
Texas are blue and getting bluer. But Texas is massive,
and what it really means in terms of the electoral
votes is Texas keeps gaining seats. Those are red electoral votes,
(14:54):
even though in terms of what's happening in those urban areas,
the urban areas are getting bluer. See one of the
really quick point when I throw itt yeah about Nashville.
Nashville is really interesting because it is growing. It's a
really interesting city. I love visiting it. But it's one
of those places where the county and the city are
one thing. So Davidson County in Nashville, so it's almost
(15:16):
like the suburbs in the city are one thing in Nashville. Now,
there's also suburbs outside of there, obviously, but Davidson County
is it's pretty much contiguous with the city of Nashville.
So you're getting some of that Saint Louis City, Saint
Louis County thing. That's all David's County. It's all Nashville
in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Let's go to the phones and Robert, who's in New Milford, Connecticut. Robert,
welcome to the middle.
Speaker 12 (15:38):
Go ahead, thank you for taking my crowd. Guys. I'm
actually in human resources and I actually hire engineers for
tech companies, and I have a little bit of insight
on the industry and I feel during pandemics, some of
the cities they actually took advantage of attracting remote workers
by offering them ten or fifteen dollars for relocation to
(15:59):
the cities. And another thing that universities can do is
take advantage of being non profit and you know, you
know every tech you know tech college they have opt
for these tech students for you know, universities, we are
studying for a computer. They can attract foreign students to
come to their colleges. And another thing cities can do
(16:23):
is attract the foreign investors who are basically legally buying
their way into US, you know, citizenship they're basically green
carters for sales. If they invest I think five or
eight hundred thousand dollars and employ two US citizens, they
can open up a business and you know that could
be a huge market.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
So you think that, you think that there are ways
for cities to incentivize workers to come into the city,
even if it may cost more, even if it may
not be as good of a quality of life as
they can get in some suburbs somewhere.
Speaker 12 (16:55):
Well, quality of life obviously improved if there is investment
from foreign companies and investors. I mean, it just goes
hand and hand.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Robert, thank you for that call, Nes Sandoval, What do
you make of that?
Speaker 10 (17:09):
It's an interesting point. So when we look at population change,
we look at household change, and so we always have
to remember, like if you lose five thousand residents, you
have to understand what were the types of households that
you have lost. So if you look at the city
of Saint Louis as an example, almost all of the
population changed since twenty nineteen is from black families with
(17:33):
children leaving the city. It's basically one component of the
households leaving, and they're leaving Wye it's a very complicated story,
but part of its schools, part of its crime, part
of its opportunity structure. And they're moving two or three
miles to Saint Louis County, Saint Charles County, where that
opportunity structure is in place. It's accessible. But you have
(17:56):
white households moving into the city. In fact, there are
more white households in the city today than they were
in twenty ten. So this, I would argue, is the
city of Sagus is not dying. It's going through a
great metamorphosis of demographic change. It's losing families with children
and it's gaining would be called solos and binks, solo
double liak them no kids, right, and it's this is
(18:17):
happening throughout the United States. And so these are larger
changes where suburbs are just more conducive to families with
children and cities are attracting single and double them no
kid family, Yes, msters. I remember empty nesters are coming
back into cities as well.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And let's go right back to the phones. Let's go
to Jim. What do you think, what do you think
cities can do here to turn things around if they're
losing population.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
I'm in Missouri St. Joseph, Missouri right now, but we
actually are from Saint Louis, originally in the Maplewood neighborhood.
And there's no reason for young families to be living
in the city of Saint most proper really anymore. There's
a general feeling of lawlessness, that it's unsafe, that schools
(19:04):
are poor, schools are not very high quality, put it
that way, and for families, just the suburbs offer more
because they have better schools, there's better environments for the
kids to grow up in. So to try to get
families back into Saint Louis, Copper, they're going to have
(19:25):
to get a handle on the crime. They have to
have some housing and some schools that are up to
the same standards that you'll find out in the suburbs,
you know, like out in the county.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Jim, thank you for that, called Dante Chinney. When you
hear that, I'm sure there are many listeners, many people
who have decided to move out of cities. And again,
I don't want to pick on Saint Louis. This isn't
just about Saint Louis. There are all kinds of cities
dealing with these issues. But what about the idea of
you know, people saying the schools aren't good enough, the
crime is a problem, and when they leave, it sometimes
(19:59):
can make the problems even worse.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
Yeah, it's well, this is exactly what we were just
talking about before, was the changes that are happening in
Saint Louis happening are happening in Detroit too. Like the
people that are leaving Detroit are are black families that
people are moving in? It is Detroit is it's still
heavily African American, but it's the white population in Detroit's growing,
and it's young professionals with jobs. What do you do
(20:23):
to get the families to stay? Because the other thing
that families bring to a city is they bring stability,
right like otherwise, if you're just turning over twenty somethings
every every ten years, you know it does I mean, yes,
the city's vibrant and exciting and things like that, but
you know, like neighborhoods are built around families, and how
(20:43):
do you get people to stay. I will say we
live in I live in Washington, d C. It's where
we live. We raised two kids in Washington, d C.
The kids went to public schools in Washington, d C.
It's doable. But that's because there's a section of Washington,
d C. Where it's like, Okay, that's school's good enough,
and we're going to make a go of it there.
But the one thing that happened in DC is the
(21:04):
real estate got so expensive the families that stayed could
not afford to pay for the house and the private
school anymore, and all of a sudden, the public schools
in upper Northwest DCE all got very good. The one
thing I would say about the schools in general, what
made the schools quote unquote good was the parents that
stayed there with the kids had all been to college,
and it just it's honestly, so much of it is
(21:25):
driven by the population within the school. So I understand
why people flee the cities. My families flee the cities.
And I understand the idea that, like the suburban schools
are you know, quote unquote better and safety things like that.
But what you're going to have to do to get
these families to stay, this is what the cities have do.
It's very complicated. You're going to have to develop like
a neighborhood or two where like Okay, this area is
safe for you now, okay, and then we can grow
(21:47):
that a little bit. Okay, now this area is safe
now Okay. Like these schools, it's going to cost a
little more to live here, but you can live here.
It's safe and the schools are better. You have to
kind of do that block by block and neighborhood by
neighborhood to try to convince the families to stay.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Start small, Tolliver. I know that there are some messages
coming in online.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yes, a lot of them. Sherry suggests, offer free or
significantly reduced college. You'll be getting inundated with young blood,
many of whom was stuck around after getting embedded in
the community. John and Harvard, Illinois writes, why would I
live in a hugely expensive city who services, schools and
amenities have eroded into unusable junk when I can move
a bit away to a suburb and still have access
to the city institutions like museums and sports teams junk.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
That's harsh nessa and all. When you hear about the
cost of living Kansas City that is currently cheap, stay
that way for long.
Speaker 10 (22:40):
It'll be difficult. I even think if you focus on
Saint Louis. I looked at Detroit. We can see that
there are parts of the city that are just not
affordable for a young family. And I don't even use
the word for affordable anymore attainable to get a taable
to have that American dream of that house just about
a blow from here, home sold for a million dollars.
(23:03):
That is not attainable for a young family. In many
of the neighborhoods that are desirable, you have homes going
for seven hundred thousand dollars in a city that's quote
unquote dying. The city is not dying. There's tremendous demand
to live in somebody these neighborhoods. I'll give you one
interesting fact. Same of the city is the second most
popular city in Missouri for out of state movers. So
(23:26):
they're coming into the city from Boston, New York, Houston, Dallas.
But there's only a set of neighborhoods that are getting
this benefit. And in those neighborhoods, you see the neighborhoods
change in terms of income education. Some of the neighborhoods
have on average a meeting household income like one hundred
and fifteen thousand now, which was not the neighborhood twenty
(23:47):
years ago. So some of these neighborhoods QUO are going
through gentrification, tremendous amount of displacement happening there, and so
parts of the city are on fire, other parts are declined.
So we have to recognize that. I would say that
there are at least four different Saint Louis cities. It
depends which part of the city you're in, how you're
(24:09):
experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Let's go to Rita, who's in Houston, Texas on the phone. Hi, Rita,
welcome to the middle.
Speaker 13 (24:15):
Go ahead, Hey, I have to.
Speaker 14 (24:17):
Say something really interesting. My mother was born in nineteen
twenty two in Saint Louis and her father owned a
grocery store.
Speaker 13 (24:24):
The depression moved basically forced.
Speaker 14 (24:27):
Them to him out of business because he couldn't offer
credit anymore people couldn't pay. They moved to California. Most recently,
I went back, I say maybe five years ago. I
went back and my cousin took me around to my
grandfather's store that was still standing, but it was boarded
up and it was a terrible neighborhood. He took it
(24:48):
to me to my great grandfather's house. That was a
beautiful house at one time, but the roofless came in
and he said, I could buy that house for a
dollar if I put it two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars in to fix it up. He goes, but you
can't live here. The crime is so bad that you
would not want to be here. In fact, I bought
(25:10):
an old car. I couldn't even drive my new car
into this neighborhood with the freight fear of getting carjack So, you.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Know, my God, But so, Rita, you feel safe in Houston.
You like being in Houston.
Speaker 14 (25:23):
I'm actually in the outside area. I'm in sugar Land,
which is probably one of the most diverse areas in
the country. We have people from all over the world
that live in sugar Land, and it is absolutely stunningly beautiful.
There's not a gum wrapper on the sidewalk. It is
so clean, there's no homeless people. It's like a fricking
utopia compared to you know, Saint Louis, which actually is
(25:47):
an amazing city with a ton of history. I was
on a layover and I had to stay another day.
My cousin went to work. I'm like what am I
going to do? I want to go to the museum.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I went the.
Speaker 14 (26:00):
Downtown History Museum and well, I think mural of Charles
Lindbergh on the wall. I mean it's just amazing. But
it really talked about what killed Saint Louis was racial issues.
It was supposed to be the New York and the
Midwest that racial issues destroyed that city. Tell you what,
(26:22):
doing better with racial issues can bring that city back.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay, Rita, thank you very much. I want to go
to our guests and Tolliver, you got to watch out
because Rita could be a great fill in for you
some day.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I mean, she's got a lot to say. Keep going.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Actually, that's Sandival. What about the issue of race, I
mean that's a that's a big, big part of this
in a lot of cities, isn't it. I mean there
are there are cities that have had a history of
segregation in this country, and there are also newer cities
that don't have that same history of segregation.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
That is correct. So when we look at the list
of cities from COVID that are losing population, there are
cities that have had this history of racial surrogation. Baltimore Detroit, Chicago,
Saint Louis. These are all cities that developed under this
era of racial surrogation. Houston, Dallas, Phoenix are all cities
(27:14):
that developed after racial surrogation, and so the opportunity structure
is is very different in Houston compared to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroitver.
You have spatial you have spatial surrogation, and the magnitude
of spatial surrogation in these cities does not exist in Charlotte.
(27:34):
It does not exist in Houston and Dallas, although it's
there that what we're talking about, the clustering and the
concentration is nowhere near the levels. And so when people
go to Charlotte, they can live in an integrated neighborhood
fairly easy. Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, and Saint Louis is still
a very surrogated Milwaukee, Chicago very diverse cities at the
(27:56):
macro level, but the neighborhoods themselves in the city are
still fairly surrogated.
Speaker 9 (28:01):
Dante Jinny, what are your thoughts on that, Well, I mean,
it's that's the story of Detroit, right Detroit's. Detroit's population
collapse was tied to white flight. That really began the
fifties and sped up after the riots in the sixties,
and that's really the story. And like the other thing,
I think that hurt Detroit. No mass transit system, which
(28:21):
means everybody in a car. The city was built around
the car. The highways were quick ways to get out
of town. You could live in the suburbs and work
in the city. So I think it's definitely it's a
huge part of the story of Detroit. Troit's still about
it trods about eighty percent African American, seventy seventy eight percent,
something like that. It's very very African American city, very
black city. That said, it's like I love going to
(28:41):
I don't feel I don't feel threatened with I'm in
Detroit at all. I love the city of Detroit. The
one thing I would say about the caller to the
caller's point is this, yeah, yes, it's wonderful. There are
no gum wrappers, no, no, almost, And that's not everybody's
idea of utopia. Is the same thing as the one
thing i'd say. New York City is a mess, but
(29:02):
I love it. I love New York. It's a beautiful mess,
and it's not everybody wants the same thing. People want
different things where they live. So some people want that urban.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Such as a Well, I'm glad that you brought up Detroit,
because you're right, there was a time when Tolliver, the
motor city, really seemed like the economic capital of the country.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah. I actually have a clip here that's going to
transport us back in time to the Detroit of the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 15 (29:27):
From any angle, the face of the city is in
part it's skyline, so it is with the unmistakable silhouette
of the towering Renaissance Center. The Hallmark profile look great
at Detroit.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Super City USA. Well, well, well, welcome home, Well, come home,
Welcome to Supercity USA. You know, the guy sounds like
Elvis Taliver. I know it's not Elvis, but it sounds
like Elvis singing that song.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I'm convinced, man, let's move to Detroit. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Also, I think we need to make like a jingle
like that for the middle, with like a singers and everything.
I think that could be good. We will be right
back with more of your calls on the middle. This
is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're asking you this
hour what can cities that are losing population do to
turn things around. You can call us at eight four
four four Middle that's eight four four four six four
three three five three, or you can reach out at
(30:21):
listen to Themiddle dot com. I am joined by Saint
Louis University Professor of Demography and sociology, Ness Sandoval, and
Dante Cheney, who's director of the American Communities Project at
Michigan State University. And let's go right back to the phones.
And Michael, who's in Birmingham, Alabama. Hi, Michael, welcome to
the Middle. What do you think?
Speaker 13 (30:40):
Yeah, thanks for taking the call. Yes, welcome to Birmingham, Alabama.
You were talking about a city with historic segregation, and yes,
Birmingham for decades has lost population, but in the last
census is starting to see an uptick in population and
it's course focused on the downtown core. And I think
(31:03):
part of the reason Birmingham is being a bit of
a turnaround is because it's worked very hard to create
an authentic place. And in fact, Birmingham just hosted the
main Street Now Conference, the main Street Organization national conference
that usually doesn't come to a city this small. I
(31:24):
think Birmingham has done a really good job over the
last decade or so in revitalizing its downtown historic core,
taking those historic buildings and turning them into lofts, having
a wonderful walkable downtown community with cool restaurants and cafes
coming in, bakeries, cultural assets that are all walkable, and
(31:48):
people are recognizing that if you want an urban experience,
you can have it in Birmingham, and yet you're only
a half hour away from getting out to the natural
beauty of Alabama. So I think creating an authentic place
is one way that you can help revitalize downtowns.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Great, Michael, thank you for that. I'll say, Dante Chinney
that I was just in Kansas City, which has a beautiful,
walkable downtown with restaurants and cafes and all kinds of stuff.
Really nice to walk around it. But I also wonder
whether suburbs, as people move more into the suburbs, that
they're going to you know, young people are going to
(32:25):
want to recreate spaces that are like cities basically with
exactly what Michael's talking about.
Speaker 9 (32:31):
Yeah, I mean you can try. I mean I think
and I think, look, I've seen it's the way the
suburbs developed. Particularly if a suburb of evolves around the
idea that there was a small town there next to
the big city and then stuff popped up around it,
you can kind of try to recapture some of that stuff.
There's some of that stuff in Detroit on the west
side of the city and Royal Lokinferndale, these cities that
(32:52):
are really close suburbs of Detroit, like within a couple
of miles, but have their own distinct feels. But the
infrastructure was there in those cases that they that it
was when Detroit was really was further away. The sprawl
had to get out to them, so there were towns there.
To build that from scratch is difficult. It's very very
difficult to build a downtown atmosphere from scratch. You can try.
(33:13):
I mean, I live in DC, Like I said, Bethesda tries.
I mean there's kind of an satz downtown, yeah, which
is fine. I like it. It's nice, but it doesn't
feel like the city.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah's you're talking about places like the main Line outside
of Philadelphia that are these old city, old towns that
have been there for a long time. It's on a
train line and so they've got their own character. Let's
go to one of our new listeners in our new
city of Cincinnati, Ohio that just started airing The Middle.
Vince is with us High Vins. Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 16 (33:42):
Thank you for taking my call. I want to say
that the easiest things that can be done is to
change the perception. There are no real such things as
good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods, good parts of the city, bad
parts of the city. It's whether people are perceiving that's
the case. It's actually a.
Speaker 17 (34:01):
Case or not.
Speaker 18 (34:01):
Because I mean, for the people living there, it's where
they live. That's a good thing for them. They'd rather
be living there than nowhere else, or rather than nowhere
at all. The big concern then is how do you
change the perception. And you change the perception by putting
your feet on the ground and actually doing things. So
(34:21):
as the previous caller was talking about their cousins saying, oh,
I could buy that house for a dollar, and X
y Z, well buy the house for a dollar, do
something with it, change it. If you're going to give
taxing centives to a business to come into the city,
then say, oh, this neighborhood that needs revitalization. Well, you
can have the.
Speaker 17 (34:41):
Tax executive incentives, but your executives have to live in
this area. Cincinnati's doing something that's really interesting is that
its Poort Authority is buying houses that are dilapidated, that
need work and stuff like that, revitalizing them and telling
them specifically to low income families that would not normally
(35:05):
be able to get these houses. It's completely restructuring and
revitalizing the city itself. You don't need to have these
this white flight to.
Speaker 16 (35:14):
The suburbs because the suburbs are just the little boxes
made of Ticki tak esmob Right.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Well, I mean there are some nice suburbs out there too,
But thank you for that call, Vince. I'm going to
get to another one. Tyler is in Chicago. Hi, Tyler,
go ahead, welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 19 (35:32):
Hey, thank you for having me. Yeah, my question hopefully
isn't too much off topic, but you know, I'm from Chicago,
which is an extremely developed city also seeing a you know,
fallen population. My question is how much the reaction to
the COVID pandemic may have affected larger cities, you know,
on the size of Chicago. If that is for some
reason the shutdowns they have done, we're kind of forcing
(35:56):
people to maybe move out. And you had mentioned earlier
in the show, you know, Arise and people moving to
more of the Sun Belt states like Florida and Texas.
A lot of those cities, you know, when we were
completely shut down, they were completely open, and I wonder
if they changed anyone's perspective of a city, even of Chicago,
in my opinion, is amazing. You know, if people maybe think, well,
(36:17):
if this ever happens again, if I'm living somewhere you
know else, maybe the result would be a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Great question, Tyler Nest Sandoval. What about that the reactions
to the pandemic and how that changed migration pattern.
Speaker 10 (36:30):
Yeah, I think there is an element to people reassessed
where they wanted to live with the option from remote work.
I think we see it in Silicon Valley where people
were able to move, and we see that some cities
are benefiting from that migration, especially in Montana and Idaho, Denver, Colorado.
(36:53):
Remote work is here to stay right. Companies invested in it.
There is a demand for labor, and trying to convince
people to move is very difficult when you have a
partner that needs to move with you to bring families.
It's a lot easier to hire somebody who's willing to
do remote work. And the infrastructure is built now for
(37:13):
many companies to hire people without having to work around
the idea of a moving company finding a house, and
so that remote work is going to be here, and
that's that's difficult for companies who are building an idea
around tech companies because there's those tech companies that have
the infrastructure for remote work. And so this I want
(37:36):
to come back to this idea of perception because we
live in an era of social media. So we have
to recognize that we have great sociological studies that show
that people overestimate the actual phenomenon that that we're studying,
and so social media is very important understanding that people
(37:58):
are probably over emphasizing the amount of crime that's happening
in the city compared to the actual crime that's happening
in the city, and so that perception is very important,
and it goes with school districts as well, the perception
of a quality school district, and so to change in
those perceptions, it's very difficult, regardless of what the actual
data says.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
What do the data say right now that crime is
coming down, Yes, but people's perception feel like it does.
Speaker 10 (38:25):
Not correlate to the actual data.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Let's go to Anna, who's in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Anna,
what do you think? Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 20 (38:33):
Hey, thanks for having me. So I was born in
Saint Louis and I moved to Baltimore to go to college,
where I've lived here for the past six years. So
I have perspective from both cities and their similarities as
well as their differences. But I agree, I think the
thing that people need to change the most is their
perception of these cities. All my life, growing up in
(38:54):
Saint Louis County, I was told void the city dangerous,
there's too much crime. When I moved to Baltimore, my
family said, you're crazy, there's too much crime there.
Speaker 16 (39:03):
How could you ever go there?
Speaker 20 (39:05):
Despite the fact that crime has been declining for the
past two years lowesst thomicide rate in a decade in
both cities, there's still this perception, which is often rooted
in racism, with Baltimore being a majority of black city,
that it's just a dangerous place, and that's simply not true.
So I think what people need to do is actually
go out visit these cities and check their perceptions at
(39:28):
the door.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Anna, thank you for that, you know, Tolliver, I want
to go to you because you are a person that
will you walk, You don't, you don't drive, you walk everywhere? Yeah,
and you are you ever? Are you ever afraid of
as you walk around at all?
Speaker 7 (39:43):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And I've been to a lot of the cities that
you you know, the two cities she's mentioned. I never
felt afraid in Chicago growing up. I think, you know,
I fear, you know, like hops, more than I would,
you know, just some random guy on the street, you know,
just just to be honest, you know.
Speaker 12 (39:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, let's get to Nick. Who's in Detroit. Hi, Nikki,
what do you think cities could do to turn things
around if they're losing population?
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Well, I think one of the things that Detroit did
so well is to get really creative restaurants and bars
and stuff that made people come down who used to
be afraid to go into the city and realize that
it's a great place and they can drive around and out.
There's grocery stores downtown. Now there's new buildings, there's new housing,
But we still have the school problem downtown that's building
(40:31):
up the schools is I'm go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I was just gonna say, you think that the nightlife.
Is the night life more important than the schools, do
you or what do you think?
Speaker 21 (40:41):
Well, because my kids are out of the house, so
I'm I'm in Detroit right now to go to drinks,
you know, and I have been looking to move down
there as empty nester. But I think it's it's like
you're saying that the younger people are the empty nesters
are moving down because the nightlife. But to get the
young families.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
You need to build up the schools. But when I
was going I went to college down there, and there
were no grocery stores. There was no you had to
go out to the suburbs to buy anything. And now
that all those stores are coming back to the city,
so you can stay right downtown. Yeah, Nikki, it's a
great city.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Thank you, Thank you for calling in. And you know,
Dante Cheney, one of the nice things about doing a
show like this that's live in the evening as people
are on their way to drinks or sometimes they've had
the drinks, and then they call and we can tell
we can tell when that happens. What do you make
of What do you make of Nicky's comments about nightlife
and the importance of it.
Speaker 9 (41:35):
Yeah, look, Detroit is a lot of fun man Like,
I love going downtown to Detroit. The things she talked
about though with this idea of there are more experimental
restaurants and things. Look, one of the advantages that Detroit
has in these other cities that are kind of that
are that have struggled for a long time is it's
cheaper to do work there. So if you've got an
idea for a restaurant, it's not expensive to get a
(41:58):
place and try it. And there was a lot of
this and Detroit where people took these tiny little places
that I'm going to do this here, I'm going to
do this, I'm going to do this random restaurant here,
and it ended up creating like a lot of really
good restaurants, a lot of really good bars, and most important,
experimental because it doesn't cost an arm and a leg
to get into the game in terms of the nightlife
part of it. You can get in cheap and if
(42:18):
it works, you got a hit. And if it doesn't work,
you're not out of a lot of money. It leads
to works more experimental, interesting nightlife.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Let's go to Al. Who's in Ketchum, Idaho? Al, welcome
to the middle, Go ahead, Hi.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
I wanted to take the contrary point of view that
a falling population is not only going to improve your lifestyle,
it's going to give you more open space, reduce the
cost of housing, congestion, resource use, emissions, everything. I mean,
as Sir David Attenborough said, all our environmental problems are
(42:52):
either caused by, made worse by, and eventually made unsolvable
by our ever growing human population. See it in our
emissions nineteen eighty. Since then we have reduced our emissions
per capita in the US. You're part risen by fifty percent.
That's why we're not getting anywhere.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Al. Are those birds in the background, By the way,
are we hearing birds in Idaho? Behind you?
Speaker 7 (43:18):
You are?
Speaker 6 (43:19):
My backyard is full of bird feeders, trees and birds.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
That's nice. So that's that's why you don't want the
city to be growing too fast. Thank you for that call.
I want to bring that up. I'm glad you brought
that that point up, Nests Sandoval. Not everybody wants their
city to grow. Is there are we focusing on growth
at all costs. There is there a good thing about
a city that is shrinking.
Speaker 10 (43:41):
When you talk about historic cities like Saint Louis or Detroit,
there's an infrastructure that's in place, and so if you
have a declining population, there have to be tough decisions
about the infrastructure. I think Detroit had this discussion over
a decade ago in recognizing that many of the people
are not going to come to back the parts of
(44:02):
the city, and so yes, you may you may have
to rethink and replan how we give part of the
city back to mother nature. There are lots of communities,
there are lots of cities in the suburbs that we
call them nimby not in my backyard, who actually do
not They're not very favorable for economic development. They don't
(44:25):
want attainable housing there. They want to preserve their way
of life. They want low density, which is fine, and
so not everybody wants economic growth UH in their in
their suburban areas. But I think for the core city,
the principal city, like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, you have an
infrastructure in place that can support higher density, that can
(44:46):
support UH economic development, and so I would, I would
encourage these cities not to give up and try to
encourage population to come back. Just an interesting point about
Saleu City. It's different than Detroit because Sanilu City was
a majority black city. Right now, the white population is
larger than the black population, and if the trends continue,
(45:09):
the white population will be the majority. In Saint Louis City.
It's already the majority in terms of households, and so
we're about five to seven years away for that to happen.
So Sanlu City is not dying. There's a metamorphosis going on.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Let me finally go to you, Dante Cheney, and ask
you whether you think that there is a generational issue.
We've heard from younger people, we've heard from older people.
Is there something about our generations that affects whether people
want to be in cities and whether they don't want
to be in cities right at this moment in time.
Is that feeding into what we're dealing with.
Speaker 9 (45:45):
I think there's always a generational aspect to this, and
that you probably want what you didn't have as a kid.
A lot of times if you grew up in the suburbs,
there's a certain romanticity the city's a romantic idea at
least when you're young for a while. But again, what
is it? What does it mean when you're ready to
be to become like your mom and dad? That's the
question generationally right now? Where are we cities? Cities had
(46:07):
a really nice run for a lot of young people
wanting to move back into them and after college to
have this kind of vibrant downtown life. Is that going
to continue? I look, I might be the outlier here,
but the idea that, like the cities are all going
to be empty one hundred years sounds bizarre to me.
I do think I expect to see that to continue. Like, look,
when you're young and you want to have fun, and
(46:27):
you want to meet people, and maybe you want to
meet the person you're going to be with for the
rest of your life, it's easier to do that in
a city than it is out in the.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Or or just open up your phone is what people
do these days. I guess that's a different thing. Why
I go to a bar where you can just open
up your phone. We are out of time, except for
Tolliver has a quiz for our guest. Tolliver, the flora
is yours.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
I'll keep a short and sweeen. All right, which American
town has the smallest population? And this is a trick question,
all right? You for Wyoming, manaw Wee, Nebraska, Hibbertscore Main
or Lost Springs.
Speaker 9 (47:02):
Small the boundaries with the smallest population.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, m Nests Sandoval, Dante Chenney, And you guess.
Speaker 10 (47:09):
I would say Wyoming.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
The town in Wyoming, Lost Springs, Wyoming. Dante, what do
you say?
Speaker 9 (47:13):
Well, you said it's a trick question, so I'm not
going to say Alaska. But I was going to say
the town in Alaska.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
They all have the population of one one person.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Wow, I was not expecting that.
Speaker 9 (47:27):
I will say, that's easy to provide separates, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
All right, Well, uh, let me thank my guests, Saint
Louis University professor of Demography and sociology, Nests Sandoval, and
Dante Cheney, director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State,
and a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thanks to
both of you.
Speaker 9 (47:44):
Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
At Tolliver. What do we have on tap for next week?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Next week we'll be taking a look inward sort of.
We'll be asking what can media organizations do to gain
or regain your trust. You can call us at eight
four four four six four three through five three or
right in it. Listen to The Middle dot com. While
you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
The Middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joanne Jennings, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, and John Barth, who
is celebrating his birthday today, Happy Birthday, John. Our intern
is Anika Deshler. Our technical director is Jason Kroft. Our
theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. I want to
thank our friends here at Saint Louis Public Radio, Ryan Schulti,
(48:24):
Wayne Pratt, and Brian Heffernan. And thanks to the more
than four hundred and ten public radio stations that are
making it possible for people across the country to listen
to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you next week.
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