ST. LOUIS — Population loss is speeding up in the St. Louis region, recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates show.
Overall, the bureau said the region's population fell by 0.4%, or more than 11,000, from 2021 to 2022, to 2,801,319. The regional decline from 2020 to 2021 was 0.23%. And that followed a 2020 census that saw the metro's population growth rank it 47th out of the biggest 50 U.S. regions.
St. Louis County's population declined 0.78% from 2021 to 2022, to 990,414, the bureau estimated, more than the 0.48% decline from 2020 to 2021. The city's decreased 2.38% from 2021 to 2022, to 286,578, worse than a 2.3% decline the previous year, it said.
"These are bigger (out-migration) numbers than people anticipated," Ness Sandoval, associate professor of sociology and demographer at Saint Louis University, said of the figures. "There are a historic number of people leaving the region. I don't think anybody (anticipated it being) that high."
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