The city of St. Louis is still shrinking. Not as fast as it once was, though. Glenn Griffin with the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, a regional planning office, says white flight has slowed in the last three or four years; he estimates St. Louis lost just 1,500 residents last year. His office predicts the city will stop shrinking by 2005, and begin to show some modest gains until 2020, topping out at 350,000 people. He credits growth in Soulard and Murphy Park, plus new habitat for humanity housing, and burgeoning immigrant numbers. Early census bureau statistics last week showed St. Louis lost 16% of its population in the 1990’s.
