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The “Partnership for Downtown St. Louis” released numbers that say the population of downtown St. Louis grew 3% in the last six months.

Downtown residents grew from 11,997 as of Dec. 31 to 12,409 at the end of June, according to the report.

The survey includes information on all housing within the 2.95-square-mile downtown area, bounded roughly by Chouteau on the south, Cass Avenue on the north, the Mississippi River to the east and Jefferson Avenue to the west.

The growth at mid-year followed a 6 percent increase in 2008 from 2007. About 5,000 residents have moved downtown since 2000, according to the organizations.

Also of note is that they started counting homeless people…and benches.  Not sure if that caused the increase.  Probably not.  Eh, maybe.

via St. Louis Business Journal