The 2010 Census data has been calculated and the government has announced that Plato, MO is the new “population center” of the United States. It sure sounds impressive, but what the hell does “population center” mean?

The mean population center represents the point at which a perfectly flat and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 308.7 million residents weigh the same and are counted where they live.

Ah, now there’s an important statistic that was well worth the time spent to calculate it, especially since it’s based on the tenuous assumption of all people weighing the same. Why not calculate the center of the population on a flat map if everyone wore water wings and moved 5 miles in the direction of their grandmother’s house? All the same, the people of Plato are really excited about it.

Village leaders will unveil a commemorative survey marker next to the local post office.

Well that sounds just awesome. People can stop by the post office, pick up some stamps, wave to the slow fella that sits on the park bench all day, and then take a photo of themselves next to the population center of the United States. Act fast though, in 10 years the center could be somewhere else, like West Plato.

via KMOX

Update: Yes, as pointed out in the comments and online, there are other reasons for the population drop: Schools being a big one, and the economy being another. However, crime seems the most universal and the worse, and more specific to St. Louis, so we focused on that.

Original post follows…

The 2010 Census numbers are in! Totally out! All kinds of numbers in them…big numbers…yup…lots. of. numbers. Ok, screw it. You can take it right?

The city of St. Louis’ population fell 8% from 2000, currently sitting at 319,000. Shockingly, it appears years of high violent crime have made people want to leave the city, dragging it’s population down to it’s lowest level in 100 years. Clearly Mayor Slay’s program of putting his fingers in his ear and yelling “I can’t hear you crime!” over and over again while simply hoping that car theft will force his population numbers to stay put hasn’t been working.

From Mayor Slay’s blog:

This is absolutely bad news. We had thought, given many of the other positive trends, that fifty years of population losses had finally reversed direction. Instead, by the measure of Census to Census, they continue, though at a slower pace. Combined with the news from St. Louis County, I believe that this will require an urgent and thorough rethinking of how we do almost everything.

St. Louis County’s numbers? So glad you mentioned that Mr. Mayor. (The guy can’t help his city from going down the crapper, but he’s pretty great at segues.) The county’s population also dropped by 2% dragging it’s numbers below 1 million people.

The question is: Where did all these people go? Don’t be coy, you know exactly where they went. You’re probably one of them, sitting there now, all smug like “Oh I like where I live because my house has value and no one shoots at me or breaks our windows.” Well…uh…shut up! Check out this pec dance we’re doing right now. You can’t see it, but it’s crazy sexy and impressive. Take that St. Charles County.

For the rest of the St. Louis region, it was good news. St. Charles County grew by 27 percent. Its largest city, O’Fallon, grew by nearly 72 percent, moving to the seventh largest city in the state. In 2000, it was 13th. It now has 79,329 people.

St. Charles County, with 360,485 residents, surpasses St. Louis city. Lincoln County also made strong gains, growing by 35 percent. Jefferson County is now the fifth largest county in the state, with 218,733 people, a 10.4 increase from 2000.

Maybe this will be the wake up call the city’s leaders need to stop arguing about little crap and get their butts in gear to fix this mess. It’s not a good sign when there are areas of town where the best idea to help the crime is to offer residents a deal on a home security system. That’s the kind of reactionary crap that has gotten us in to this mess, and the same reason why people are fleeing from this area like rats trying to get off the Titanic. Here’s hoping the Mayor’s not dumb enough to tell us all how the census numbers are misleading and things are a lot better than they sound. “At least there’s plenty of parking spots!” We’re joking. Don’t say that Mr. Mayor.

Just in case none of this can be fixed though, the paperwork to have St. Louis renamed “South Detroit” is filed and on the Mayor’s desk.

via STLToday H/T Riverfront Times

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

“Civic Leader” Jim Cloar of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership says that about 600 new people moved to downtown St. Louis over the last year.

Hmm, ok.  So it seems like thats an easy statement to just throw out there especially when you clearly have a vested interest in downtown sucking less.  I mean maybe its true…but its hard to believe a guy coming from his place.  Well look, maybe he just said it quietly to a reporter or something…it wasn’t making a big deal out of it.  That would really be odd if the guy was basically bragging…I mean how could you believe that?

Cloar made the remarks last week at the opening of Lindenwood University’s satellite campus downtown.

Oh.  Uh…ok.  Hmm.

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