I found myself wandering down Red Bud Avenue in the O’Fallon neighborhood, and there are just so many beautiful homes around here. Well, except for the one with no roof and no back wall below. Besides that one.
The house below is one of those classics in St. Louis that is actually a multi-family, but is disguised to look like a single family. Start counting the doors and you realize that.
This area is the heart of the African American middle class in St. Louis, and where the population is increasingly aging and moving out to St. Louis County.
The housing stock, many of my friends agree, is often times more beautiful than South St. Louis, but it is endangered by population loss.
Who will replace the people moving out?
Chris: I know you specialize in St Louis and that is the chief focus and purpose of this weblog. I cannot help but wonder is similar depopulation is part of other Midwestern cities. Chicago, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Cleveland — if the trend is the moving “to the county” then with the loss of the tax base (and jobs), the loss of this housing stock is likely only preserved by outside investment making renters of former breathtakingly beautiful homes.
All traditional industrial cities in the Midwest lost substantial population in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Several cities have logged small to modest population increases and have turned around their losses.