According to numbers released today by the Missouri Office of Administration, the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County are heading towards more population losses.

St. Louis City, which has seen a small population increase since 2000, is projected to lose another 3,000 residents by the year 2030. The 349,004 population estimate is only a fraction of the city’s 1950 population of 856,796.

St. Louis County is also projected to lose population. The state estimates the County will lose about 50,000 people, down to just 956,817.

Click here to view the county-by-county projections.

This video from Current TV shows how Detroit continues to face many of the problems of drastic population loss that we in St. Louis have hopefully turned the corner on.

It what the Mayor’s office fairly describes as something of an annual ritual now, the City of St. Louis challenged the US Census Bureau’s estimate of its residential population. For the fourth year in a row, the Census Bureau agreed.

The official estimate of the City’s population (as of July 1, 2006) is 353,837, a gain of 5,648 people, or 1.62%, since the 2000 Census.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article about St. Louis City’s struggle with population loss over the past 50 years. Click here to read it (log-in required).

The day the new and re-elected members of the Board of Aldermen where sworn in, an article in the New York Times highlights the challenges which lay ahead of the city’s leaders.

“The city has retained attractions like Forest Park, excellent universities and a vibrant arts scene. But vast sections of North St. Louis show what happens when people leave town in big numbers: What is left is a shell of a city, boarded up, rotting, populated by the most impoverished. Residents, mostly black, are still fleeing these parts of town,” writes the Times reporter.

This very issue was the subject of new Aldermanic President Lewis Reed’s speech today.

“We will rise and fall as one city,” said Reed. If a business closes in north St. Louis, it impacts the people who live in south St. Louis. If there is a vacant, abandoned building in south St. Louis, it affects taxpayers in north St. Louis.

“If we work together and tackle these issues as one St. Louis, St. Louis will be a stronger and safer city,” said Reed.

Here is video of today’s swearing-in ceremony. Click here to read the full article in today’s New York Times.