Thursday, June 15, 2023

Disappearing cities of the United States: East St. Louis, Illinois (2022 census edition)


The population of East St. Louis has decreased 78% since its 1950 peak of 82,366.  The city now has fewer residents than it did in 1900.


The ugly racial history of East St. Louis.  Ironically, Black residents now comprised 96.2% of the population.

East Saint Louis Race Riot of 1917, (July 2), bloody outbreak of violence in East St. Louis, Illinois, stemming specifically from the employment of black workers in a factory holding government contracts. It was the worst of many incidents of racial antagonism in the United States during World War I that were directed especially toward black Americans newly employed in war industries. In the riot, whites turned on blacks, indiscriminately stabbing, clubbing, and hanging them and driving 6,000 from their homes; 40 blacks and 8 whites were killed.

1/19/2022 update starts here
 
Once upon a time.....



East St. Louis's population decreased 32% from 2010 to 2010.  Since its 1950 peak, the city's population has decreased 78%.


KSDK, 8/16/2021
Many expected the city of St. Louis to lose residents in the U.S. Census Bureau's newest count, released Thursday, as it has for decades. Indeed, it shed 5.5% of residents from 2010 to 2020, ending at 301,000. 
More surprising to some were significant losses all across the Metro East. The eight Illinois counties that are part of the St. Louis metro, in fact, shed nearly 21,000 residents during the past decade, according to the data, even more than the city's loss of nearly 18,000. 
"That is significant," said Madison County Board Chair Kurt Prenzler.   "My goodness."
The numbers are important for the St. Louis area, which, with a growth rate of about 1% over the decade, was surpassed by Baltimore as the 20th largest U.S. metro. That's because two of St. Louis' largest counties are in Illinois, with Madison and St. Clair County counting more than a half-million residents total. The region has some 2.8 million people. 
"I didn't anticipate that, for that to stand out," Todd Swanstrom, a professor of public policy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said of the Illinois figures. Illinois lost 18,124 residents over the decade, or a decline of 0.1%. It was one of only three states to see a loss; West Virginia and Mississippi were the other two. Missouri's population increased a modest 2.8%.

Original 1/11/2019 post starts here

East St. Louis, with its acre upon acre of burned-out hulks that were once houses, its sad tales of backed-up sewers and of police cars that run out of gas, of garbage piled so deep that entire streets are rendered impassable and of books so poorly kept that no one can calculate its debt, has become a textbook case of everything that can go wrong in an American city.

Source:  Wikipedia

East St. Louis's population peaked at 82,366 in 1950.  Its 2017 estimated population is 26,662 -- a drop of 55,704, or 68%.

East St. Louis is located in St. Clair County, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.  The county's population peaked at 270,076 in 2010.  Its 2017 estimated population is 262,479, a drop of 2.6%.  

The East St. Louis Race Riot Left Dozens Dead, Devastating a Community on the Rise.  (Smithsonian, 6/30/2017)
No one really knows about this. . . . I know about it because my father, uncles and aunts lived through it,” Dhati Kennedy says. 
He’s referring to an incident that survivors call the East St. Louis Race War. From July 1 through July 3, 1917, a small Illinois city located across the river from its Missouri counterpart was overrun with violence.

The disappearing cities:
Baltimore, Maryland.  (12/31/2018)
Buffalo, New York, (1/8/2019)
Cairo, Illinois.   (1/5/2019)
Cleveland, Ohio (1/2/2018)
Detroit, Michigan.  (1/1/2019)
Flint, Michigan.  (1/7/2019)
Gary, Indiana.  (1/4/2019)
Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  (1/6/2018)
St. Louis, Missouri.  (1/2/2019)
Youngstown, Ohio.  (1/9/2019)

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