By Tom Weber, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay will hold a press conference today (Friday) to announce the city's population has increased for the second straight year.
Slay told KWMU this morning that the Census Bureau estimates the added more than 2000 people between July of 2003 to July, 2004.
That puts the most recent population guess at 350,705.
"For a city that lost population, pretty much unabated, for 50 years at an average rate of 10,000 people a year, this is a big deal," the mayor said in an interview with KWMU.
"What this shows is there's a market for St. Louis property that we haven't seen for a long, long time."
Slay says a large number of those new residents are still young singles and older empty nesters, adding even more families will move to the city as schools improve.