Mayor Slay: The Impact of Immigration and St. Louis
We’ve talked to a lot of people—a lot—about immigration in St. Louis as part of the Homeland project. We’ve heard all kinds of perspectives, but we realized that one perspective on immigration we hadn’t heard was from the elected officials in those communities where immigrants have settled. So—after explaining what Homeland is all about—we asked Mayor Francis Slay if we could talk to him about immigration and St. Louis, and he said yes.
The Mayor clearly believes that immigration is key to the economic development of our region—which is reassuring as this was our original thinking on Homeland. In this interview, he points out that immigrants have boosted the city’s population in the past 20 years, and that they have come here and established businesses, rejuvenated neighborhoods and paid their taxes, especially the Hispanic and Bosnian communities.
The Mayor says that he wants St. Louis to be more than an immigrant destination, that he wants St. Louis to be a “welcoming city” for new foreign residents. What do you think? Is St. Louis a city that welcomes immigrants? How does immigration impact our regional economy?
Category: Economy
