New Geography

Tag: Minneapolis

  • Thrive 2040: Toward a Less Competitive Minneapolis-St. Paul

    In a Wall Street Journal commentary entitled Turning the Twin Cities Into Sim City, Katherine Kersten of the Center of the American Experiment describes how "a handful of unelected bureaucrats are gearing up to impose their vision of the ideal society on the nearly three million residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro region." She notes that the Metropolitan Council (the "handful of unelected bureaucrats") intend for "all future housing and economic development within "easy walking distance" (one-half mile) of major transit stops—primarily in the urban core and inner-ring suburbs.” This would lead to "tax dollars (mostly from people who live elsewhere) will be lavished on high-density housing, bike and pedestrian amenities and subsidized retail shops." She equates the plan with playing the computer game "Sim City with residents’ lives."

    Kersten also notes the all-too predictable distortion of future transportation funding to support transit, rather than highway congestion relief.  The ("Thrive 2040") "plan also will pour public funds into mass transit while virtually ignoring congestion relief on highways. The Twin Cities region is projected to have just $52 million available annually from 2014 to 2022 for highway congestion relief, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Yet the Met Council intends to spend at least $1.7 billion on a single light-rail project, with more rail transit to follow."

    This imbalance of funding is despite the fact that less than two percent of travel in the Twin Cities is by transit. In the longer run, Minneapolis-St. Paul, which has been by far the most successful metropolitan area in the Midwest since World War II, will become less competitive if it fails to take steps to improve traffic congestion (and it is nothing short of folly to expect that transit can substitute for driving in the modern metropolitan area, see The Transit-Density Disconnect).

    Kersten also characterizes as the "most radical element," of the Metropolitan Council plan as its greenhouse gas emission reduction component, and for good reason. The urban containment policies of densification and transit are far more expensive than other strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (see questioning the Messianic Conception of Smart Growth and Enough "Cowboy" Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Policies). At the same time, there are a myriad of strategies that are more cost effective, such as improved fuel economy (see Obama Fuel Economy Rules Trump Smart Growth). Cost-effectiveness is important, because if more than necessary is spent to reach greenhouse gas emission goals, there will be an economic cost in fewer jobs created, a lower standard of living and greater poverty (see Toward More Prosperous Cities).

  • Biking in Minneapolis

    The sustainable biking craze seems to keep rolling as more and more cities encourage commuters and wanderers to bike across town instead of drive. New programs, such as Nice Ride in Minneapolis, offer an innovative service where one can rent out a bike for a small fee and ride it across town to other stations, or continue to hold onto the bike and continue making payments.

    Other cities are turning their spokes with similar programs: B-Cycle in Denver, a program in D.C., and Bixi in Montreal all have enough riders to sustain the businesses. While profit from these bikes may be viable, the question of sustainability and more improved quality of life still remains.

    The way Nice Ride functions is endearingly simple: one signs up for a fixed subscription (with discounts for university students) and receives a special key that can be used at any Nice Ride station. The user slips in the key, and unlocks a bike. The bike can then be ridden across town to any station in the city, any time from April to November. In June 2010 when Nice Ride began, this simple plan garnered 10,000 trips in in its first month of use. So has this new model (and increased biking in general) for urban transportation provided any gains for the public other than fatigued legs?

    It seems that the program is a perfect fit for the city’s infrastructure. The city already has 46 miles of on-street bike lanes and 84 miles of bike trails to support such a project. On top of this, the city’s bicycle culture is one of the strongest in the nation, second only to Portland, whose more temperate climate has an edge for those cyclists hoping to commute regularly.

    Something that both cities have experienced is a drop in bicycle/motor vehicle crashes as more and more people decide to utilize biking as their main source of transportation. This “safety in numbers” concept has potentially attracted more and more cyclists each year leading to not only a wider understanding of the bicycle culture present, but safer roads as respect is paid to the cyclists braving the busy roads of Minneapolis and St. Paul as well.

    The biking craze in the Twin Cities has also lead to the area being one of the cleanest cities in the world according to an article featured in Forbes. The research examined many different facets of a city’s infrastructure, including the emphasis the city places upon transportation, including biking. The article cites the city’s extensive use of bike lanes (as well as its transit and bus systems) as the major reason the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is so clean. The Twin Cities ranked fifth on the list, behind the likes of Calgary, Honolulu, Helsinki, and Ottawa.

    So while other cities may stick to the classic emphasis on automobiles, Minneapolis has shown that biking is not only a safe mode of transportation, but one that can help to clean up the urban environment as well. Not to mention the cult cycling craze that many biking cities possess seemingly unifies an active demographic into a hopeful mode for future American transportation.

  • Twin Cities Growth All in Suburbs

    The historical core municipalities of the Twin Cities area, Minneapolis and St. Paul experienced modest population declines between 2000 and 2010, according to the latest census count. All of the growth in the metropolitan area was in the suburbs.

    The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan (Minnesota-Wisconsin) area grew from 2,969,000 in 2000 to 3,280,000 in 2010, an increase of 10.5 percent. The city of Minneapolis lost 40 residents, with a population of 382,618 in 2000 and 382,578 in 2010. The city of St. Paul lost 2,000 residents, from 287,000 to 285,000. Both historic core cities reached their population peaks in 1950, at 522,000 in Minneapolis and 311,000 in St. Paul. Each of the core cities have maintained essentially the same boundaries (city limits) as in 1950.

    The suburbs grew 13.6 percent. The strongest growth was in Scott County (MN) at 45 percent, Wright County (MN) at 38 percent,  Sherburne County (MN) at 37 percent, St. Croix County (WI) at 34 percent, Chisago County (MN) at 31 percent and Carver County (MN) at 30 percent. These counties combined to attract nearly one-half of the population growth, despite accounting for less than 15 percent of the population in 2000, indicating the continuing dispersion of the Twin Cities.

  • Minneapolis, St. Paul & Memphis Core City Losses

    Census results released today show again show losses, though small, in historical core municipalities. The city of Minneapolis lost 40 people, between 2000 and 2010, falling from 382,618 to 382,578. The city of St. Paul, also a historical core city of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area fell from 287,000 to 285,000.

    The historical core municipality of Memphis dropped from 650,000 to 647,000, despite the fact that much of the city is of a post-World War II suburban form.