Minneapolis-St. Paul
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Minneapolis-St. Paul
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges assistance provided for the publication of this volume by the John K. and Elsie Lampert Fesler Fund.
Minneapolis-St. Paul People, Place, and Public Life
John S. Adams and Barbara J. VanDrasek
University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London
Copyright 1993 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55455-3092 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Adams, John S., 1938Minneapolis-St. Paul: people, place, and public life/ John S. Adams and Barbara J. VanDrasek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8166-2236-1 1. Saint Paul (Minn.) — Social conditions. 2. Saint Paul (Minn.) — Economic conditions. 3. Minneapolis (Minn.) — Social conditions. 4. Minneapolis (Minn.) — Economic conditions. I. VanDrasek, Barbara J. II. Title. HN80.S3A24 1993 306' .09776'579—dc20 93-2836 CIP
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
Contents vii ix 2
2 6 8 11 13 18 20 22 25 28
28 32 41 43 55 56
56 60 68 77 85 9O
90 93 97
Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1: The Character of the Place
The Physical Environment The People Telling the Twins Apart Public Citizenship Playing and Consuming Social Conservatives and Economic Liberals Preservation in the Midst of Change Truth about the Good Life in a Pretty Good Place The Bottom Line Chapter 2: The First Century and a Half
Founding and Settlement to 1860 Rapid Settlement and Urban Growth, 1860 to 1890 Consolidation, Diversification, and Urban Growth, 1900 to 1940 Workplaces Today Remembering Our Origins Chapter 3: Inside the Central Cities: Land Use, People, and Neighborhoods
Yankee Economic Heritage People Today Religion in the Twin Cities Housing and Neighborhoods Open Space for the Twin Cities Chapter 4: Postwar Suburban Growth and Consequences for the Central Cities
Transit Development and Population Distribution Urban Transportation and Suburban Development after World War II Housing Construction Eras and Vacancy Chains
101 102 104 108 118 118 122 129 138 142 144 160 1 7O 170 176 177 183 184 187 189 191 193 195 197 200 209
Housing Demand and the Tendency to Move Outward from the Center Three Tiers of Suburbs Sectoral Housing Markets Twin Cities Retailing Chapter 5: Recycling the Central Cities: Infrastructure Change at the Core Four Decades of Landscape Renewal in Minneapolis Public-Private Partnerships for Minneapolis Redevelopment Rebuilding and Revitalizing St. Paul Designs for Urban Living The Service Economy Transforms the Twin Cities Landscape Consumer Services in the Twin Cities Can Vitality Be Sustained? Chapter 6: The Suburbs and Beyond: Living, Working, and Planning for the Future Evolution of a Postwar Metropolis The Postwar Residential Explosion, 1946 through the 1950s Locations of New Homes Locations of New Jobs Recent Trends in Land Use and Transportation Increased Highway Congestion New Locations for Burgeoning Employment Locations for the New Mix of Homes Great Variety in the Urbanizing Countryside A Tradition of Planning Confronts Today's Challenges Judgment Day Approaches Nagging Problems Managing Change and Creating Our Future
211
Notes
217
Sources
219
Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading
227
Index
Preface This book portrays the evolution, internal geography, social fabric, and economic life of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.1 As the Twin Cities grow in prominence, population, and area, their old foundations erode and new ones emerge to replace them. Accepted wisdom becomes dated, and the logic of the past must be recast for the future. It is time for a new tale of our two cities, for a social and economic analysis that suggests how the diverse parts fit together, sometimes for progress and sometimes for conflict. People who live here—including those who have lived elsewhere—insist that the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area and its environs is one of the most interesting, dynamic, and livable urban areas in the United States. They feel largely in control of their own fates, but a careful reading of the landscape-as-text hints that beneath the public image composed by local boosters lie some complex subplots and a surprise ending. In this book we tell the story of the place—both folklore and fact—and let readers draw their own conclusions. People seldom write serious books about their local areas. When writers are too close to home, many toes may be stepped on. But decades of living here, teaching natives and newcomers about our area, and working in local politics and civic affairs convinced us that this book would be welcome and useful in many quarters. So we offer an insiders' view, a tour of the inner workings of our cities that cannot be seen from a bus window. The six chapters examine the myths and images that animate and regulate everyday life; the economic foundations of the area; land-use patterns and their origins; the postwar housing expansion and its repercussions in the central cities; public and private renewal of the central cities; and the ways we respond to growth pains and to land-use conflicts in the suburbs and beyond. Words and maps can tell only part of the story, so photos amplify the main themes of each chapter.
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Acknowledgments The following people helped us along the way: Ronald F. Abler, Stephen Alnes, Thomas L. Anding, Bart Baker, Thomas Balcom, Chuck Ballantine, John R. Borchert, Michael Brinda, Jae-Heon Choi, Phil Cohen, Angelo Cohn, Gordon Donhowe, Kenneth Ford, Donald Fraser, Paul Gilje, Truman A. Hartshorn, Jody Hauer, Richard Heath, Marge Hols, Roger Israel, Robert Jorvig, Burton Joseph, Steve Keefe, Patricia A. Kelly, Ted Kolderie, David A. Lanegran, George Latimer, D. J. Leary, Rhoda Lewin, Jian-Yi Liu, Weiming Lu, Edward Maranda, Judith A. Martin, Robert Mazanec, Linda McCarthy, Michael Munson, Arthur Naftalin, Kathleen A. O'Brien, Norma Olson, Nancy Reeves, Thomas M. Scott, Joseph K. Selvaggio, Clarence J. Shallbetter, Perry Thorvig, B. Warner Shippee, Alpha Smaby, James Solem, the staff of the Metropolitan Council, Joel S. Torstenson, Peter VanDerPoel, Philip K. Wagner, Elvin K. Wyly, and Frederick M. Zimmerman. We also wish to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Department of Geography, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota. We are grateful for their assistance, but any errors of fact or interpretation remain ours alone.
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Minneapolis-St. Paul
PEOPLE WHO LIVE outside the Twin Cities depend on visits, friends, and the media for their impressions
The Physical Environment
of the place.1 Twin Cities residents create their own
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The Land The terrain of the Twin Cities region images, influenced by imagination and experience was sculpted by Pleistoand by the same media that inform outsiders. For cene glacial activity that both groups, the Twin Cities region is the Upper Mid- left behind numerous depressions and debris west capital, the commercial and transportation piles that have become thousands of deep, clear lakes and rolling hills. Minneapolis and St. Paul lie on flat gateway to the northwestern United States. It is a areas of sand and gravel washed out from the edges sprawling, dual-centered metropolis of 2.5 million of ice sheets, but they are surrounded by rougher areas left when the glaciers were stationary or people, enjoying most of the advantages that large retreating rapidly. Local relief in rougher areas aversize permits, yet suffering fewer of the problems that ages two hundred feet. Through this rolling terrain the Mississippi River has cut a deep, rock-walled plague many older, higher-density, single-center gorge a hundred feet deep and a hundred yards wide, American metropolises with their histories of sharp fed by thousands of lakes and streams and by the watershed of northern Minnesota's forest lands. The cultural cleavages and economic distress. It is a place cities share the river equally. The Mississippi turns of surprising cultural hegemony, with a sense that as though on cue to flow northeastward through downtown St. Paul before turning southward again civic problems generally come in manageable to continue its one thousand-mile journey to the Gulf proportions. of Mexico (fig. 1). Adding to the drama of the steep rock bluffs of the river gorge is a sixty-five-foot drop As the Upper Midwest capital, the Twin Cities in the river at St. Anthony Falls, at the northeastern also form the nexus of Upper Midwest culture, where edge of downtown Minneapolis. The falls were named in 1680 by Belgian-born explorer Father Louis Henthe rural and traditional meet the urban and cosmopolinepin, who publicized their spectacular beauty tan. The local ethos is a hybrid born of a deep sense of throughout northwestern Europe a full century before America's independence. civic responsibility—children are reared to become The glaciers created more than a thousand lakes involved in community life—and a strong dose of midin the Twin Cities metropolitan area alone. Glacial ice moved debris along its path and deposited it in prewestern modesty—children are taught to be grateful glacial river valleys. Over centuries, vegetation formed runners-up, to accept "inferiority with dignity."2 over the slowly melting ice, eventually leaving deep,
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FIGURE i. Downtown Minneapolis, largely rebuilt after World War II. View to the northwest. New downtown buildings outside the core must provide significant amounts of offstreet parking, but these rules are substantially relaxed inside the core. The result is a vigorous high-density center, linked by skyways and surrounded by a ring of vacant parcels. PHOTO BY STEVE UNDER.
The Character of the Place
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clear, gravel-lined lakes, including the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes and the largest lake in the area, Lake Minnetonka, with 125 miles of winding shoreline (fig. 2). The challenge of naming more than 15,000 Minnesota lakes was bravely met by keeping some Native American names, using birds, fish, animals, shapes, sizes, Mends, and spouses (for example, Lake Harriet), and finally by resorting to straightforward descriptors (Big Too Much Lake). The glaciers also left swamps, bogs, and sloughs that provide ideal breeding places for diverse plant and animal life, including mosquitoes. Despite a metropolitan-wide mosquito control program, a season of heavy rain can produce a backyard landing ratio offiftymosquitoes per person per minute. This forced sharing of the Twin Cities outdoors has produced a large body of mosquito folklore and a profusion of screened porches for summer evening activities.
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The Climate Thanks to the frequent exchange of air, low population densities, and the small amount of heavy industry in the area, overall air quality in the Twin Cities ranks among the best of any large metro area in the United States. Temperatures are another matter. Over a weather record of 150 years, the highest temperature recorded was 108°F in July 1936; the lowest recorded temperature was -41°F in January 1888. During a typical July, temperatures stay below 94°F nine days out of ten and below 85°F half the days of the month. The July mean temperature of 73°F is less than ten degrees below the warm-month average for southern U.S. cities. The January mean temperature, however, is among the lowest of any major U.S. city. In a typical January with a daily mean of 11°F, the coldest temperature is above zero more than half the days of the month, and stays above -12°F nine days out of ten.
Daily high temperatures normally range from about zero to 38°F in January and from 72 to 94°F in July. The brilliant blue sky created by cold, dry arctic air on midwinter days provides an uplift that has no analogue on a steamy July afternoon. Fog is rare. From early April through September skies are clear during the day, but rain falls in evening and nighttime showers. Winter is drier with only light snow falling from overcast skies. The area has prepared itself for any weather extreme and for the most part goes about its business in conditions that would bring many cities to a standstill, although the smaller, lighter, and more numerous cars and the reduced snowplowing budgets of recent years bring movement to a halt more often than residents like.
FIGURE 2. Glacial action sculpted Twin Cities landscapes. Terminal moraines, common in Hennepin, Ramsey, and counties directly south of the Twin Cities, occur where rates of glacial ice advance approximated melting rates, producing disorderly piles of sand, pebbles, clay, and boulders that form today's hills, lakes, ponds, and bogs. Outwash plains in Anoka and Sherburne counties north of the Twin Cities feature finer materials washed from terminal moraines by glacial meltwater. Ground moraines, called glacial till plains, are common west of Hennepin County and were deposited during periods of widespread melting of glacial ice, producing a gently rolling landscape of deposits ranging from fine clay to boulders. Lake plains are the bottoms of former glacial lakes. AFTER BORCHERT AND GUSTAFSON 1980, PP. 4-7.
The Twin Cities do endure the coldest winters of any major North American metropolis, but the bad news often is exaggerated. The winter-weather vocabulary of the National Weather Service is a set of technical terms with precise meanings, measured in wind speed, snowfall intensity, and temperature, that Minnesotans get to know as well as they know "rain" and "sunshine." To residents of nonwinter climates, however, the language seems loaded with polar ice cap imagery: heavy snow, winter storm watches and warnings, travelers' advisories, and the particularly notorious wind-chill factor, reported nationally at January levels of -40 to -50°F, while the actual temperature hovers around 0°. Many Americans confuse Minneapolis with Minnesota and conclude that the cold winter temperatures in the northern part of the state are typical of the Twin Cities. Actually, many other cities in the northern United States get as cold as the Twin Cities. Minnesota is a large state—the distance of its northernmost cities like Bemidji and International Falls from the Twin Cities is about the same as the distance from Washington, D.C., to Canada, or from New York City to the interior of Maine. Two kinds of air masses dominate the Twin Cities. One is cool, clear Canadian air, which makes many summer days so perfect and the winter so cold. The other is air from the Pacific Ocean, passing over the Rocky Mountains and warming as it descends and moves eastward. This air produces warm, sunny winter days ideal for outdoor sports. On rare occasions, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico reaches the Twin Cities at the surface, bringing hot, humid weather. Even in the summer, however, the humid Gulf air that predominates over states as near as Illinois and Missouri reaches the Twin Cities area less than 10 percent of the time. In the Twin Cities, tropical Gulf air frequently overrides
cooler air at the surface and brings evening and nighttime showers. Even rarer is the occasional summer arrival of air from the Hudson Bay region, holding daytime temperatures down in the sixties with accompanying rains and prompting much discussion and wonder. Summer skies are fair 73 percent of the time, and up to 85 percent of the time during the last three weeks of July. The most common time for thundershowers is around midnight. Summer air in the Twin Cities is usually not tropical and lacks the moisture content typical over much of the rest of the United States. Despite the high latitude (45°), the early summer sun in the Twin Cities is closer to being directly overhead than it is at the equator. Also, because of the latitude and daylight saving time, the early summer sun sets well after 9:00 p.m., permitting daylight activities out-of-doors until 9:30 p.m. The Changing Seasons Autumn offers fair skies 68 percent of the time, with mild dry days, cool evenings, and only occasional light rain likely at night. Indian Summer, the extended period of sunny days during autumn, has a special beauty for early risers. Twin Cities lakes are still warm from the summer sun, so when night air cools below its dew point, gossamer wisps of early morning fog form over the water. They rise only a few feet above the surface but give added beauty to fiery sunrises over red and orange trees beneath the purple predawn sky. Many residents insist that this is the finest season of all. As days gradually shorten, evening activities move indoors, and the scent of wood smoke wafts through neighborhoods as fireplaces once again come into use. Minnesotans claim a certain expertise as year-round residents of the northern climate: they know the proper selection and handling of firewood; the price of a face cord; proper splitting, stacking, and drying
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techniques; and the management of household air currents for optimum blazes. The holiday season begins in early November. Snow begins to fall but does not last, for the ground is still warm. Around December 10 snow begins to accumulate and most lakes and streams freeze over. This is the cloudiest season of the year in Minnesota, but the clouds keep the snow from melting, enhancing the picturesque holiday scenery. Visitors during this snowwhite season are surprised that they can see well enough outside at night for snowball fights and ice skating. Serious winter weather lasts from New Year's Day to mid-February. Skies clear and the sun shines on the persistent snow cover. Average high temperatures hover around 13°F and winter sports reach full tempo. Ice skaters dot the frozen lakes, skiers trace the low hills, and outside the metropolitan area snowmobilers race across frozen lakes and along roadside trails. The Twin Cities natural environment is managed to remain lively through the winter months, and civic, social, and sports activities are promoted that draw people outside to celebrate and embrace the winter climate. The shared desire to celebrate life in the northern climes has led to a growing, international "livable winter city" movement that originated in Minnesota about 1980 and has spread to more than twenty countries that have winter cities.3 Efforts to enhance winter livability have long been second nature to Minnesotans, but the winter city movement has encouraged Twin Cities civic leaders to focus on better city planning to maximize activity and minimize risks, and on warming up the built environment with color, texture, and comfort. In the Twin Cities, the season of real winter is too short for some. Hints of spring appear in mid-February, and change is in the air throughout March. These are the
snowiest months of the year, but the snows never last long. As the ground warms, snow accumulated over the winter months begins to melt and run off in rushing rivulets that herald the new season. Spring bursts forth suddenly, and temperatures rise abruptly to the seventies. In early April, brisk showers fall from small thunderclouds forming behind cold fronts. These attractive and fast-moving April clouds may bring as many as five brief showers in a single day with sunshine in between. Spring—or what passes for it—surprises newcomers to the Twin Cities. Many other major cities lie near large bodies of water that slow down the spring warm-up. In those places, lake and sea breezes turn many days that begin warm into cool ones. Twin Cities lakes, while often deep, are too small and scattered to affect temperatures. They warm quickly in the spring as the Twin Cities head toward summer.
The People Ethnicity and Race Complementing a northwoods, theater-of-seasons image is the notion that the Twin Cities are populated by blonde, blue-eyed Swedes. Scandinavian-language vaudeville teams that worked out of the Twin Cities at the turn of the century established the image of Minneapolis as New Stockholm. Later, Sinclair Lewis's Main Street, with its portrayal of conflicts between Yankees and Scandinavians, perpetuated the idea that Minnesota and the Twin Cities are predominantly Scandinavian. One does occasionally encounter a Swede or Norwegian in the Twin Cities, but ethnicity is a leitmotiv rather than a dominant chord. Many people today acknowledge and even celebrate their national origins, invoking ethnicity when personally, socially, or politically useful. Over time, however, ethnic strains have
FIGURE 3. Seventh Place Farmers' Market, downtown St. Pavl. COURTESY OF CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
blended through intermarriage so that, for most people, celebrating one's heritage is a multiple-choice problem. There are indeed more than thirty-four pages of Johnsons in the Minneapolis telephone book, but most are second- and third-generation Americans and many are African-American. The dominance of Scandinavian foreign stock in the Twin Cities probably was exaggerated to begin with, and the exaggeration has increased as the foreign-born groups have aged and died. At the turn of the century, Scandinavians outnumbered Germans greatly in Minneapolis and slightly in St. Paul, but they were not represented proportionally in leadership and professional ranks. There are actually more people of German ancestry than Scandinavian in the Twin Cities, yet the area boasts the largest Scandinavian-heritage population of any state in the country, and so the myth lives on. Of those Twin Citians claiming a single dominant ancestry (by nationality or lineage) in 1980, one in
seven was German; one in twenty, Norwegian; one in twenty-five, Swedish; and one in thirty-five, Irish. Only about 4 percent were foreign-born. The U.S. Census Bureau no longer asks the birthplace of the foreignborn, but about half of these in the Twin Cities are elderly European immigrants who arrived before World War II, and the remainder are mostly recent refugees from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In 1990, more than 37,000 people of Spanish or Hispanic origin or descent lived in the Twin Cities. In addition, religious communities, corporations, and social service agencies in the area sponsored thousands of refugee immigrants during the 1980s, including thousands of Indochinese and hundreds of Soviet Jews, Ugandans, Ethiopians, and Latin Americans. The Minnesota Refugee Program Office estimated that by 1987 there were almost 40,000 refugees in Minnesota, most of them in the Twin Cities. Eighty-seven percent of these were Asians, including more than 8,000 Vietnamese and 13,000 Hmong. In 1990, more than 65,000 people of Asian and Pacific Island descent were scattered throughout the metro area (fig. 3). Dispersal also dilutes ethnic consciousness. Census tracts where foreign stock constitutes more than a fifth of the population are rare. Ethnic concentrations are not absent, but with few exceptions—such as Northeast Minneapolis (Slavic) and St. Paul's West Side (Spanish/Hispanic)—they are well hidden. The prosperity of the first and second generations of immigrants helps promote dispersal throughout the metropolitan region. Annual celebrations such as Svenskarnas Dag (Swedish Day), Syttende Mai (May 17, Norwegian Constitution Day), and St. Patrick's Day (March 17) are well attended, but beyond such well-publicized, highly commercialized events, ethnicity is a sometime thing. The ethnic homogeneity of the Twin Cities is matched by racial homogeneity. Nonwhites numbered
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only 194,000 in 1990, of whom 90,000 were black. African-Americans constituted just under 4 percent of the Twin Cities area population; the remaining nonwhites were American Indians and Asians. Minneapolis's Near North and south-central neighborhoods, and St. Paul's Summit-University area, have high percentages of African-American residents. Concentrations of recent Asian immigrants are most discernible in family businesses that have appeared along declining retail strips, and in publicly assisted housing, especially in St. Paul north and northwest of downtown. The 1990 census counted nearly 24,000 American Indians in the Twin Cities area. Minneapolis, with more than 12,000 Native Americans, ranked fourth nationally in Indian population (after Oklahoma City with 19,000; Phoenix, 18,000; and Tulsa, 17,000). The cluster of lower-income Indians centered mostly in the Phillips neighborhood a mile southeast of downtown forms one of the largest such urban concentrations in the nation.
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Economic Health and Physical Vitality The odds of living to age one hundred are better for Minnesotans than for residents of any other nonretirement state in the country. Local folklore attributes this longevity to the stimulation and heartiness fostered by a varied and sometimes harsh climate, or to good old midwestern resolve. More likely contributing factors are the active life-styles of residents and Minnesota's excellent health care system. More people leave Minnesota each year than arrive, but that migration gap is filled by an annual surplus of births over deaths, so that population growth is slow but steady, about 6 percent during the 1980s. The eleven-county Twin Cities region is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the state, and the sixteenth largest metro area in the United States.
The people of these middle-class cities seem well endowed with the attitudes and attributes that bring material success in the American system. The 1979 median family income of $24,582 was well above the $16,461 median income for cities over 20,000 population. It ranked sixth highest among major U.S. metro areas in 1979 and retained a similar rank throughout the 1980s. Only 4.9 percent of Twin Cities families fell below the 1979 poverty level, as opposed to 9.6 percent in all metro areas. At the same time, the average income was not much affected by very high incomes: 6.1 percent of all Twin Cities households had 1979 incomes exceeding $50,000, compared with 12.4 percent of the nation's households. Of the 306,255 people not living with family members, 17.5 percent had incomes below the poverty level; 27 percent of these people were age sixty-five or over. Through the mid-1980s these proportions rose somewhat, to one in thirteen households living at poverty level in the metro area and one in every seven to eight households in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Without minimizing the extent of poverty in the Twin Cities, the fact remains that residents are relatively well off economically compared with other large metro areas. Jobs outpaced population growth during the 1980s, the greatest growth of both taking place in the second-ring suburbs to the west of Minneapolis, an area of rolling, wooded hills and lakes, where annual incomes are among the highest in the metro area.
Telling the Twins Apart Failure to distinguish between the two cities presents the greatest gap between external image and internal reality. For most nonresidents, and for most Minneapolis residents, Minneapolis is the Twin Cities. Dignitaries visiting St. Paul sometimes insult their hosts by commenting on "How nice it is to be in Minneapolis
FIGURE 4. Downtown St. Paul, view west with downtown Minneapolis on the horizon. Lowertown at lower right and Union Depot at bottom center are near the oldest parts of downtown from which the downtown migrated westward toward its present peak of office and commercial development. Note the St. Paul Cathedral west of the downtown center and the capital to the north. PHOTO BY STEVE UNDER.
[again]." A St. Paul newspaper columnist once kept score on how often St. Paul facilities are mislocated in Minneapolis, and vice versa. At last report, the score stood heavily in favor of Minneapolis. The frequency with which St. Paul is incorporated into Minneapolis and the rarity with which people in Minneapolis think they are in St. Paul dramatize the failure to recognize that St. Paul thrives as a separate city (fig. 4).
Siamese Twins For all their similarities, Minneapolis and St. Paul are distinct places. An astrologer once described Minneapolis as a Pisces, with an artistic bent and a yen for Old World architecture, a liberal town that maintains outward decorum and reserve but dances with lampshades on its head at home at night. And St. Paul was deemed a Scorpio, the perfect marriage partner for Minneapolis. Perceptions of St. Paul as an "Irish, blue-collar, beer-
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drinking town" are as mythical as Minneapolis's Scandinavian image. In fact, St. Paul could more accurately be called a "German, white-collar, beerdrinking town." Together, the Twin Cities form a well-balanced partnership of high culture and folk culture, intellect and common sense, reserve and daring.4 Founded twenty years and ten miles apart, they began as neighboring rivals but have ended up Siamese twins. St. Paul and Minneapolis are inescapably tied by proximity, and like the unhappy Chang and Eng, they sometimes squabble. Interurban rivalry no longer generates the silliness and bitterness it produced in the nineteenth century, but rivalry persists. Some Minneapolitans say that they set their watches back fifty years when they go to St. Paul. St. Paul acquired traces of an inferiority complex when Minneapolis became larger, and the feeling has persisted for decades. Some St. Paulites disguised their jealousy of their neighbor's taller buildings, larger size, and spruce image with smugness, asserting that they were cultured and urbane while Minneapolitans were bumptious philistines; but St. Paul usually was the object of interurban jokes. More recently, St. Paul has received excellent national press and has settled into a more comfortably fitting self-image. One national news magazine included St. Paul on its 1989 list of "America's Hot Cities," citing the city's disproportionate number of exceptional cultural institutions and its billion-dollar downtown redevelopment effort of the 1970s and 1980s. Just as the state of Minnesota was highlighted in the early 1970s, St. Paul was portrayed for a national audience as a city that finally learned to "embrace [its] manufacturing heritage and ethnic diversity as a source of pride, not embarrassment." Minneapolis, by comparison, was caricatured as "the Oz to the west with its glassy skyline and Manhattanesque pretensions," pur-
suing a style St. Paulites view as "cloying trendiness."5 Thus are new self-images created. Twin Citians often describe St. Paul as an older, "Eastern" city like Boston, while Minneapolis, with its business bustle and commercial vitality, is likened to Chicago or Denver. This characterization rings true, for it acknowledges ethnic, religious, and geographical differences, along with economic ambitions and visual impressions. St. Paul's earlier start is evident in its larger Catholic, French Canadian, Irish, and German foreign stocks, despite its smaller population. Minneapolis remains more Scandinavian than St. Paul; Norwegians and Swedes constitute almost a tenth of the Minneapolis population. Proportions of other ethnic groups are similar in the two cities. Today's stereotypes are residuals of earlier social structures. For example, in 1930, German foreign stock was almost 14 percent of St. Paul's population but less than 8 percent of Minneapolis's. Every fifth Minneapolitan had been born in Norway or Sweden or had at least one parent who was; every seventh St. Paulite fell into the same category. The Irish were not an especially large group in either city in 1930, but they were twice as important in St. Paul as in Minneapolis. Ethnic Impacts Past and present ethnic differences between the cities have produced relatively little imprint on the modern urban landscape, except perhaps for the remnant fine woodwork in homes built by Scandinavian craftsmen. Even a genuine Scandinavian restaurant is impossible to find. Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have maintained consulates in Minneapolis and its suburbs, but they are offices in large buildings and are outwardly indistinguishable from the law offices that surround them. The Scandinavian nations have no official represen-
tation in St. Paul except for the Finnish-American Cultural Activities organization. None of the Scandinavian consulates is listed in the St. Paul phone book. When queried about this the Swedish consulate was uncommunicative; the Norwegian consul observed that his offices were not listed in the Madison, Duluth, or Fargo directories, and therefore he could see no good reason why they should be listed in the St. Paul directory. The German consulate, on the other hand, is located in Minneapolis but is also listed in the St. Paul telephone directory. (There were almost identical numbers of German foreign stock in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 1980.) The Mexican consulate is located in St. Paul and is not listed in the Minneapolis directory. The American Swedish Institute and the Sons of Norway have headquarters in Minneapolis, but the Volksfest Kulturhaus is in St. Paul. The St. Paul Irish have the Irish-American Cultural Institute and make a magnificent impression on the urban landscape during the St. Patrick's Day parade. Most material expressions of ethnic heritage take an ephemeral form, in the celebration of holidays. Relics of earlier ethnic concentrations are rapidly disappearing, but the religious and moral differences that derive from the earlier and stronger ethnic differences persist. St. Paulites, being more dominantly southern German, Austrian, and Irish, tend to be Catholics (37 percent). Local wags often remark that it is fitting that the St. Paul Cathedral stands higher and more imposingly than the state capitol, for that is (or at least was) an accurate reflection of relationships between the powers that the edifices memorialize. In St. Paul, apartments and houses are still sometimes advertised with no location given other than the name of the Catholic parish in which the dwelling is located. Minneapolis is about as Protestant as St. Paul is Catholic.
Lutheranism is the dominant faith, with Catholics only about 20 percent of the population. The headquarters of the Lutheran Brotherhood Insurance Company, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, and (until 1987) the American Lutheran Church bear witness to the strength of Lutheranism in Minneapolis.
Public Citizenship Minnesota has been held up as a model for the nation on several dimensions, and the Twin Cities area is seen as an eminently livable place. A disproportionate number of prominent national leaders have emerged from the open, issue-oriented political structure that encourages citizens to question and challenge, and then responds. Local political leadership has a strong commitment to providing excellent public services and education, and residents generally are willing to pay enough taxes to support these benefits. Minnesota uses corporate and income taxes to pay for its abundant services; property taxes paid by homeowners (after the state pays a share) have been kept low—less than 2 percent of assessed value in most cases. Minnesota falls in the middle range among the states in population and per capita income, but it has managed to produce the fourth-largest public university system in the United States, with nationally recognized faculties in several fields.
The legacy of local control in business and government, and a tradition of full participation in the local community, have created a public climate in which most residents feel that they are a part of the action and that they have a healthy measure of control over their lives and destinies. A political tradition of displaying campaign lawn signs in the yards of private homes, obnoxious to some, indicates the participatory nature of Minnesota politics. Interest groups lobby here, but the
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constant public attention focused on their efforts means that none is able consistently to control legislative outcomes. Minnesota's continuing economic success has meant that its young people usually have not had to leave the state to seek economic opportunities but can remain here and create opportunities for themselves. Their success is attributed to a fortuitous mix of historic circumstances. The state was founded by Yankee entrepreneurs who believed in local control and participation and who re-created a cosmopolitan atmosphere of energetic civic, cultural, and intellectual activism. Those who followed and expanded the population and settlement system were mostly northern European; no pronounced ethnic or racial strife ever disrupted or impeded economic progress. The concentration of investment capital, business services, and educational and cultural institutions in an area that is also home to half the state's population has provided the creative interaction among Minnesotans that is responsible for its positive climate. A peculiar Minnesota version of noblesse oblige— which asserts that it is not enough to give only money; one must also give time and energy—dominates the state's largely homegrown corporate culture. Most large corporations and many smaller ones offer employee incentives to individual volunteerism. Business people and corporations are centrally involved in philanthropy and government; private citizens sit on public councils and committees; and public and private entities work closely together on public policy issues. At the same time, the effects of such concentrated power, money, and influence are kept in check by a pervasive obsession with local control and public participation, and by the tradition of small-scale, independent enterprise. The proximity of Minneapolis and St. Paul has led the two cities over time to abandon most of their his-
toric rivalry and work together for mutual benefit, creating a natural laboratory for experiments in metrowide cooperation. Consistent citizen participation at all levels has forced governmental cooperation and unity, partly through voluntary organizations such as the Citizens League, which has no formal authority but wields significant influence through its task forces and policy research committee reports. The Metropolitan Council serves as a national model for coordination of the region's planning and policy-making and for governance of metrowide functions. The governor-appointed council has taxation power for the services it controls (sewers, transit, airports, and regional parks), and it produced the first mandatory metropolitan land use law in the United States. Minnesota sits at the edge of the declining industrial region of the northeastern United States, with its abandoned mines and mills, its rapidly transforming metropolitan economies, and its decaying inner cities. Wise management of the state's most precious assets will ensure its long-term economic vitality and protect it from the worst of the troubles of its eastern neighbors. Minnesota's freshwater resources for industry and recreation, and its healthy and well-educated work force and the ideas that it produces—if developed and managed properly—will escort the state to new levels of selfsufficiency and national leadership in the twenty-first century. Hidden Strengths Corporate Report Minnesota, a leading local business magazine, once discussed the hidden strengths of Minnesota's economy as keys to sustaining and stimulating the state's welfare in the future. An important foundation for all of these hidden strengths are Minnesota's well-developed networks: of educational, information, and financial resources, and among the leadership of the business,
government, labor, nonprofit, and education sectors. Minnesota's leaders collaborate tirelessly in planning the state's future, often over 7:00 a.m. breakfast meetings. The community's commitment to sustaining a healthy and productive living environment through support for education and vocational-technical training, incentives for small business, and diversification of the rural economy has produced the lowest high school dropout rate, the sixth-highest college-graduate-per-capita ratio, and one of the top ten capital investment rates in the country. In general, when business climate is assessed from the point of view of workers as well as management, Minnesota emerges as a good place to be. The Twin Cities business elite is mostly of humble origin. Many of them run family-held local businesses that were built from small investments and flourished under the progressive leadership of their founders. Their names—Carlson, McKnight, Norris, Ordway, Phillips, Weyerhaeuser—are familiar to Minnesotans, not only because they appear on cornerstones of buildings and on company logos but because their corporations underwrite major endowments for local music, theater, arts, education, and development and preservation efforts. Minnesota's business leaders have traditionally been public-minded citizens of a community where one's fortune is considered a public good and sharing it is a civic responsibility. There is a common belief that what one does not earn, one must share, so the descendants of local corporate magnates teach their children to give generously of both time and money to the community. The Ordway family of St. Paul is a case in point. Lucius P. Ordway was a New York native who made his first million in a St. Paul plumbing supply firm. In 1905 he bailed the ailing 3M company out of dire financial straits and started it down the road to its current multinational status. Lucius was a major boost-
er for St. Paul then, and two succeeding generations of Ordways, while continuing to manage 3M, have refurbished the city's grand hotel, built an opera house, and supported a symphony, chamber orchestra, theater, landscape arboretum, and zoo. Without the civic activism of local business leaders, the Twin Cities might have faced the tug-of-war between business and culture that many cities face. In recent years, Minnesotans have been subjected to incessant debate about the business climate of the state. Some people claim that taxes are too high, wages are too high, and corporations are leaving. But Minnesota businesses prosper, and Minnesota workers prosper. High taxes, wages, and benefits have produced a healthy, well-educated, highly productive, and goodnatured work force that gives corporations a competitive edge in national and world markets.
Playing and Consuming The work ethic is alive and well in the Twin Cities, but all work and no play can make for a dull life. There is little danger of Twin Cities life becoming dull. Twin Citians play hard, whether by watching or participating in sports, pastimes, or festivals. The region and the local ethos offer abundant opportunities for individual and communal recreation. Festivals Nonresidents are likely to be most familiar with the organized hoopla of the St. Paul Winter Carnival and the summer Minneapolis Aquatennial. Local boosters ensure that each event receives national publicity. The Winter Carnivals were started before World War I and have waxed and waned since. The first St. Paul Winter Carnival was staged in 1886, replete with a multistory palace sculpted entirely of ice and a freshly
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written folk legend about King Boreas Rex of snow, cold, and winter and Vulcanus Rex who would overthrow Boreas and return spring to St. Paul. The Carnival was created to challenge the area's national image as "another Siberia, unfit for human habitation in the winter,"6 but also to bring economic investment to the city. For the 1986 Centennial Carnival, the grandest-todate replica of the first ice palace was sculpted from 30,000 blocks of ice chiseled from Lake Phalen, rising fifteen stories and lit from head to toe, the tallest ice structure ever built (fig. 5). Minneapolis chafed for years at the success of the Winter Carnival, and in the 1940s, unwilling to tolerate these continual affronts to its dignity, established the Aquatennial. The aquatic motif celebrates the city's lakes and parks and the myriad outdoor activities they support in the summertime. Smaller festivals and celebrations, including the St. Patrick's Day parade, are numerous. Rice Street and Payne Avenue in St. Paul have sponsored annual festivals for years, the former with a Swedish accent and the latter with an Italian flavor. Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis is the traditional location for annual Norwegian and Swedish celebrations. For a few years in the early 1970s an annual "Snoose Boulevard" festival (which continues as Cedarfest) re-created the aura of the turn-of-the-century designation of Cedar Avenue, an uncomplimentary recognition of a Scandinavian taste for snuff. There also are numerous annual and seasonal community festivals, which help to keep the identity and cohesion of neighborhoods intact. The largest celebration of the year, the State Fair, comes at the end of summer, when Minnesota throws a twelve-day party for the whole state. The fair draws more than 1.5 million guests and is the largest of its kind in the United States. Urban and rural folk get a rare chance to meet and share common ties at this festi-
val, where each is reminded of the importance of the other in making the whole state work. Sports and Entertainment Other summer recreation was created by a move that many thought out of character for Minnesota: a thoroughbred racetrack with pari-mutuel betting opened in the Twin Cities' southwest suburb of Shakopee in 1985. Although the track was slow to stir a major development boom on adjacent land, it has supported the growth of associated industries—horse breeding and care, custom silks production—and has provided reserved Minnesotans an opportunity to cut loose in an appropriate setting. The southern suburb of Bloomington promoted development of an enclosed shopping and recreation "megamall"—the Mall of America—housing an indoor lake and amusement park. Meanwhile, the southwest suburbs of Shakopee, Chanhassen, Prior Lake, and Apple Valley boast a kind of "super-strip" recreation corridor, which claims among its attractions the Canter-
FIGURE 5. Winter Carnival Ice Castle, 1986. Phalen Park, St. Paul. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
bury Downs racetrack, Valley Fair family amusement park (900,000 visitors each year), Mystic Lake Casino, run by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux (1,000 patrons each day), the Chanhassen Dinner Theaters (the largest and most successful of their type in the nation), the Renaissance Festival (250,000-300,000 fairgoers each year), the Minnesota Zoo (925,000 patrons each year), and the Minnesota Valley Trail System. For Shakopee and its neighbors, the direct recreation-based economic development sparked by these attractions may be less important than the attention they focus on the area as a desirable site for more stable industrial and residential development. The Twin Cities offer a variety of spectator sports. Major league baseball (the Twins), basketball (the Timberwolves), football (the Vikings), hockey (the North Stars), and a number of professional tennis tournaments have provided year-round diversion for avid sports buffs. Minnesota was a slow starter in pro baseball, losing a bid for the New York Giants and Dodgers and finally settling for a transplanted Washington Senators team in 1960. The renamed Minnesota Twins proved to be a good buy for Minnesotans. The team made its way to the World Series in 1965 and won it in 1987 and 1991. The University of Minnesota Gophers and other collegiate sports teams also play in Twin Cities facilities. The Arts Major league culture is also much in evidence and remarkably well patronized. The Twin Cities area has more galleries, theaters, and music ensembles per capita than any other place between Chicago and California. The fine arts have flourished in the Twin Cities ever since Thomas Barlow Walker opened a public gallery in his home in 1879. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) opened in 1915, the Walker Art Center in 1923, and an abundance of
other galleries has sprung up throughout the city since then. Outdoor art flourishes too, notably in the works of Norwegian immigrant sculptor Jakob Fjelde, which stand in Loring Park and on the bank of Minnehaha Falls, and the John Rood sculpture in front of the Minneapolis Public Library. With the opening of the Walker Sculpture Garden, the Twin Cities won its star on the U.S. map of monumental public art. For material and visual arts there are also dozens of small galleries, including the Minnesota Museum of Art, Film in the Cities, the University Film Society, and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Minnesotans have wide-ranging tastes in music, and a given household may listen to both opera and country western. Fortunately, there is a full array of options for listening. The Minnesota Orchestra gives three subscription concerts a week (two in Minneapolis, one in St. Paul) during its regular season. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minneapolis Chamber Symphony, the Minnesota Opera, and many other orchestras, chamber groups, choruses, and opera companies perform throughout the year. Jazz clubs, an eclectic mix of radio stations, and an annual Twin Cities Jazz Festival round out the scene. For those who want to participate, there is the Bach Society, the Minnesota Chorale, and the Minnesota Composers Forum. Why would a remote northern milling town become a world-class seat of culture? Some credit the New England Yankee elite who brought European urbanity westward; others find it a natural outcome for a place with energy, intellect, and money. Whatever the origins, Twin Citians enthusiastically support more than fifty local theaters, among them the renowned Tyrone Guthrie Theater, the Children's Theatre, and contemporary theaters such as Illusion, Southern, Mixed Blood, and the Chanhassen Dinner Theaters.
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When Sir Tyrone Guthrie selected Minneapolis as the site for his repertory theater, he established the Twin Cities as a theatrical center of unusual proportion, making the area a major attraction for actors and actresses. National advertising agencies have established branches in Minneapolis to tap this wealth of talent, and local agencies are able to break successfully into national markets. Local corporations and foundations lend support to the arts in the Twin Cities, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Minnesota Opera. A new opera house was built in St. Paul in 1985. There is also substantial government support for Twin Cities arts; for example, the MIA receives about $3 million annually from Hennepin County tax coffers. Just as performing and fine arts are well supported in the Twin Cities, literary arts find an active community here. The public reads, the foundations finance, the many small presses publish first efforts, and there is a good local pool of necessary editors, agents, and other supporting players. Some credit the long winters with producing introspective novels and an avid reading public. Many Minnesota writers draw from the rural and immigrant heritage of their families. The state counts among local writers who have gained national prominence John Berryman, Carol Ely, Judith Guest, Patricia Hampl, Jon Hassler, Lake Wobegon's Garrison Keillor, Tim O'Brien, Robert Pirsig, Susan Allen Toth, and playwright August Wilson. Many of these writers began their rise to prominence at the Loft, the second largest such literary center in the country, which provides support and audiences for local writers and a place to share work for its 1,500 writing and reading members. Despite their abundance of high culture, the Twin Cities cannot fairly be called a glamorous place. Twin Citians are serious, literate cultural consumers, but it is
hard to look the part in a down-filled parka. They kid themselves with inside jokes about wool socks and plaid shirts and in truth the local taste for glamour and glitter is not well developed. Outdoor Recreation The Twin Cities' physical setting provides opportunities for participant play in greater abundance than is the case in most metropolitan regions. Minneapolis and St. Paul alone boast almost a dozen lakes inside their boundaries that are managed for recreation and surrounded by margins of public parkway, with biking, running, walking, and roller-skating paths (fig. 6). For most Twin Citians a city or regional park, a frozen or liquid body of water, an outdoor concert, or a sporting event is within easy reach on any day of the year. Fishing is legal for some species year-round, and the region around the Twin Cities is studded with lakes and rivers that provide adequate-to-excellent fishing. About a fourth of the adult populations of Hennepin and Ramsey counties fish. A common catch from local lakes includes panfish and northern pike, the latter reaching twenty pounds or more. Although specimens that size are increasingly rare in the metropolitan area, game fishers hook sizable northerns and the occasional 30-pound muskie often enough to make fishing for them exciting and worthwhile. Bass fishing at many lakes in the metropolitan area (including lakes within the central cities) is excellent; five-pound bass are caught daily and larger ones are not especially newsworthy. The Mississippi and Minnesota rivers yield giant catfish, bass, northern pike, and walleyed pike (Minnesota's premier fish). Ice fishing stories are an important part of Minnesota's winter lore; devotees trade boasts about their tiny luxurious sheds planted on frozen lakes, replete with stereo, heater, bar, and army cot. In other regions people complain about their partners being
FIGURE 6. Loring Park, Minneapolis. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
glued to the television during football season. In Minnesota, they often are awakened at 4 a.m. by their partners heading off to a Great Escape, to spend the day hovering over a six-inch hole in a lake. Boating, whether incidental to fishing or an end in itself, is also popular. But boat registrations in Minnesota exceed the Department of Natural Resources's crowding standards by as much as eight times, and there are twenty times too many boats for Twin Cities
lakes to handle comfortably, were they all to head for nearby waters at the same time. There are remarkably few accidents and fistfights given the number of craft on the water, but increased boating pressure on the metropolitan area's lakes will eventually lead to lake surface zoning for different kinds of water-based activities. Moving through space effortlessly is a delight that knows no seasonal bounds, and snowmobiles make it possible to do so in the winter, relieving the winter doldrums for many outdoor enthusiasts. Antagonisms between ice fishers and snowmobile fans arise because the frozen lakes are the best places to race snowmobiles, most of which will easily go fifty miles per hour, with top speeds for powerful models of seventy or eighty miles per hour. Several of them break through the ice and disappear each year. Self-propelled recreation is also popular. The Twin Cities Marathon, first run in 1982 with 4,500 runners and a $20,000 purse, has been called "the most beautiful urban marathon in the world," with its route winding along waterside parkways through Minneapolis and St. Paul. With public and corporate sponsorship and local and national media coverage, the race has become an international event, drawing more than 7,000 entrants and 200,000 spectators each year, with a purse of over $150,000. The Twin Cities also are home to the annual Kaiser Roll races, the major wheelchair-racing event in the United States and the largest fitness event in the world in which both able and disabled people participate. During the rest of the year motorists must be constantly on the lookout for joggers and runners who use every city street, parkway, and country road for their daily paces. For those who prefer a more genteel form of recreation, there are nearly twenty private golf and country clubs in the metro area where members can relax, play
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a few rounds, and hobnob. For those on a budget, there are dozens of public and park board golf clubs. Twin Cities residents make heavy use of their metropolitan area for outdoor recreation, sometimes creating a nuisance for one another. Conflicts over public access versus private property, incompatible uses, and compromised water and lakeshore quality will demand more government intervention in the near future (fig. 7). Voluntary and legislated zoning, rationing by permit, and user fees for lakes, campgrounds, and other overtaxed facilities will make the region more pleasant for all users. For the foreseeable future, Twin Cities residents will find high-quality fishing, small-game hunting, hiking, camping, cross-country and downhill skiing, sailing, and water skiing no more than a forty-five minute drive from their doorsteps.
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Indoor Fun For those who prefer indoor exercise, the Twin Cities area offers many opportunities for young and old. Minneapolis and St. Paul once claimed 10 percent of the public ballrooms in the United States. Four public ballrooms still thrive in the metro area, a link to the Big Band Era for some and a respite from the bar scene for others. Many others survive in small rural towns as holdovers from the ethnic folkdance traditions of an earlier time. If all else fails, Twin Citians go shopping. From late May until well into autumn, both Minneapolis and St. Paul as well as many of the surrounding suburbs hold daily or weekly farmers' markets. Local truck farmers set up shop outdoors with freshly picked produce, and recent immigrants market their handicrafts. For many Minnesotans shopping is a social event. In the Twin Cities shoppers focus on the "Dales" (Southdale, Brookdale, Ridgedale, Rosedale), shopping malls developed by the Dayton Hudson Corporation, the highpriced stores and shops downtown, and the specialty
markets and malls, which flourish for a while but seem to have trouble hanging on.
Social Conservatives and Economic Liberals Perhaps because of their homogeneous culture, the Twin Cities seem to support conservative social policies and liberal (by national standards) economic policies. The typical nationwide alignments of liberals and conservatives on social, economic, and international questions take on a special character here. Religion and Politics as Partners Conservative social outlooks of a largely churchgoing, family-oriented population coexist with a vigorous liberal economic agenda that includes strong unions, support for co-ops, generous welfare programs, progressive income taxes, above-average unemployment insurance benefits, and worker-compensation benefits so
FIGURE 7. Shoreline development at high density; yearround homes. Prior Lake, Minnesota. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
generous that they sometimes interfere with the rehabilitation and reemployment of injured workers. Politicians learn quickly that it is all right to support higher taxes for schools or environmental protection, but it is not smart to attack churches or to be too vocal in support of expanded liquor patrol limits. Concern for the clean reputation of state government led to several successful initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s to improve financial and program auditing of state government operations. The dominant culture, rooted in northwestern Europe and seasoned by the comfortable bonds and barriers of Lutherans and Catholics, makes for a secure community that welcomes immigrants to the area, including refugees. Many households have adopted children from Asia and Latin America; such adoptions are unremarkable and receive community support. Per capita, such adoptions are more common here than in almost any other area in the country. In a place where economic liberalism and social conservatism are happily married, programs favoring healthy children have a good chance of succeeding. The sharp cultural and social gradients that foster tension and conflict in many cities have been much less marked in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and there is a strong commitment to conflict resolution, producing a metropolis in which social and cultural conflict has rarely attained the proportions it has in other large cities. As social and civil justice issues arise, local leadership usually responds quickly, recognizing that a fair solution is in everyone's interest. On most contentious issues, minority interest groups are well organized and have reasonable and politically astute leadership, so that most political action takes place within established channels. Minnesotans do not like to leave problems unattended.
Minneapolis was one of the first U.S. cities to elect a female majority to its city council, and two women have served as council president. The council has had an openly gay member, vice president Brian Coyle, who among his other contributions shepherded the city's domestic partners ordinance into law before his death from AIDS in 1991. Perhaps the most important and enduring impact of Minnesota's Scandinavian stock is its progressive grass-roots political tradition, in part the legacy of the progressive activism of immigrant Scandinavian farmers and laborers. More than 2,000 people elected to state and local offices in Minnesota since World War II, and nearly every governor since 1915, have been of Scandinavian descent, prompting many candidates to capitalize on (or wish for) a Scandinavian surname. Minnesota turns out a higher percentage of voters in national elections than any other state in the country, with 68.5 percent of the electorate voting in 1980, 68 percent in 1984, 66.3 percent in 1988, and 71.9 percent in 1992. Despite the tradition of active political leadership, the majority of Minnesotans prefer to express their political views firmly but privately— behind the voting booth curtain, around the dinner table, or through financial support for candidates. The state's reputation for consensus building can be linked to its profound aversion to public confrontation on difficult issues. As a result, intractable issues are often compromised into consensus. Although the Twin Cities area seems to be slowly becoming more like other major U.S. metropolitan areas on the "goodness" and "badness" indexes, important distinctions persist. Crime rates are relatively low, and education levels and incomes remain above national averages. The general conviction of Twin Cities residents that problems are solvable is evident in the politicians they elect at all levels of government. The progressive
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image of New Deal governor Floyd B. Olson, for example, and the violent but successful Teamsters' strike of 1934, reflect an abiding grass-roots social concern and activism that have often been translated into legislative innovation backed by a willingness to provide concrete backing for education and social legislation. Hubert H. Humphrey, for example, enjoyed widespread political popularity in the Twin Cities in a career that began with a term as mayor of Minneapolis. Since then both cities have had good success (despite occasional lapses) at electing thoughtful and accessible mayors. Right down to the local level there is a spirit of openness and honesty in political affairs. The electorate expects open, honest, and efficient government, and their expectations are usually fulfilled. Churches, companies, individuals, and groups are surprisingly well informed and active in international affairs. This is perhaps a legacy of the high educational levels of the founders from New England and northwestern Europe, the state university as a crossroads for international visitors, and the international marketing of agricultural products since the early days. Even the most conservative Protestants usually are liberal on issues of international justice, regional education, and social welfare.
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Standards of Public Conduct The community seems to have high standards of personal conduct, and it demands exceptionally high standards for public officials. Ever since Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey waged a reform campaign in 1945, politics in Minnesota are so clean that people joke about it. Apparently Minnesotans figured out that it was possible to control political conduct just as they controlled the rest of their lives—through focused public attention. In one month of 1982 in other states, a senator resigned in scandal, a legislator was convicted of
racketeering, and a mayor, city council president, and ex-councilman were all indicted for fraud. Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, the public was rocked by revelations that friends of public officials had been granted free rounds of golf at Minneapolis parks, and that a Minneapolis alderman had been allowed to park illegally at a Twins game. Minnesota is not without its real scandals, as demonstrated by the 1989-90 ethics committee investigation of Senator David Durenberger, and by the 1990 state elections in which allegations of dirty campaigning and moral impropriety eliminated top gubernatorial contender Jon Grunseth and ultimately helped to unseat his incumbent rival Rudy Perpich. The allegations contributed to the defeat of Senator Rudy Boschwitz as well. Although the events of this election were considered an aberration in recent state history, the cathartic response of the Minnesota electorate to the mere appearance of flawed character was entirely typical—they rejected everyone who seemed even the least bit tainted. The media make such fireworks over infractions, and the public is so unforgiving, that officials who stumble will likely find themselves not only out of a job next election day, but under prosecution as well. After all, this is a place where a candidate was indicted for "improper campaign inducements" for allowing coffee and rolls to be served at campaign parties.7
Preservation in the Midst of Change Minnesota and the Twin Cities have earned a relatively good reputation in environmental protection and historic preservation. The state has not only a large percapita expenditure for environmental protection but also effective publicly supported programs to protect water resources, wetlands, and parkland. Preservation
of historic structures also is taken into account in most urban development planning. Environmental Activism Minnesota and Twin Cities environmentalist groups are active, successful, and credible. The most politically active groups are the Sierra Club's North Star Chapter and its lobbying arm, Project Environment; the State Audubon Council; and the smaller Isaak Walton League, which provides a close link with sporting groups. The state environmental movement is said to have come of age largely over three controversies: an attempt in the early 1970s to mine copper-nickel in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA); the 1978 congressional passage of a strict mining and lumbering protection law for the BWCA; and the passage of a state Superfund Act for hazardous wastes.8 The disposal of nuclear wastes became an important issue in Minnesota in the 1980s, as it did elsewhere in the United States. A large share of Minnesota's electric power is generated by Northern States Power Company's Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear plants. Several major industries also produce low-level radioactive wastes, including Honeywell, 3M, and Kallestad Laboratories. The state sent about 27,000 cubic feet of this by-product out of the state for permanent disposal in 1990. Minnesota's toxic waste problem is modest compared with some heavy-industry states. Still, some of the country's worst waste sites can be found here, such as FMC Corporation's munitions plant waste disposal site in Arden Hills north of St. Paul, once named by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the worst toxic waste dump in America. Plans to protect vital groundwater resources came late to Minnesota's environmental policies, but during the 1980s more attention was sharply focused on this need. The public debate
centers on questions of who is to blame and who should pay, and has not yet come to terms with the idea that whoever is to blame, the costs are borne by all. Historic Preservation St. Paul has had less pressure to change over the years than Minneapolis has had, so it is left today with much that appears worth preserving. The city's Summit Avenue, where many of the city's founders built their homes, is perhaps the best-preserved Victorian street in America; the challenge is to figure out how to preserve and reuse it economically (fig. 8). As every city grows and changes, some old uses persist, some relocate and thrive, and many artifacts of historical significance survive. St. Paul moved its historic farmers' market to a new location, where it continues to serve its original purpose. In Minneapolis, a struggle took place over the placement of a new, eighteen-story jail building that the county wanted to erect on the site of the 1930s art deco National Guard Armory building. The arguments on each side were compelling and revealed much about the difficulties of preserving the past in changing times, when the need to manage a metro area efficiently often conflicts with the wish to protect its legacy.
Truth about the Good Life in a Pretty Good Place Unless one's childhood was a totally dismal experience, one's hometown remains among the best places in the world. Natives hold fond memories of places that others abhor. Nevertheless, comparisons between the Twin Cities and other metropolitan areas encourage the conclusion that the Twin Cities are a better-than-average place to live. The climate serves up winter hardships, summer irritations, and a niggardly spring, but it also
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FIGURE 8. Summit Avenue, SI. Paul. One of the nation's outstanding collections of well-maintained Victorian homes. PHOTO BY CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
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produces marked seasonal changes that most residents find bracing. Climate and topography combine to offer recreational opportunities in abundance and variety. A wide range of low-density, single-family housing on well-maintained, tree-lined streets enables most people to find the housing they want at a location they like for a manageable cost. Residents are well educated and confident. Visitors usually notice an atmosphere of openness and friendliness, a pleasant contrast to the anxiety and desperation evident in many cities. Twin Cities residents are bemused by assertions that their amiability comes from being a decade or so behind
Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. They are cosmopolitan enough to know it is not so, and self-assured enough to prefer remaining the way they are. A Place thai Works Before the national media celebrated Minnesota's quality of life in the 1970s, residents thought little about it; they took it for granted, having no basis for comparison. Then the Twin Cities were "discovered." Minnesota was featured as "The State that Works" in a cover story in Time magazine.9 State politics had much to do with the
article, yet the essay was a sensible and sensitive portrayal of the state and the metropolitan area. Things have worked pretty well so far in Minnesota and the Twin Cities, and that seems to distinguish the metropolitan area from many others. People having business with public officials or private concerns expect their transactions to be accomplished properly and efficiently, and they usually are. Pettifogging is minimal, whether the business at hand is licensing a canoe or buying a house. Moreover, a willingness to accept innovation and change has led residents to expect that things will get even better. Recent programs that allow high school students to choose any school in their city, to enroll in a school district outside where they live, or to enroll in college classes at school district expense once they have exhausted their high school's curriculum are good examples. Twin Cities residents do their share of grousing about the day-to-day irritations of life, but bitterness and despair are not commonplace. Freedom from the hundreds of weekly anxieties and squabbles characteristic of cities, in which the average person expects to be gulled every time he or she turns around, is perhaps the most refreshing element of Twin Cities life. A 1988 ranking of the stress levels in 286 metro areas, based on such factors as alcoholism, divorce, suicide, and crime, listed the Twin Cities ninety-first from the top, or least stressful; the Minnesota cities of Rochester and St. Cloud ranked third and fourth. Throughout the Upper Midwest there is a deep-seated expectation of social justice, rooted mainly in religious traditions. When injustices are perceived, Minnesotans do not hesitate to take action to right the wrong, by demonstrating in the streets or by pressuring lawmakers. Political dissidence driven by moral indignation is a mainstream tradition here, not a deviant attitude.
Not everyone wants to move to Minnesota, but once people do, they usually stay. And most native Minnesotans cannot imagine why they would want to live anywhere else. In truth, however, few people actually move to Minnesota each year. Most Minnesotans (three out of four) are natives, and the 7 percent or so who join them each year come to stay. The first immigrants chose Minnesota because they heard it was like home (either from friends and relatives, or from railroad developers), or because they had contacts here. Now, the media attention to quality-of-life ratings has encouraged people to comparison shop for new locations, and those who do their homework often choose Minnesota. An unforeseen consequence of the quality of life here— which includes generous social services and welfare benefits in the metropolitan counties—has been an increasing influx of chronically dependent in-migrants, leading to calls for reform. Yankee Footprints Literacy and education also contribute to quality of life. As luck would have it, the Yankee founders of Minneapolis believed that a welleducated citizenry was good for business, so in 1885 lumber magnate T. B. Walker, along with Thomas Lowry and others, turned the old Minneapolis Athenaeum book-lending pool into the Minneapolis Public Library, and in 1889 a fine stone building was constructed at Tenth Street and Hennepin Avenue to house the collection. St. Paul's public library system started when railroad magnate James J. Hill built his own reference library in downtown St. Paul in 1921, and persuaded the city to open a public library next door. The Hill Reference Library, considered by most to be the best business library in the Midwest, has specialized in business since 1976, holds 1,000 journals, and draws 66,000 users each year. Another beneficiary of the Hill family
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fortune is the Hill Monastic Manuscripts Library at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where microfilms of pre-seventeenth-century handwritten manuscripts are assembled for research and preservation. The University of Minnesota is one of the largest public research universities in the country, with a Twin Cities enrollment of more than 40,000 and a statewide subscription of nearly 75,000. The "U of M" ranks among the top half dozen public universities in the country, offering over 250 academic majors, with noted strengths in agriculture, health sciences, engineering, and social sciences. One of the university's special strengths is its Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, a long-standing adviser to the federal government on domestic and international trade and agriculture. The university ranked seventh in the United States in research and development spending in 1989 ($259 million) and has the thirteenth largest library, with 4.7 million volumes. Students navigate the acres of eclectic structures with the help of dozens of universityproduced maps of buildings, parking areas, and bus routes; even tactual (Braille) maps are offered for the visually impaired. Prominent alumni of the university include Walter Mondale, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, David Durenberger (one of five U.S. senators to come out of the university), five Minnesota congressmen, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, two state governors, Everett Dirksen, Orville Freeman, Hubert H. Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Harold Stassen, Carl Stokes, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney M. Young. The importance of the university to Minnesota would be hard to overstate; it seems to be connected to every sector of the community. The enormous depth of support for the university by state residents does not generate daily headlines, but it surfaces overwhelming-
ly when called upon. A recent capital campaign raised $365 million in just three years—a public university record. Donations came from all sources—alumni, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals—more than 180,000 contributors. Of the amount raised, $10 million was earmarked to improve minority access to the university. In 1990, the university's total endowment stood at $449 million, twenty-seventh-highest in the United States. Talking Things Over Newspaper circulation patterns help to perpetuate the separate identities of the Twin Cities. The area has two major daily newspapers—the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The Pioneer Press is delivered to homes in St. Paul and its suburbs but only in parts of Minneapolis and its easternmost suburbs. In 1987, the Star Tribune's scope was broadened to share news of the entire metro area with all of its residents. It increasingly penetrates St. Paul, with daily home delivery available throughout much of the city and many of its suburbs. The Sunday Star Tribune is readily available throughout Ramsey County. In addition to the daily papers, several small, metrowide weekly and semimonthly papers cover local politics, entertainment, and civic issues. These include the Twin Cities Reader and City Pages. Local weeklies such as Skyway News (downtown), Freeway News (southwest suburbs), and local Sun newspapers in most metro subregions, as well as small community newspapers, cover issues of interest to their local areas. There is a growing number of papers for special interest groups and communities of color including Asians, Indians, Hispanics, and African-Americans. Among the oldest of these are the Minneapolis Spokesman and the St. Paul Recorder, serving the African-American community. The University of Minnesota's wholly student-run
newspaper, the Minnesota Daily, is the largest campus newspaper in the country. It keeps the Twin Cities informed about university affairs and provides a forum for lively debate. Television and radio also affect regional identity and draw the community together. Ask any Minnesotan how to find out today's pork belly futures, Dow Jones averages, school closings, storm warnings, the current state of arms control negotiations, or the week's worst Scandinavian joke and the answer will be " 'CCO." WCCO-AM radio is the local CBS affiliate and 50,000watt community bulletin board whose ad campaigns invited us to "turn to a friend" for "Real Radio." Since 1924 it has provided all of Minnesota—small towns, farms, cities—with a center that makes International Falls and St. Cloud feel like neighbors and that shares the everyday life of the Twin Cities with farmsteads in the Red River Valley. Announcers are careful to say "St. Paul and Minneapolis" as often as they say "Minneapolis and St. Paul." But other things being equal, Minneapolis and its suburbs still get more air time because of their larger populations. WCCO's studios are in downtown Minneapolis and thus the idle chit-chat of disc jockeys and television announcers tilts toward events there. Because of WCCO radio's persistently large market penetration, this emphasis redounds in favor of Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio, formed in 1971, is the country's leading public radio system. In 1982, MPR launched American Public Radio, the country's fastestgrowing public radio network, to challenge the dominance of the National Public Radio network. Both MPR and APR have been wildly successful, and much of the credit for broadening audience support in the 1980s goes to the Saturday night live broadcasts of "A Prairie Home Companion" and its associated merchandising spinoffs. The more enduring base of financial and moral
support are the loyal listeners, foundations, and local corporate contributors who perceive public radio broadcasts of live concerts, regional issues, and international news and analysis as yet another means of staying in touch with their active community and the wider world. Quality of life is also reflected in institutions that protect a community. Minnesota operates three maximum-security prisons—a reformatory in St. Cloud for young men; an old, conventional cell-block facility in Stillwater; and a small, $31 million state-of-the-art earth-sheltered institution in nearby Oak Park Heights, with private rooms and a computerized security system considered one of the tightest in the country. The new facility was designed to be more conducive to rehabilitation, and it may prove to be, but as the inmates say, no matter what the design, "it's still prison."10 Minnesota's liberalism has been moving toward centrism in the criminal courts in recent years, with new and tougher sentencing guidelines and rising incarceration rates. Tightened criminal codes may simply be consistent with the state's tendency to keep a firm grasp on its quality oflife. Things have been going pretty well in the Twin Cities, but national and international fortunes change for everyone, and the going gets tougher. Twin Citians are loathe to question their "good life" image, but failure to do so could delay appropriate planning. It is easy to take this good life for granted. Some parts of it will remain—the changing seasons, the state budget—but other parts are vulnerable.
The Bottom Line Living a good life in a pretty good place does not mean living with blinders on. Twin Cities leaders and ordinary citizens alike understand that they face a plethora of challenges that require constant attention and effort
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if they are to be managed well. These issues, listed in brief here, will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters. The physical environment • Though Dutch elm disease is under control, new viruses are attacking the area's oak, maple, and ash trees. • Air quality, though high, is constantly under assault by expanding numbers of motor vehicles. • Beautiful Lake Minnetonka and other metro area lakes are slowly being overwhelmed by Eurasian water milfoil and purple loosestrife, plants that clog outboard motors, fill shallow bays, dull the water's surface, rot on the shore, and seriously threaten biota in our lakes. • The metro area is virtually choking on solid waste. Cooperative citizen action makes recycling a more promising solution here than in some areas, but we have a much more acute toxic and hazardous waste problem than do many other parts of the country. Failure to address this critical problem could render all other problems trivial. The political environment
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• Minnesota's tradition of open and honest politics was severely tested in 1990, as corruption and scandal tarnished the state's highest officeholders; also, the state has not escaped the early 1990s recession unscathed. • As the community—along with the nation—becomes polarized over fundamental political issues, corporate giving has been subjected to closer political scrutiny.
PAC-sponsored boycotts have influenced some corporate donors, who feel they cannot afford any further declines in sales during lean times. The cultural environment * The Twin Cities arts scene is healthy, but expensive. As business profits decline, and as locally born managers and proprietors retire and are replaced by imported talent, sustained loyalty to Twin Cities institutions becomes less assured. • Sports are a popular pastime, but they are run here—as elsewhere—as private businesses. Currently there is no prospect that local professional sports teams will ever be owned and operated by public sports commissions, although if any U.S. metro area could succeed in such a move, the Twin Cities likely could. A recent added headache is the introduction of gambling to the state, which poses a constant challenge to regulators. • Historic preservation is holding its own in the Twin Cities, but economic pressures increasingly threaten its priority status. The educational environment * Minnesota spends generously on schools, but many people wonder publicly whether the state and the metro area get what their educational dollars pay for. The state's long-standing reputation as a national leader in quality education has slipped in recent years. Imaginative programs benefit some students but not all, and often do not reach those most in need of special initiatives. Nearly half of the 7,300 refugees who settled in Minnesota between 1983 and 1987 were under age 17. Six to seven percent of the
children in Minneapolis and St. Paul schools speak a language other than English at home, and almost a quarter of these children do not speak English well or at all, creating new challenges for the public school systems, especially in the central cities. • The University of Minnesota is an enormous regional asset that contributes much to the region's standing in international science, engineering, education, medicine, and other fields. Can the state afford to maintain a world-class research institution? As with our health, can we afford not to maintain it?
The human environment • Immigrants bring talent, energy, and ambition to our society and our labor force, but they also bring special educational and social needs and unusual health problems. • Despite general prosperity, Twin Cities low-income households today are suffering more acute and chronic poverty than a decade ago. Problems of teenage pregnancy and single-parent, low-income households, declining educational achievement, and intergenerational welfare dependency form a mutually reinforcing downward spiral. Combined with the violence of drug trafficking, gang activity, and pooron-poor crime, these growing problems make the life of the poor in the city increasingly dangerous. • Over the years the Twin Cities have drawn young talent from the towns and farms of the Upper Midwest, and the University of Minnesota has attracted talent from around the world. Today, however, there are relatively fewer young people to attract from around the region, and the Twin Cities face worldwide competition for talent.
The planning environment • The Metropolitan Council has been a success story in metropolitan government and planning, but its virtues too often are taken for granted. Its success has depended upon (1) political support by the governor and the legislature; (2) financial independence based on the council's mill levy and other sources of funds; and (3) the council's role as the metro area's review agency when local units of government have sought federal assistance for local projects—as they did, with vigor, from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. When local proposals for federal assistance failed to conform to metro planning guidelines, they failed to garner required Metropolitan Council endorsement—a powerful tool favoring long-range, metro-scale planning. But as federal assistance for local development and redevelopment dried up in the 1980s, the Metropolitan Council's influence over local units of government diminished. Meanwhile, parochialists and ideologues unconstructively criticize the council and threaten to reduce its power further, if not to eliminate it altogether. Twin Cities life is not all rosy; but local leaders know it. Moreover, they are rapidly surrendering any illusions that healthy and thriving cities just happen. After a period of coasting on past achievements, local and state leadership is turning attention once again to managing the metro area and to planning for a strong and healthy future.
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THE TWIN CITIES were born in the 1840s, and at least one of the twins was conceived in sin. Civilian settlement was illegal in what is now St. Paul before 1837 and in what is now Minneapolis before 1851, because Indian cessions had not yet been obtained. Military authorities at Fort Snelling winked at occasional squatters on the military reservation at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, however, and by the late 1830s several commercial enterprises were established near the fort. A soldier's payday recreation was the same then as it often is now: fifty of the fort's troops spent the night of June 30,1839, in the guardhouse after visiting Brown's Groggery. Thereupon the fort's martinet commander, Major Plympton, determined to rid the fort of the fleshly attractions purveyed by civilian merchants. After blustering for a year, he evicted 150 civilians from the west bank of the river in May 1840. The evictees moved downriver on the east bank to Pig's Eye, the nickname of an earlier refugee publican
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who had set up shop in a cave. The embryonic village was supplied with a more euphonious name a year later when a log chapel dedicated to St. Paul was erected by Father Lucian Galtier, but St. Paul residents are fond of recalling their disreputable origins.
Founding and Settlement to 1860 St. Paul's lusty conception might suggest that the Twin Cities are a happenstance of history, but the facts argue otherwise. Given the nation's developing economy at the time and the way settlement was spreading westward, the rise of a great city where St. Paul and Minneapolis now stand was inevitable. Early Tourists and Pioneer Entrepreneurs Minnesota's tourist industry was already strong in the 1830s when moneyed elite from the East and South amused themselves by visiting frontier outposts such as Fort Snelling (fig. 9). But the area gained international fame in the 1850s when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, after seeing a few photos and paintings of a little cascade called Brown's Falls, wrote and published a poem about it called "Song of Hiawatha," in which he poetically renamed the falls "Minnehaha." By 1840, American settlement had crossed the Mississippi into what is now Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, and steam navigation had converted the OhioMississippi-Missouri river network into an efficient transportation system through which goods and people could be shipped quickly and cheaply. The Indian cessions of 1837 opened the St. Croix country at the same time that demand for the region's lumber was growing in areas to the south that could be reached by river transportation. Entrepreneurs were quick to exploit the "pineries" penetrated by the St. Croix and Rum rivers. Sawmills were established at Marine on St. Croix (1839), Stillwater (1844), and St. Anthony (1848), and forest products soon became a mainstay of the region's
2 FIGURE 9. Fort Snelling, 1844. A significant landmark in the history of Minnesota and the Northwest, the fort was established in 1819 at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. It effectively extended the authority of the young American nation over the region and paved the way for white settlement. This watercolor and gouache by John Casper Wild shows the Henry H. Sibley house in the foreground and buildings of the Indian agency behind the post. THE PAINTING IS IN THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
The First Century and a Half
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minutes to an hour. The overland transportation technology of the 1840s and 1850s made consolidation of the two cities unthinkable.
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export economy. The territory's extensive timber resources and great agricultural potential guaranteed that Minnesota would prosper, but a more specific set of circumstances guaranteed the emergence of St. Paul and Minneapolis. St. Paul, with a gradually sloping access through the bluffs to the uplands north of the river bend, became the practical head of navigation on the upper Mississippi, and the Falls of St. Anthony, ten miles upstream, offered the largest water power site west of Niagara. River transportation was crucial during the next several decades. St. Paul offered a convenient transfer point before the Mississippi River entered a gorge upstream from Fort Snelling and became impassable at the falls. As a consequence, it became the region's first major commercial center (fig. 10). Meanwhile, sawmilling and flour milling, soon to become the region's dominant industries, got their start largely at St. Anthony Falls, where a sixty-five-foot drop in the river provided a ready source of power. The ten miles separating the two sites guaranteed the development of two separate cities. A riverboat trip might take half a day. Even a trip on the early railroads took forty-five
Fur Trade and Timber Harvest In the earliest days of white settlement, the Upper Midwest offered the American and international economies furs and timber. Both were important to the infant Twin Cities. Furs had been a standby of regional production since 1650. Yields were declining by the 1830s, but enough production and trade persisted to provide an early boost for St. Paul, making the city one of the world's major fur centers into the twentieth century. As fashions changed and demand shifted from beaver to buffalo hides, the fur frontier shifted into northwestern Minnesota and the Dakota territory. Traders from the Red River region brought their furs to St. Paul by ox cart in the summer and dogsled in the winter. There they exchanged the furs for provisions and manufactured goods brought upriver by steamboat. Trade with the Red River country and with surrounding settlements supported St. Paul until the designation of the city as the territorial capital in 1849. St. Paul became the state capital in 1858, assuring its continuing success. St. Anthony (the part of Minneapolis east of the Mississippi) developed late compared with other sawmilling centers. A mill had been built at St. Anthony Falls in the 1820s to provide Fort Snelling with lumber, and, as has been noted, squatters settled in the area intermittently. Major Plympton usually evicted them, not, it would appear, because he was sensitive to legal proprieties but because he and a partner had designs on the site. His hopes came to naught, however, for a sharp operator from the St. Croix, Franklin Steele, managed to prove a claim on the site. Sawmilling and settlement commenced in 1849. Loggers sent timber
FIGURE 10. St. Paul,
1855. When S. Holmes Andrews painted this oil on canvas of St. Paul in 1855, the population of the city was less than 5,OOO. It was a year of unprecedented immigration. Boats brought approximately 3O,OOO passengers to the Minnesota capital, and from there they funneled out to other parts of the territory. Andrews's view of St. Paul shows the Mississippi River in the foreground and the territorial capitol and First Presbyterian Church in the center and right background. Nothing is known about the artist whose painting is one of the prized items in the Minnesota Historical Society's collections. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
FIGURE 11. St. Anthony Falls, 1857. This painting of the east channel of the Mississippi River shows the booming little town of St. Anthony, built close to the falls, as well as the picturesque wild river scenery below the town. On the left is Hennepin Island, with its flour mills and the sluice that carried lumber from sawmills below the rapids for rafting to the lower river. The Winslow House, a wellknown early hotel, dominates the hill in the background, and in the right foreground stands a
wood products factory. The artist painted the town at the high point in its development, for St. Anthony never recovered from the financial panic that hit only a few months after the picture was painted. In 1 872, St. Anthony was combined with Minneapolis, its prosperous rival across the river. Ferdinand Reichardt (1819-95) was a Danish-born landscape artist especially noted for his paintings of Niagara Falls. The original oil is owned by the Minnesota Historical Society.
from the north down the Rum and Mississippi rivers to the mills at St. Anthony. Nobody familiar with the region had any doubts concerning St. Anthony's ultimate fortunes. The magnificent power site made it clear that a great manufacturing city would develop there (fig. 11). Moreover, Nicollet Island, just above the falls, split the river into two relatively narrow channels and thus provided a bridge site superior to any other in the vicinity. But St. Anthony's growth was retarded for a few more years because Steele had trouble raising the capital he needed to develop the falls. The west side of the river was not opened for settlement until 1851, and conditions remained confused for four years thereafter as squatters and land speculators pressed conflicting claims. In 1855 the situation was clarified. All of Hennepin County (which had been organized in 1852) was declared preemption territory, and the squatters' claims were legally recognized. A building boom ensued, and on the west side of the river the city of Minneapolis was incorporated in 1856. (The name Minneapolis comes from the Dakota Sioux word minne, for water.) Steele's Minneapolis Bridge Company opened its suspension bridge over the Mississippi on July 4,1855, signaling the beginning of the end for St. Anthony. The village was detached from Ramsey County and added to Hennepin County in 1856, but Minneapolis quickly overshadowed St. Anthony after 1860 and legally absorbed it into its own boundaries in 1872. Political Rivalries The rivalry of the early centers for political power and population growth is evident in the locations of state institutions. St. Paul was designated the capital when the Minnesota Territory was established in 1849, and the state capital remained there when statehood was granted in 1858, despite attempts by land speculators to shift it to St. Peter. Republicans
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dominated legislative representation from southern Minnesota, and they and their developer friends wanted the capital to be located near them, in St. Peter. They managed to push a bill through both houses, but on its way to territorial governor Willis A. Gorman for signature, the bill disappeared. Joe Rolette, a Democratic legislator from northern Minnesota, had absconded with it and hid out in a local hotel until the bill could no longer legally be signed. The zealots in St. Peter dedicated their would-be capitol building as a county courthouse in 1859. Stillwater and St. Anthony, naturally envious of St. Paul's good fortune, were mollified when the state penitentiary and the state university were established in 1851. Stillwater, being the larger and more influential town, got the prison, which appeared to be a bigger prize than the university at the time. St. Anthony was designated the site of the university. This boon did little for St. Anthony in the period before it was incorporated into Minneapolis, but it has been of inestimable importance to Minneapolis and the Twin Cities over the years. St. Peter's interests were finally acknowledged when a state hospital for the insane was built there in 1866. Other early rivalries are still evident within the Twin Cities themselves. Despite the development of an uninterrupted urban fabric, St. Paul, St. Anthony, and Minneapolis each developed its own residential district for the wealthy. The distances between centers and the difficulties of nineteenth-century transportation explain St. Paul's separate development from Minneapolis. The early separation of St. Anthony's patrician families from the Minneapolis latecomers is explained by the river and the single congested bridge across it. After additional permanent bridges were opened in 1873, at Plymouth Avenue upstream from the falls and at Tenth Avenue South below the falls, the St. Anthony upper classes began migrating west of the river.
Rapid Settlement and Urban Growth, 1860 to 1890 Sawmills, flour mills, banking, railroads, settlement, immigration, agricultural production, and the development of the Twin Cities are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to say which caused which. Growth or change in any one area had immediate repercussions on the others. And the repercussions in turn fed more change. For example, railroads were chronically short of capital. But they received extensive federal land grants that could be converted to capital if settlers were available to take up the land. Immigrants wanted land, but often lacked a way of reaching available lands until cheap railroad transportation became available. Once settled and engaged in commercial agriculture, immigrants relied on rail transportation and Twin Cities traders to supply them with manufactured products and imported foodstuffs, and they relied on Twin Cities processors to buy their agricultural products. Railroads, Immigration, and Settlement As the Twin Cities prospered from trade, transportation, sawmilling, and flour milling, local entrepreneurs took pains to extend the railroads, promote immigration and settlement, and create the major market and processing center for the region's agricultural exports. Once such a cycle began, eastern U.S., European, and Canadian capitalists were eager to provide the investment needed to keep the cycle going. Through a series of such cycles between 1860 and 1890, the entire state was settled and the population of the Twin Cities increased from 13,000 to 300,000. Railroads were planned during the 1850s, but persistent difficulties in obtaining capital prevented actual construction until 1862, when a track was completed between St. Paul and St. Anthony. Five years later the
FIGURE 12. Minnesota land area in harvested cropland, 1964. Soil quality and precipitation for agriculture generally varied from poor in the northeast to excellent in the southwest. Average
summer temperatures and length of growing season increased from north to south. South central and southwestern Minnesota lands have been highly productive, supporting farm and small
town populations, which have in turn provided steady markets for the Twin Cities, especially for Minneapolis. SOURCE: BORCHERT AND YAEGER 1968, P. 50.
tracks were extended to St. Cloud under the auspices of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. Railroad construction continued intermittently, and in 1871 a number of important links were completed. The Northern Pacific finished its line between St. Paul and Duluth, providing the Twin Cities with water access to the East. A direct link to Chicago that ran by way of Tomah, Wisconsin, was also finished. Indirect connection with Chicago had existed since 1867. Perhaps most important of all, lines to Breckenridge and Moorhead in the Red River Valley were completed in 1871, opening the valley to settlement and giving the Twin Cities access to its produce (fig. 12). The Northern Pacific linked the Twin Cities to Portland in 1883, and the Great Northern extended its more northerly route through Great Falls, Montana, and on to Seattle by 1893. Railroads from the East Coast had reached Chicago in 1852 and Rock Island, Illinois, in 1854. They became increasingly important channels for domestic and overseas immigrants to Minnesota, who could travel by train to Rock Island and then by steamer to St. Paul. Foreign immigration accelerated during the early 1860s, but the real boom came after the Civil War, when direct rail connection to eastern and Great Lakes ports was established. In 1860, native-born persons, most of whom had come from the Midwest, New York, Pennsylvania, and New England, made up two-thirds of Minnesota's residents. By 1880, native-born residents constituted less than one-third of the state's population. Most of the newcomers had come from Scandinavia, Germany, Canada, and Ireland. Minnesota's Scandinavians shared some common experiences that pushed them to leave home and family for a new country. Throughout nineteenth-century Scandinavia, infant and child mortality declines created a baby boom, doubling populations in fifty to a hundred years. Besides the population explosion, there were
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years of drought and crop failure and, for many, political oppression as well. These forces converged to trigger mass emigration to America just at the time when the frontier extended to Minnesota. The Homestead Act enticed settlers to buy for $1.25 an acre all the land they could clear, and early homesteaders' accounts of the abundant land and rich resources persuaded friends and relatives to join them. They crossed the Atlantic, in eight to twelve weeks by sail, and later by steamship in about three weeks, and then traveled by train or steamboat another 1,200 miles to Minnesota. Of the 1.2 million Swedes who emigrated between 1850 and 1930, a quarter settled in Minnesota. Farm foreclosures triggered an exodus from Norway in the 1860s, giving Minnesota a Norwegian population of 112,000 by 1905. The Icelandic came later, chafing under Danish rule; between 1870 and 1900,12,000 of Iceland's 70,000 people left home. The Danish fled famine and Prussian domination in the 1860s, and 300,000 Finns escaped Nicholas II's conscription in the 1890s. Recognition of the need for settlers was widespread. The state of Minnesota established an immigration bureau in 1867. The railroads started their own bureaus about the same time. Agents in Europe and in East Coast seaports publicized the state with lyrical descriptions of its fertility and prosperity. More important, they arranged ship passage from Europe, met immigrants in ports, housed them while their passage into the interior was being arranged, and then dispatched them directly to Minnesota's waiting lands. The railroad companies were particularly aggressive in this endeavor, because their growth depended on generating demand for people and goods to travel by train. The extensive federal land grants awarded to the railroads in order to expand settlement provided a major source of income that continues to the present
FIGURE 13. Minnesota vegetation at the time off European settlement. Hardwood forests with patches of interspersed prairie surrounded the sites of the Twin Cities and separated the fertile
prairie lands in the west and southwest from the virgin pine forests in the northeast. The river systems flowing southward from the pineries delivered logs to sawmills at
Anoka, St. Anthony, Minneapolis, Stillwater, and Marine on St. Croix, kicking off a major export industry. SOURCE: BORCHERT AND YAEGER 1968, P. 10.
day, as mineral rights on these landholdings are still being exploited. Along with the U.S. industrial boom of the midnineteenth century came great overcrowding and poverty in the large urban centers of the East Coast. Many abandoned or orphaned children fended for themselves on the streets of big cities, or were taken in by private charities. In 1854, New York City's Children's Aid Society undertook a bold solution to its problem often thousand vagrant children: it loaded them, with escorts, onto westward-bound trains, in hopes that midwestern families would take them in. At that time there were about five hundred children in ten orphanages in Minnesota, and the Minnesota Children's Aid Society had just been organized. During the seventy years that the orphan trains ran, more than 100,000 children were shuffled westward—the largest such movement since the Children's Crusades of the thirteenth century—and many of them ended their journey in Minnesota. Today, the renamed Children's Home Society is the secondlargest private adoption agency in the United States, in one of only six states that prohibits independent (nonagency) adoption, and it has placed more than 17,000 children during its history. (Minnesota has the largest concentration of adopted Korean orphans in the nation—more than 5,000, although Korea sharply curtailed its overseas adoptions at the end of the 1980s— and many Minnesota families are on waiting lists for Asian, and Latin American, and Central European children, while many older, handicapped, and minority or mixed-race children wait for appropriate placement.) Until 1870, agricultural settlement was mainly confined to the hardwood forest zone extending from southeastern to north-central Minnesota (fig. 13). Settlement of the prairies awaited railroad expansion into the grasslands and solid evidence that prairie land could be successfully cultivated, for it was widely
believed that grasslands were less fertile than forest lands. By 1870, the railroad was replacing the steamboat for long-distance travel. Only a half million people lived in the entire region of the Upper Midwest, defined roughly as Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, northern Iowa, and northwestern Wisconsin. Most of Minnesota's population was concentrated along the Mississippi River valley south and east of the Twin Cities. By 1880, the Twin Cities population had reached 88,000; Montana's gold fields had attracted 15,000; and in between were 50,000 American Indians and 3,000 soldiers. Then the immigration boom began and between 1880 and 1930 three million immigrants, one-half from overseas, swarmed into the region and built roads, railroads, and cities. Wheat and Grain Milling in Minneapolis Demand for wheat helped fuel the drive to settle Minnesota and the Dakotas. Whereas earlier settlers might have spent several years engaged in subsistence farming before producing crops for sale, the wheat bonanza of the 1870s brought in bonanza wheat farmers, Yankees using eastern and foreign risk capital to develop railroad lands for commercial agriculture. Immigrants (some recruited as laborers) followed in the 1880s, steadily expanding the cultivated acreage. The cultivated acreage in wheat boomed after 1870 for several reasons. Railroads were bringing fresh lands into reach as they stretched westward, and wheat offered the kind of immediate return on a small investment that was especially welcome given the frontier's limited capital. Another incentive was the availability of mechanical reapers and threshers, which made it possible to harvest acreages that would have been unthinkable two decades earlier. Improved plows and demonstrated success quickly overcame lingering resistance to the farm-
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ing of prairies; between 1870 and 1880 settlers took up most of the Minnesota grasslands south of Moorhead. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, new milling techniques made it possible and desirable to use the hard spring wheats that grew especially well in Minnesota. Prior to the 1870s, wheat was ground between stone wheels. Soft winter wheat planted late in the year and harvested the following summer was the premium breadstuff because it produced a much better flour than spring wheat. But winter wheat often died during Minnesota's bitter winters. Spring wheat, planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, has a hard bran (shell) that shatters during milling. Before 1870 it was virtually impossible to separate the bran from the flour, so there was little demand for hard wheat flour. Middlings purifiers—machines for separating the flour from the pieces of bran—were developed in Minnesota and applied on a large scale in Minneapolis. They transformed the industry by turning the more nutritious spring wheat into the premium breadstuff. After some other milling problems were overcome by replacing millstones with steel and porcelain rollers, spring wheat commanded a higher price than winter wheat for several decades (fig. 14). St. Paul rail owners and Minneapolis millers were at the forefront of railroad extension, settlement expansion, and milling innovation. St. Paul's James J. Hill organized the Great Northern Railway out of the old St. Paul and Pacific in 1878. The Northern Pacific line to Duluth provided access to the Great Lakes and from there to eastern and international markets. Millions of bushels of wheat and millions of barrels of flour moved over the Northern Pacific lines each year, but ice at Sault Sainte Marie closed Lake Superior each winter, creating serious shipping congestion during the fall and leaving the Minneapolis millers at the mercy of the hostile Chicago railroads for part of the year. Minneapolis
milling interests therefore organized and financed the Soo Line to connect the Twin Cities with Sault Sainte Marie, bypassing both Lake Superior and Chicago. Developments like these redounded to the good fortunes of the Twin Cities. Whereas the state's population grew more rapidly than the Twin Cities population up to 1870, between 1870 and 1890 the Twin Cities grew at more than twice the rate of the state. By 1890 almost a fourth of the state's people lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul. As long as trade and river transportation dominated, St. Paul retained its premier position. But by 1880 the tide had turned; Minneapolis surpassed St. Paul by 5,500 residents. During the years when Minnesota was but an appendage of the national economy, which looked eastward more than it looked west, St. Paul was a gateway to the frontier and the linchpin between the new territory and the nation's heartland. As settlement
FIGURE 14. Pillsbury A Mill, Minneapolis, ca. 1895. Charles A. Pillsbury organized the company that completed in 1883 the largest flour mill in the world. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
FIGURE is. Growth and decline off lumbering and flour milling in Minneapolis, 186O to 1940. BASED ON SCHMID 1937, CHART 6.
expanded westward and the Upper Midwest became an important producer of goods and foodstuffs, Minneapolis, with its power site and its position between St. Paul and the settlement frontier, became a better location for new enterprise. Industry at the Falls of St. Anthony St. Anthony Falls was the economic heart of Minneapolis throughout the city's early history. The falls created many potential power sites on the river itself, and more soon were built by diverting the river into canals that started above the falls and ran parallel to the river a block or two away from it. The water was then dropped from the canals through vertical shafts and over turbines that drove mill wheels, then into tunnels that returned it to the river below the falls. At first the falls were used for sawmilling. By 1860, there were fifteen sawmills at or near the falls that produced more than 100 million board feet of lumber annually. After 1870 the produc-
tion value of flour milling surpassed that of the sawmills, though both industries continued to grow. During the 1880s, sawmills turned from water power to steam power, and thus they could be moved upriver away from the St. Anthony Falls site, leading a growing population of laborers to permanent settlement upriver as well. Sawmill production increased until 1900. Even though output dropped somewhat thereafter, lumber continued to be a mainstay of the Minneapolis economy until 1915, when it declined precipitously, the local and northern timber having been exhausted (fig. 15). Lumber milling set the stage for flour milling by generating local capital, promoting railroad construction, and stimulating employment and manufacturing. By 1870, at the beginning of the wheat boom, thirteen flour mills in Minneapolis produced 250,000 barrels of flour annually. Up to that time the mills had engaged mostly in custom milling for local use. Larger scale enterprise had been hampered by poor rail connections to expanding wheat areas in the West and to eastern markets. But production for export rose rapidly after 1870. Interest in expanding the wheat market for Twin Cities mills grew. In 1876, local milling interests formalized their collusion into the Minneapolis Millers' Association, a forerunner of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange of the twentieth century. The millers were able to control prices and increase their profit margin, especially before telephone service made it easy for wheat farmers to consult each other about prices and supplies. After 1880, the industry began to consolidate. Whereas the twenty mills operating in 1876 were run by seventeen different firms, by 1890 four companies owned almost nine-tenths of the city's milling capacity. C. A. Pillsbury and Company was the largest. The Washburn-Crosby Milling Company (later General Mills) ran a close second.
37
Thus did Minneapolis become the "Mill City." Ancillary industries, however, actually provided more jobs than the mills themselves. Thousands of people worked in companies manufacturing bags, barrels, breakfast foods, livestock feeds, milling machinery, and vegetable oils. The flaxseed produced in the agricultural hinterland led to linseed oil production and a growing paint industry. The credit and banking services required by the wheat brokers boosted development of the city's financial sector. Milling dominated the city's skyline as well as its industrial structure (fig. 16). The mills clustered around the falls and the grain elevators that today line railroad tracks throughout Minneapolis make "Mill City" a sobriquet that remains appropriate even though milling's heyday ended with World War I.
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Trade, Transportation, and Finance in St. Paul Meanwhile, in St. Paul, trade, transportation, and diversified industry flourished. River transportation and the fur trade stimulated firms engaged in wholesale and retail trade and in manufacturing the goods that moved in trade. In the prerail era, shoemaking, saddlery, and other leather-fabricating trades were important offshoots of commerce in furs and hides. Although St. Paul did little sawmilling, manufactured wood products firms flourished. Carriage building, furniture construction, garment making, and hardware manufacturing were important enterprises in the 1860s. Up to the 1880s, St. Paul retained its lead in wholesale trade, but by 1890 Minneapolis surpassed it. No single production industry came to dominate the economy in St. Paul the way milling did in Minneapolis. Instead, numerous small firms that depended on St. Paul's role as transportation and mercantile center, as well as the railroad industry itself, provided jobs for St. Paul's residents.
St. Paul's earlier beginning and firmer financial relationships with the East made it an important banking center, and many of the Twin Cities' banking fortunes started there. As a government center, the city provided a favorable environment for ambitious, perceptive financiers like James J. Hill. The eighteen-year-old Hill arrived in St. Paul in 1856 with a vague notion of continuing on to the Red River country. The fall wagon train had left, so he took a job as a shipping clerk with a steamboat company. He soon started his own river freight and fuel supply company, which then led him into other commercial ventures. Hill had a prescient grasp of the region's future economic geography and the degree to which the region would depend on railroad transportation. In time, the 1873 financial panic and the depression that followed provided the opportunity Hill and his backers had been waiting for, and by 1878 they had bought the bonds of the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific. After further financial maneuvers over the succeeding fifteen years, Hill gained sole control of the railroad (redesignated the Great Northern) in 1883 and pushed it through to Seattle a decade later. In 1903, Hill and J. P. Morgan acquired the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroads and proposed to merge the three systems but were forced to divest themselves of the Northern Pacific and the Burlington by Teddy Roosevelt's trustbusters. Whether a single rail system in the northwestern United States would have been appropriate then is debatable, but the merger of the three railroads in 1972 testifies to Hill's foresight. Louis Warren Hill was the enterprising and outdoorsy second son of James J. Hill. His pet project at mid-life was establishing Glacier National Park in the Montana wilderness, which he persuaded Congress to do in 1910. Hill spent the next five years building grand tourist facilities in the park and touring the country,
FIGURE 16. Minneapolis westside milling district around 1910. View upstream toward St. Anthony Falls. James J. Hill's Stone Arch Bridge carried the railroad from St. Paul across the river into downtown Minneapolis and to points west. The first Tenth Avenue Bridge in the foreground, dating from the 18 70s, was replaced in the 1930s. PHOTO BY SWEET, MINNEAPOLIS, COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
with members of the Blackfoot Indian tribe in tow, to promote the park and his Great Northern Railway as the best way to get there. A typically civic-minded businessman, Hill gave anonymously to St. Paul charities during his lifetime and revived the dormant St. Paul Winter Carnival in 1916. Upon his death he bequeathed $10 million to the Hill Family Foundation, which today is the Northwest Area Foundation, with assets in 1990 of nearly $250 million. The railroads connected both twins to other places equally and thus conferred no special advantage on either city, yet they were more significant in St. Paul, with its earlier emphasis on transportation and related activities. By 1880, the size of St. Paul's railroad opera-
tions was evident in the city's labor force composition in the same way that milling and ancillary activities were evident in Minneapolis's labor force. Railroad construction fostered and perpetuated much of the bickering between Minneapolis and St. Paul in the 1860s and 1870s. Left to their own petty devices, the two cities (and perhaps even visionaries like Hill) might well have used rail routes as weapons. Fortunately, local geography left few options. Rail lines coming from the East had to follow the broad Mississippi Valley. They also had no choice but to leave the valley at St. Paul. The Mississippi flows through a deep gorge between Fort Snelling and St. Anthony Falls. The gorge was too narrow for rails, and in any case it dead-
39
ended at the falls. At St. Paul, Trout Creek had carved a gentle gradient between the river and the adjacent uplands, forming an ideal rail path (fig. 17). Once upland, railroads proceeded on to Minneapolis, not only because of the falls and the industry concentrated around them, but also because Nicollet Island and the falls were the best places to bridge the Mississippi to the west bank and the region beyond. Thus, geology and economics dictated that all of the railroads would serve both cities regardless of local ambitions. The historical need to build tracks, marshaling yards, passenger terminals, warehouses, and car manu-
40
facturing and repair shops in both cities before permanent settlement filled in has persistently influenced land use throughout the Twin Cities (fig. 18). Rail yards and tracks govern the location of industry, neighborhood development, and the layout of road networks. The urban problems posed by railroad networks continue. Seven of the railroads serving the Twin Cities in the 1970s have now merged into two (the Burlington Northern and the Chicago and Northwestern). The consolidated lines need much less space than they did when there was extensive duplication of facilities. Thus large tracts of railroad land in the Twin Cities became avail-
FIGURE 17. Routing of railroads between St. Paul and Minneapolis through the Midway District. Much of western St. Paul was covered by glacial moraines that raised elevations above 9OO feet. The low-lying Midway District, south of hilly St. Anthony Park and north of Highland Park, offered a break through which mainline railroads from downtown St. Paul could reach Minneapolis with a minimum of difficulty. The Midway District developed as a convenient place between the two downtowns where railroad cars could be moved, stored, and transferred between trains. AFTER HARTSHORNE 1932, P. 433, AND ABLER, ADAMS, AND LEE 1976, P. 160.
FIGURE is. Grain elevators en the Minneapolis landscape. The city skyline displays an exceptional concentration of towering grain elevators and processing facilities looming above sprawling railroad yards. For most of its history, the city had the largest grain storage capacity in the nation and the world's largest cash grain market. PHOTO BY B. J. VANDRASEK.
able for alternative uses such as industry, housing, and parkland, some of them at locations adjacent to the central business districts.
Consolidation, Diversification, and Urban Growth, 1900 to 1940 From Resource Processing to Diversified Industry Minnesota's population growth approximated national growth rates after 1900, but the Twin Cities continued to gain more rapidly because of farm-to-city migration. Minneapolis lumber production peaked in 1899, declined between 1900 and 1915, and ceased four years later. The last sawmill closed in 1919. Flour milling continued to increase until 1915 but declined thereafter. After the Panama Canal opened in 1914, Pacific Northwest wheat that had formerly moved through the Twin Cities was shipped east by water. Also, after 1922, revised railroad tariffs made it cheaper to ship wheat to the East than to ship flour. Declining soil productivity in the spring wheat areas of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana, along with advances in technology and crop breeding and changing transportation and fuel costs, led to the diversification of agriculture, with production of hard winter wheat increasing in Kansas and Nebraska. Minneapolis millers were forced to shift some of their milling capacity to Kansas City and Buffalo, and Twin Cities spring wheat flour production declined. Flour milling products constituted more than half the value of all commodities manufactured in Minneapolis by 1890. By 1930 they made up less than a fourth. As milling declined in Minneapolis, it also dispersed throughout the city. Electric power made it possible to locate mills away from the falls; after 1900, mills and elevators were erected along most of the railroad trackage in Minneapolis.
As flour milling declined in favor of more diversified manufacturing in Minneapolis, St. Paul continued along the diversified lines upon which it had originally embarked. One major outgrowth of St. Paul's location and early trade was the large packing complex at South St. Paul. Originally, meat packing was concentrated in St. Paul, but larger facilities were needed to process the output of the variety of agriculture that was developing in the region. After 1900, Armour and Swift built plants and stockyards in South St. Paul that boosted the town's population from 2,000 in 1890 to 12,000 in 1940. Printing and publishing also developed into major industries during that period. Most printing firms were small, but St. Paul's printing industry was dominated by three relatively large firms: West Publishing Company, a firm specializing in law books; Brown and Bigelow Company, which printed calendars and other advertising novelties; and Webb Publishing Company, with its popular magazine The Farmer. On the eve of World War II, the Twin Cities were midway through their transition from centers for processing the region's agricultural produce to the cosmopolitan economic centers they were to become in the postwar period when packing, milling, baking, and similar enterprises would decline. In 1940, the Twin Cities economy still related as much to the past as it suggested the future. The human landscape of Minneapolis and St. Paul, on the other hand, bore little resemblance to
41
the two nineteenth-century towns where it all began. Fifty years of growth at rates exceeding 20 percent per decade had produced a metropolis.
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Immigrant Labor and Ethnic Tensions From 1900 to 1940, Germans were the largest ethnic group in Minnesota, and they remain so today. In Minneapolis, Swedes and Norwegians remained the largest ethnic groups after 1890. Some Poles and Italians arrived in the Twin Cities after 1890; the Poles preferred Minneapolis whereas the Italians favored St. Paul. (By 1910, Minneapolis had 5,000 Polish-born and 650 Italian-born residents, whereas St. Paul had 2,000 Italianborn and 2,000 Polish-born.) Of the immigrants born in Poland, some were ethnic Poles and some were Polish Jews. Many of the Polish-born who were Jewish settled in St. Paul. The Finns were the most politically radical of all Minnesota's immigrant laborers, landing in northeastern Minnesota around the turn of the century. Half of all Finnish migrants to the United States settled in the western Great Lakes region. World War I and postwar immigration restrictions combined to stabilize Twin Cities ethnic structure after 1910. In 1930, Scandinavians dominated the metropolitan region but were less influential in St. Paul where the older German and Irish groups were more numerous. By 1900, a significant Jewish community resided in Minneapolis. On first arrival, peasant and workingclass East European Jews were kept from most unskilled jobs in milling and lumber, restricted by covenant from certain residential areas, and regularly assaulted by gentile teenage thugs as they peddled their wares along city streets or wandered into the wrong residential neighborhoods. With the heightened consciousness that followed World War II, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H.
Humphrey established a set of antidiscrimination policies for city employment. Enforced integration in the workplace, along with new ecumenical movements, eased ethnic and religious tensions generally. Minneapolis and St. Paul have since experienced the same occasional manifestations of anti-Semitism that most other large U.S. cities face, but there is quick public condemnation of any act that suggests bigotry. Blacks and Hispanic Americans are more recent arrivals. In 1940, there were 4,500 blacks and fewer than 2,000 Hispanics in the Twin Cities. Black settlement was an offshoot of the Twin Cities rail business and the demand for domestic services. Most early black residents were cooks, waiters, and sleeping car porters. Others were brought north by meat-packing companies. Mexican-Americans were recruited when sugar beets became an important crop in the Red River Valley. Rather than make the return journey to the Southwest when the harvest ended, many stayed in the Twin Cities and moved into other occupations. In 1940, American Indians in Minneapolis numbered just 245. Now, Minneapolis has one of the largest urban communities of American Indians in the United States, though they are still a small percentage of the total population. By 1940, the transition was well under way from an urban economy that relied on agriculture to a metropolitan economy that relied on manufacturing and service. Both cities' corporate limits were occupied except for a few tracts, and much of the neighborhood churning generated by ethnic migrations and antagonisms was over. Henceforth the Twin Cities would look to a new set of industries for their growth and prosperity. Neighborhood turnover would be driven by households striving to upgrade their social status, by an aging and deteriorating housing stock, and by the changing life-styles of city dwellers.
Even with old antagonisms quelled, however, eth- about planning for the future. The economic buffeting of nicity and racism persist in subtle yet powerful ways. the 1980s took by surprise those who had grown up Antipathy created by ethnic pasts was legislated out of thinking that Minnesota was "different" enough to be employment practices and housing markets, but ethnic immune to the misfortunes that befell other states. A bonds and barriers endure. The working-class Eurodecade of takeovers, plant closures, layoffs, and corpopean communities of Northeast Minneapolis shuddered rate moves out of state, with their concomitant drain on when the first black families moved in. In 1990 census local civic leadership, provided a good dose of reality tallies, blacks and Hispanics were scarce in the booming therapy for state leaders. Complacency vanished, but second-ring western suburbs. Prosperous southwest the picture that emerged still leaves Minnesotans feelMinneapolis parishes can track virtually all of their ing that they will weather whatever economic storms lie members to two or three regions of origin in Europe. ahead. Minnesota's newest immigrants—from Asia, Employment in the seven-county Twin Cities area Africa, the Soviet Union, and Latin America—will be totaled about 1.3 million in 1990—a number equal to unable to hitch to the same engine of expansion that just over half of the total population. Three out of four their European predecessors did. Their expectations of people over sixteen years of age drew an income from upward economic mobility may be thwarted by the working, compared with two out of three nationally. St. slower-growing economy that affects all working people. Paul has more jobs in manufacturing and transportaMoreover, these newcomers will be wedded longer to tion than has Minneapolis as a result of its earlier start their national identities by immigration and antidisand more important role as a rail transportation center. crimination laws, by census categories, by heightened St. Paul has fewer jobs in trade, finance, and services, racial and ethnic awareness, and by the "we/they" perhowever. Differences in occupational structure follow ceptions of Americans with longer tenure. In Minnesota from St. Paul's higher manufacturing employment, but as elsewhere, there is an ongoing tension between the the differences are negligible. About one in five Twin impulse of people to bond together as groups and the Cities area jobs were in manufacturing in 1987, while need for individuals to be full participants in society, a one in four were in services (tables 1 and 2). tension that is unlikely to recede until we reach some The status of women in the Minnesota economy common understanding of what "ethnicity" and "race" has improved in recent years, but women still have a really mean. Still, Minnesotans seem to have a great long way to go. Statewide, women's participation in the affinity for people from other cultures, and for people in labor force since 1960 has climbed from about 34 perneed of a helping hand. Most immigrants who land here cent to almost 55 percent, and to nearly 70 percent in the Twin Cities metro area. Most major Twin Cities are glad that they did. companies have significant percentages of women in executive positions, and many of these companies have Workplaces Today permanent task forces or boards that specifically focus on promoting the interests of women in the workplace. The post-Vietnam economy of Minnesota and the Twin Support for employees using day care or caring for Cities has been healthy and prosperous, to a degree aging relatives is expanding, and women's professional that has lulled many local leaders into complacency
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and business associations provide networking and information. WomenVenture, formerly the Women's Economic Development Corporation (WEDCO), has provided training, low-interest loans, and follow-up support for women starting small businesses, with special programs to help women on AFDC. The Minnesota Women's Economic Center in St. Paul is an association of women's organizations housed in one building. Women are leaders in political movements, both within the parties and in political and social action groups. At the University of Minnesota, the 1980 landmark Rajender Consent Decree challenged male-dominated hiring practices at major universities and provided women academics with a more equal chance at tenured faculty positions. In 1989, Minnesota ranked fifth in the nation in total state and local government spending per capita, and was the only midwestern state among the U.S. top ten.1 Ramsey and Hennepin counties led the other core metro counties in revenues and expenditures per capita; adjacent counties trailed off to a low in Washington County, with levels about half those in Hennepin County (table 3). The location of the state capital and a number of federal offices in St. Paul (Ramsey County) puts it ahead of Minneapolis (Hennepin County) in public administration employment.
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Twin Cities Business Leadership Many of the families that laid the foundations of the local economy still live in the Twin Cities and are active today. For example, the children of Irish immigrants Patrick and Mary Ann Butler made a fortune in northeastern Minnesota iron ore. The Butler family has contributed to Minnesota a Supreme Court Justice, two U.S. ambassadors, and a philanthropic foundation. John Sargent Pillsbury, who became a state senator and later governor, along
TABLE 1
Manufacturing in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1977 and I987:a firms and employees, 1987; value added by manufacturing, 1977 and 1987; selected industries (eleven counties) STANDARD INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY (SIC)
ESTABLISHMENTS (1987)
All
Food and kindred products Printing and publishing Fabricated metal products Industrial machinery and equipment Electronic and electrical equipment Instruments and related products
4,494 204 905 561 884 229 200
EMPLOYEES (1987) (1,000s)
250.1 14.1 28.6 27.5 46.4 16.4 23.1
VALUE ADDED BY MANUFACTURING ($ MILLIONS) 1977 1987 $6,408
575 575 643
1,585
$15,732 1,394 1,651 1,681 3,874
% CHANGE IN VALUE ADDED, 1977-87 146
142 187 161 144
742
873
18
312
1,588
409
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1 987 Census of Manlufacturing, Geognaphic Area Series, Table 6. The 1990 Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott, Washington, and Wright counties in Minnesota and St. Croix County in Wisconsin.
TABLE 2
Services in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1987:c firms subject to federal income tax; firms exempt from federal income tax; selected industries (eleven counties) STANDARD INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION CATEGORY (SIC)
Hotels, rooming houses, camps, lodging places (exc. membership lodging) Business services Amusements, recreation, sports (incl. public golf courses) Health services Legal services
ESTABLISHMENTS (EXEMPT)
17,075 (2,086) 3,437 1,136 (113) 3,373 1,299
RECEIPTS ($ BILLIONS) (EXEMPT)
9.3 (3.3) 2.5
.5
M) 2.0
.8
(•7)
Selected educational services Social services Membership organizations Engineering, architectural, etc.
155 (48) 570 (762) 816
2,581 (56)
.1
.1 (.5) .3 1.4
PAID EMPLOYEES
227,891 (90,546) 80,677 14,562 (4,473) 45,729 11,105 (154) 1,285 (414) 6,670 (15,984) 9,640 23,516 (616)
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1987 Census of Service Industries and Geographic Area Studies, Tables 8a, 8b. a
The 1990 Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott, Washington, and Wright counties in Minnesota and St. Croix County in Wisconsin.
TABLE 3
Local government revenue, expenditures, and debt per capita. Twin Cities metropolitan area, by county, 1986-87
C
REVENUE PER CAPITA, 1986-87 Total (dollars) Federal govt. State govt. Property taxes Charges & misc. general revenue Liquor stores and insurance trust revenue
a
u n ANOKA
t
y CARVER
SCOTT
DAKOTA
2,449
2,293
2,145
88
70
40
877
795
724
756
534
452
583
642
599
1,117
399
480
828
611
672
240
144
1
73
12
21
26
2,417
3,208
1,679
1,948
2,250
2,198
2,081
262
457
251
244
310
275
314
702
770
764
1,004
748
723
895
236
278 1
109
119 -
128
134 -
125 -
HENNEPIN
RAMSEY
WASHINGTON
2,789
3,262
1,740
1,996
93
137
74
36
713
860
694
780
811
879
EXPENDITURES PER CAPITA, 1 986-87
Total dollars Capital outlays Education Public welfare Hospitals Health Highways Police protection Fire protection Corrections Parks & recreation Housing & community development Interest on debt
123 59
29
362
40
25
8
16
8
13
120
119
141
112
190
167
93 41
96 49
82
76
170 69
81
74
21
17
14
26
40
46
16
18
5
13 17
82
133
28
44
31
257
60
96 297
71
46
31
59
31
48
464
98
129
147
232
334
6,584
1,484
2,028
2,219
3,857
5,433
INDEBTEDNESS PER CAPITA, 1 986-87 4,259
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1 987 Censusof Governments: vol. 4, Compendium of Government Finances, Table 51.
2
with his brother George, who became mayor of Minneapolis and founded the city's park system, and his son George Jr., founded a flour-milling dynasty in the 1870s that became a multinational conglomerate. The Morrisons arrived from New England in the 1850s and provided the city with the first bridge across the Mississippi River, the first mayor of Minneapolis (Dorilus Morrison), two state legislators, and their family homestead, Villa Rosa, which was donated to the city as a site for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. James J. Hill, the son of an Ontario farmer, arrived in 1856 to build the railroad empire that opened the Northwest for settlement, and left as a legacy the Northwest Area Foundation, which has provided nearly $200 million in grants. The descendants of Major Christopher Heffelfinger of Pennsylvania, who settled in Minneapolis after the Civil War, have counted among their business concerns F. H. Peavey & Co., one of the country's largest mill and grain companies; General Mills; and the Red Owl grocery chain. The Dayton family expanded their retail store on Nicollet Avenue into the largest retail chain in the Upper Midwest, and third- and fourth-generation Daytons are civic and political leaders today. The Twin Cities' historical role was the same as that of most other nineteenth-century U.S. cities—to provide services and a market center for the surrounding countryside and its natural products: agricultural output, lumber, and minerals. The location of the Twin Cities and the timing of their development provided a lucky break, however. The cities were poised at the westernmost outpost of settlement during the mass European emigrations of 1880-1920, and they were developing just at the moment when railroad, mail, and telegraph service had improved to the point that major centers could be located much farther apart and still meet promptly and completely the needs of the regions
45
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they served. As a result, as settlement expanded, no major city was established west of the Twin Cities to challenge their domination of the Upper Midwest. As the primary providers of services to a booming hinterland, the Twin Cities amassed a concentration of resources—entrepreneurial skill, information, cash, and human capital—that by the 1920s coalesced to launch them toward success with a momentum that has yet to break. The large region served by the Twin Cities, stretching across several states, allowed their original market-center economy to grow and diversify into a selfsufficient part of the national and international market. The lack of nearby urban competitors long ago freed the Twin Cities from dependence on Greater Minnesota alone. The metro area's current export market, which is mostly outside the region, explains much of its resiliency since the 1981-82 recession, from which other areas of the state have never fully recovered. The glow of the Twin Cities' economic health extends in a half-circle from Winona on the southeastern border, west to Rochester, north to St. Cloud, and back eastward to the Wisconsin border. This half-circle encompasses a fifth of the land, two-thirds of the population, and most of the manufacturing and service jobs in the state. Beyond this thriving crescent, fortunes are mixed. After fifty years of top-grade iron ore production, the Mesabi iron range of northeastern Minnesota retooled to produce taconite for the world. An industry that represents a $2.5 billion investment in the state, taconite production created 15,000 jobs and in the 1970s accounted for more than half of northeastern Minnesota's gross regional product. At its 1979 peak, taconite generated a $400 million payroll, $900 million in purchases from 2,200 Minnesota companies, and a state tax base of $120 million. After the closure of major
taconite mills during the 1980s due to foreign competition, jobs became scarce and new development lagged, though production continued at modest levels at several plants. Since 1987, Minnesota's annual taconite production has varied from 40 to 45 million metric tons.2 The pressing need for new enterprises in the "Arrowhead" region was reflected in 1991 by the state's willingness to risk more than $800 million in public financing to NWA, Inc., the parent company of Northwest Airlines, for two airbus maintenance facilities there. The two plants would support nearly 2,000 jobs, along with the accompanying economic multipliers. Twin Cities/Greater Minnesota Co-dependence The metro area cannot afford to ignore the fortunes of Greater Minnesota, even though its economic attention usually is focused elsewhere. A persistently declining rural tax base means greater burdens on the Twin Cities and other Minnesota metro areas to provide rural services, if nonmetro areas are to avoid chronic depression. The Twin Cities' future is especially tied to rural education and job training, since rural-schooled children often become urban workers. In fact, the half of Minnesota's population that lives outside the Twin Cities metro region is mostly nonfarm, living in small towns and mid-sized cities. Migrant farm workers also gravitate to these small towns and cities. They come from the southwest United States looking for seasonal work harvesting sugar beets or other crops but often settle permanently in year-round jobs. Most of the migrant workers are Hispanic, with a young average age, so that small-town schools and other services are challenged to meet the needs of the new residents. The dwindling farm population—from half of the state total in 1900 to 10 percent in the 1980s—migrates not only to Minneapolis and St. Paul but also to these
redistribution of resources. It is easy for a city to shed ties with its country cousins as it enters the cosmopolitan world of international trade, but the Twin Cities have a special legacy from their rural roots that leaders would do well to preserve. Rural immigrants who built the Twin Cities brought with them a rural, small-town work ethic, a knowledge of the natural environment, and skill with tools and machinery, plus a willingness to strive and sacrifice that have made the Twin Cities prosper. That slender thread is easily severed.
FIGURE 19. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. 3M Center, world headquarters of Minnesota's largest manufacturing company, is located just east of St. Paul's city limits (McKnight Road) on Hudson Road (1-94) in Maplewood. PHOTO COURTESY OF 3MCO.
small and mid-sized towns, so rural migration to the Twin Cities is slower now than it once was and the rural labor pool on which the Twin Cities can draw for fresh talent is smaller. As the metro area has pulled away from its rural surroundings culturally and become closer to its kin in the larger urban network, it may have lost some of its appeal for potential rural immigrants.3 The rural talent pool has been an important historic basis for Twin Cities growth and prosperity. A decline in "free" (or at least bargain-priced) imported talent means higher costs to the Twin Cities for rearing and training their own replacement labor force. The widening cultural and economic gap between the Twin Cities and the rural service area stretches ties of family and kinship ever thinner, even while business ties are maintained. Decreased empathy or sense of community between city and countryside may lead to even fewer new immigrants and to increasing political rivalry over
International Business The Twin Cities are full-fledged members of the world network of international trading centers. The most important corporate leaders in this international market, are the manufacturer 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing), in a class by itself in its importance to the Twin Cities and to Minnesota; the commodities trader Cargill, Inc.; the high-tech firm Honeywell, Inc., which was the first company to establish a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary in China; and Northwest Airlines (NWA, Inc.). Honeywell and 3M rank among the nation's fifty leading industrial exporters (fig. 19).4 While these Minnesota firms with the highest international revenues are among the state's ten largest, those firms with the highest percentage of revenues from exports alone in the mid-1980s—all hightech manufacturers—were among some of the state's smaller concerns: MTS Systems Corp., a test-systems maker; Cray Research, Inc., supercomputer builder; DataCard Corp., maker of data processing products; CPT Corp., office automation specialist; and Graco, Inc., robotics manufacturer. Size and prominence are no guarantee of success, however. CPT Corp., an early leader in word processing, eventually was overshadowed by the business-applications developments of the personal computer giants. The company's response was
47
FIGURE 20. Minneapolis Grain Exchange trading floor. PHOTO BY JOEL SHEAGREN, COURTESY OF MINNEAPOLIS GRAIN EXCHANGE.
48
to specialize in service-intensive designs for highgrowth industries—medicine, law, and government. It has been struggling back from brinksmanship since 1984, and by 1991 had downscaled to fewer than sixty employees from a peak of 2,000, due to financial problems.5 Control Data Corp., formerly the state's largest computer manufacturer, ventured into the supercomputer business through its subsidiary, ETA, but setbacks led to the closure of ETA in 1989, leaving Cray Research as the only local competitor in the global supercomputer market.
Among Minnesota's earliest entrants to the international market were the commodities traders Cargill, Inc., and I. S. Joseph Co., Inc. Both developed their businesses around the turn-of-the-century grain trade in the Twin Cities, because grain was the most important product of the Upper Midwest at the time. Today, Cargill has expanded its dealings to include fertilizers, salt, metals, and frozen concentrated orange juice. I. S. Joseph (now Martrade) also has entered the market in tropical fruits and juices and has gained a reputation for expertise in trading unusual commodities. As companies enter international markets, they have had to
develop creativity to accommodate different economies. 3M's trade agreements with Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union include barter or "counter trade" arrangements: the company found itself trading in shoe polish and caviar instead of cash.6 (The caviar business might seem misplaced in Minnesota, but in 1989 it was added to the list of Twin Cities specialties as Romanoff International moved its caviar-processing operation to the Minneapolis suburb of Golden Valley—to a former lutefisk processing plant.) The World Trade Center opened in 1987 in downtown St. Paul to provide support services—telecommunications, translators, seminars, language training, and market research—for Twin Cities international commerce. St. Paul attracted the center through early coordinated planning, a result (some would say) of its strong mayor and weak city council government, which can move quickly and decisively when necessary.7 Twin Cities businesses are still tied to food and natural resources in a big way, but things are changing. The western suburb of Hopkins is the corporate headquarters for the area's largest food retailers and wholesale distributors: Rainbow Foods and Supervalu, Inc., which acquired Missouri-based Wetteran, Inc., in 1992 to become the nation's largest food wholesaler, with annual sales exceeding $16 billion.8 The food supply business is a volatile, fast-paced arena in which decisions are made quickly, and since long-term contracts are not practical with perishable goods, a handshake is considered binding. Local food suppliers see the Twin Cities as a unique, three-tiered market where income levels and stability are above average. The higher incomes support high-ticket, high-overhead stores like Lund's and Byerl/s, but these shoppers also frequent low-frills, warehouse-style stores such as Country Store, Supervalu's Cub Foods, and Gateway's Rainbow Foods. Meanwhile,
more conventional mid-priced supermarkets such as NewMarket continue to thrive as neighborhood outlets with strong local loyalty.9 The food being supplied, and its price, are being changed continually by ongoing research at centers such as the University of Minnesota's agricultural experiment stations on the St. Paul campus and in Crookston, Morris, Grant Rapids, Lamberton, and Rosemount. With genetic research creating higher yields and new varieties, crop production has doubled in the past thirty years. Dairy milk output has increased fourfold since 1925. The research horizon promises a not-so-distant future with no-cholesterol, no-shell eggs, no-feather chickens, and super-woolly lambs.10 One of the region's earliest businesses was the fur trade. Minnesota's oldest retailer, Albrecht's, is also the oldest manufacturing furrier in the United States, originating in Germany in 1723. The firm credits its success to a policy of slow and steady growth rather than rapid expansion, and to a focus on quality. Wood and paper products, an industry nearly as old, has revived in recent years, employing more than 50,000 workers, with a billion-dollar-plus annual payroll. One of the Twin Cities' early functions, as a breakof-bulk port, has changed little since the nineteenth century. Bulk crops are still moved downriver by barge, and even though overseas grain exports were down overall in the mid-1980s, the river ports of the Twin Cities and St. Louis remain congested with traffic, because most of the grain that is moving originates in the Upper Midwest (fig. 20). St. Paul is the home base of the largest barge company on the Mississippi. These days the company is moving corn for the nations of the former Soviet Union, barley for Turkey, durum wheat destined for Algeria and Tunisia, and sunflowers for Mexico. Some of the largest U.S. crop surpluses are stored in this region. The movement of agricultural
49
commodities still provides one of the strongest links between the Twin Cities and its rural hinterland.11
50
High-Technology Industry Robert P. Kearney, writing in Corporate Report Minnesota, offered an explanation of Minnesota's economy: "Minnesota's economic base can be easily described: agriculture and high-tech manufacturing, with a healthy dose of finance and a not-so-healthy dose of mining. This, however, is a little like describing Michelangelo's Last Judgment as a picture of a bunch of guys with their shirts off. Both depictions are accurate but err by using too broad a brush."12 What is a high-tech firm? Corporate Report defined it as a "manufacturer or assembler of computer hardware;... software; other advanced electronic equipment; sophisticated biotechnology products, such as implantable medical devices; as well as certain other products based on scientific innovation."13 Minnesota has more than its share of high-tech firms. Most of them are small and relatively young, primarily producing computer products and medical devices. Of Minnesota's top fifteen high-tech firms in 1987, the top three were Minnesota's industrial giants—3M, Honeywell, and Control Data Corporation—which together accounted for 88 percent of the revenue and 90 percent of the jobs produced by the list of fifteen. Honeywell's subsequent phaseout of four divisions and Control Data's restructuring and layoffs in the late 1980s lowered these figures. On the list of Minnesota's hundred top high-tech firms in 1987, only fifteen have more than a thousand employees, and nineteen have fewer than one hundred.14 The specialties of the high-tech giants have included Honeywell's computer and electronic control systems, 3M's data communications and health care equipment, and Control Data's data-processing equipment and computer peripherals (before the company's
restructuring). Other, smaller firms have provided a range of products: Cray Research (4,900 employees) produces supercomputers, Medtronic (7,600 employees) produces implantable medical devices, and Graco (2,400 employees) produces fluid materials management systems and equipment.15 U.S. firms with high-tech products increasingly are looking to overseas markets, not only to sell products but to sell technology itself. Such transfers usually involve technologies that are likely to face competition; selling an interest enables the U.S. company to retain a share of the profits of a perhaps outmoded process. Some top Minnesota firms that have had agreements for foreign technology transfer are American Crystal Sugar Company (germ plasma for new beet varieties from Denmark); Andersen Corporation (windows to Canada, vinyl-extrusion processes from Italy and Germany); and Control Data Corporation (computers to Brazil and Canada, laser storage process from the Netherlands).16 Down-scaling among Minnesota producers of computers and industrial machinery in the late 1980s meant that, while national exports of these products increased by 52 percent between 1987 and 1990, the state's contribution grew by only 20 percent. As a share of the state's total exports, these industries fell from 50 percent to 39 percent. In two other sectors, however, Minnesota outpaced the nation. The state's production of scientific instruments and transportation products for export more than doubled during the same period.17 Along with its broad spectrum of high-tech products and equipment, Minnesota is a world leader in high-technology research and development. The supercomputer firm Cray Research is one sterling example. Attracting and keeping R&D concerns in the state have been the payoff of joint efforts by officials of the cities, the state, the University of Minnesota, and private
TABLE 4
Major corporations with headquarters in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, ranked by revenue, 199O-91 REVENUES ($ MILLIONS) EMPLOYEES LOCATION
TYPE
PUBLICLY HELD COMPANIES0
retail disc./dept. stores
Dayton Hudson Corp.
14,739.0
161,215
Minneapolis
3M
13,021.0
89,601
Maplewood
industrial, consumer prods.
Supervalu, Inc. Honeywell, Inc.
11,612.4
Eden Prairie
wholesale food, supermarkets
6,985.2e
42,905 60,332
Minneapolis
aviation, environmental controls
General Mills, Inc.
6,457.8e
97,238
Golden Valley
consumer foods, restaurants
The St. Paul Co's, Inc.
4,005.2
12,600
St. Paul
insurance, risk management
Norwest Corp.
21,851
Minneapolis
consumer, mortgage banking
Nash Finch Company
3,482.3 2,374.9
St. Louis Park
foods, general merchandise
Int'l Multifoods Corp.
2,191.9
9,140
Minneapolis
diversified food products
First Bank System, Inc.
2,138.5d
9,475
Minneapolis
bank holding company
11,261
PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES1" Cargill, Inc.
44,000.0*
54,000
Minnetonka
agricultural commodities
NWA, Inc.
6,700.0
17,500
Eagan
transportation company
Carlson Co's, Inc.
6,200.0 1,400.0" 1,000.0* 900.0
6,200
Nat'l Car Rental Systems
750.0*
8,500
695.1 581.9
6,000
Edina St. Louis Park
car rental services
The Musicland Group M. A. Mortenson Co.
1,600
Golden Valley
West Publishing Co.
525.0*
3,100
Eagan
general contracting law books, legal data bases
Holiday Companies Andersen Corporation C. H. Robinson Co.
5,000 3,500 800
Minnetonka Bloomington Bayport Eden Prairie
incentives, hospitality, travel gas, food, general merchandise windows, patio doors 3rd party transportation, produce retail prerecorded music
COOPERATIVES^
Harvest States
2,900.0
2,000
Falcon Heights
grain marketing
Land O'Lakes, Inc.
2,400.0
4,000
Arden Hills
farm supply, marketing
Minnesota Mutual Life
1,600.0
1,838
St. Paul
mutual life and health insurance
CENEX
1,365.0
2,806
Inver Grove Heights
regional farm supply
Lutheran Brotherhood
1,200.0
1,003
Minneapolis
member insurance, securities
First Minnesota Savings
325.0
1,068
Minneapolis
mutual savings bank
M.S.I. Insurance
255.0
640
Arden Hills
multiple-line insurance
Universal Coops, Inc.
208.0
470
Minneapolis
regional farm supply
American Hardware
202.0
800
Minnetonka
full service insurance
Cooperative Power
157.0
368
Eden Prairie
electric
a
Tom Smith, 'The Corporate Report 100," Corporate Report Minnesota, August 1991, pp. 38-49.
"Tom Smith and Patrick Kennedy, The Private 100. Minnesota's 100 Largest Private Companies," Corporate Report Minnesota, December 1990, pp. 35-38. indicates that revenues are higher by the following percentages than If discontinued operations had not been included: Honeywell, Inc., 10.7 percent; General Mills, Inc., 0.1 percent; Northern States Power Company, 0.5 percent. ^Does not reflect 1992 merger with Marquette Banks. 'Figure is estimated by Corporate Report.
firms. Minneapolis's new "high-tech corridor," a seventy-five-acre strip of land along the Mississippi River between the University of Minnesota campus and downtown, is a product of such mutual cooperation. Private firms get well-educated professionals, and proximity to the university makes the jobs attractive while providing a pool of new recruits. The state sees an investment in future jobs as these industries expand. And the university sees the high-tech employees as potential graduate students and faculty, as additions to the critical mass of technical people needed to pursue research, and as a needed site for development of ideas produced by University of Minnesota research. The university built a Supercomputer Institute in the corridor to house $80 million worth of supercomputers, plus a Cray 3 from Cray Research.18 A subset of high technology in Minnesota is biotechnology, which has produced such innovations as human insulin, growth hormones, and disease diagnostic kits. The next generation of research results should produce a slew of crop-hardying bacteria to raise yields and lengthen the growing season. One biotechnology firm is Molecular Genetics, Inc., founded by two University of Minnesota professors, whose first product was a monoclonal antibody to prevent fatal scours in newborn calves.19 One foreign firm, the Swiss-based Buhler-Miag, came specifically to Minneapolis to produce equipment for the grain trade. The company chose Minneapolis because it could count on local firms to produce precision equipment to specifications, with high quality. Another company, Graco, Inc., placed its future in hightech when in 1979 it decided to expand its robotics production. Now it is the largest supplier of paint-spraying industrial robots to Ford, Chrysler, and Ferrari.20
51
52
Minnesota's Largest Companies The 1988 Fortune 500 list of the country's largest industrial corporations included sixteen Minnesota firms, led by 3M, Honeywell, and General Mills. (Pillsbury, formerly in the top five corporations, was dropped from the list because of a 1989 takeover by the British conglomerate Grand Metropolitan PLC.) Other Minnesota firms ranked below the national top one hundred were Control Data Corporation, Land O'Lakes, Inc., and International Multifoods.21 Among public companies of all types in Minnesota ranked by revenues, retailer Dayton Hudson Corporation topped the list in 1991 with revenues of $14.8 billion, followed by manufacturer 3M ($13 billion) and Supervalu, Inc. ($11.6billion) (table4)22 Of Minnesota's one hundred largest privately held firms in 1992, twenty were in agribusiness, food processing, or distribution, led by Cargill, Inc., the world's largest privately owned company, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of the list's total revenues. Eighteen of the top private one hundred were building and construction firms. The top five, by revenue, were Cargill, Inc. ($49.1 billion), NWA, Inc. (taken private in a highly leveraged buyout in 1989, $7.5 billion), Carlson Companies, Inc. ($9.3 billion), Holiday Companies ($1.5 billion), and C. H. Robinson Co. ($1 billion).23 The state and metro-area economies also benefit from companies operating here but owned by out-ofstate concerns. The restructuring of the 1980s included buyouts of some Minnesota-grown enterprises, most notably the Pillsbury Company. Ten of the one hundred largest of these firms were founded in Minnesota; twelve of the top one hundred are now foreign-owned. Table 5 lists the fifteen largest of these firms with operations in the metro area.24 The companies ranked highest in sales and revenues are not always the largest employers. In Min-
TABLE 5
Prominent Twin Cities companies with headquarters outside of Minnesota, 1991 COMPANY
EMPLOYEES
PARENT COMPANY
Grand Metropolitan PLC Pillsbury Brands Minneapolis 16,000° London, England, U.K. Unisys Corporation Unisys Corporation St. Paul & suburbs 8,000 Blue Bell, PA Rosemount, Inc. Emerson Electric Co. 7,500° St. Louis, MO Eden Prairie Melville Corporation Wilsons Suede and Leather Brooklyn Park 7,360° Rye, NY U.S. West, Inc. U.S. West Communications MN 6,800 Englewood, CO Minneapolis SuperAmerica Group Ashland Oil, Inc. Bloomington 4,800° Ashland, KY Canadian Pacific Ltd. Soo Line Corporation 4,564° Montreal, Quebec, Canada Minneapolis American Express Co. IDS Financial Corp. 4,300° New York, NY Minneapolis Cummins Engine Co., lnc.b Onan Corporation 3,800° Columbus, IN Fridley Rainbow Foods Scrivner, lnc.c Hopkins 3,200 Oklahoma City, OK Seagate, Inc. Seagate, Inc. Minnetonka 3,000 Scons Valley, CA Westinghouse Electric Thermo King Corp. Bloomington 3,000° Pittsburgh, PA FMC Corporation FMC Corporation Fridley 2,600 Chicago, IL Carson Pirie Scott Maus Freres S.A.d 2,400 Geneva, Switzerland Minneapolis Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company St. Paul 2,200 Dearborn, Ml
COMPANY TYPE
consumer foods computer systems temperature control instruments retail leather stores telephone, telecommunication gas stations, stores holds RR transportation service operations personal financial planning generators, gas engines supermarkets computer disk drives transport refrigeration, A/C and heating systems defense equipment retail department stores assembles Ford trucks, Ranger supercabs
SOURCE: Tom Smith and Patrick Kennedy, "Regional 100. Significant operations whose parents are based elsewhere," Corporate Report Minnesota, March 1991, pp. 53-62. a
lndicates that more than 20 percent of the compan/s employees work out-of-state: Pillsbury Brands, 86 percent; Rosemount, Inc., 55 percent; Wilsons Suede and
Leather, 89 percent; SuperAmerica Group Inc.-Midwest, 48 percent; Soo Line Corporation, 74 percent; IDS Financial Corp., Inc., 23 percent; Onan Corporation, 53 percent; Thermo King Corporation, 67 percent. "Owns 64 percent; Hawker-Siddeley Group, London, England, U.K., owns 36 percent. "-Ownership through Gateway Foods, Inc., LaCrosse, Wisconsin. "Ownership through P. A. Bergner & Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
nesota, the federal and state governments and the university rank highest in job provision. The University of Minnesota employs more than 35,000 faculty, staff, and student workers throughout the state. The federal government is a close second with 34,400 employees, and the state of Minnesota, including the State University System, accounts for nearly 31,000 workers. Seventeen of the top twenty employers in the state are headquartered in Minnesota.25 Twin Cities Entrepreneurship Many prominent Twin Cities companies boast long histories in the area. Charles A. Pillsbury modernized the flour milling industry in the 1870s, and launched a diversified food products empire that counts among its trademarks Burger King, Steak & Ale, Bakers Square, Totino's, American Beauty, and Green Giant. Pillsbury has been a significant corporate citizen of the Twin Cities, providing millions in annual contributions to civic and cultural causes. German immigrant Frederick Weyerhaeuser made a fortune in lumber in Rock Island, Illinois, and in 1891 moved to Summit Avenue in St. Paul (a few blocks from James J. Hill), where his sons expanded the company into the world's largest lumber business. The Weyerhaeuser family became one of St. Paul's most prominent. Cray Research was founded in 1972 by ex-Remington Rand and Control Data engineer Seymour Cray. The company has since increased revenues thirtyfold, grown from 200 to 4,900 employees, and had a mid1980s share of 80 percent of the supercomputer market. Tennant Company began in 1870 as a hardwood sawmill, went on to produce milk crates and toilet seats, and in 1947 became the first manufacturer of power floor-scrubbing machines. Polaris Industries, Inc., began in Roseau, Minnesota, in 1954 with the invention
of the snowmobile, and in mid-1985 introduced the first American-made all-terrain vehicle to the U.S. market. And what more likely international business should spring from Minnesota than the building of customized ice rinks by Holmsten Ice Rinks, Inc., which gets 60 percent of the world's ice rink-building business, with contracts in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and Central Park. Northwest Airlines, once an obscure and poorly managed local air carrier, was lifted to the top ranks of U.S. air carriers by CEO Donald Nyrop, former administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Board. NWA continues to expand air services to cities in the United States and around the world, and decided to establish an Airbus maintenance facility in northeastern Minnesota. The St. Paul Companies is a descendant of Minnesota's oldest corporation, the St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., founded in 1853. It was organized in 1968 to offer management and other services to insurance companies, becoming the twenty-fifth largest of its type in the United States by 1988, with annual premium revenues of more than $1.6 billion and 1988 sales of more than $10 billion.26 Minnesota ranks thirteenth in the nation in printing and publishing, the state's second-largest and fastest-growing manufacturing industry, with 1,600 firms, 52,000 employees, and $3 billion in annual sales. The state is sixth or seventh in book publishing. Six of the one hundred largest such companies in the United States are based in Minnesota: Deluxe Corporation, Inc.; Josten's, Inc. (recognition items); Beddor Companies and Partnerships (conglomerate of smaller presses); Brown Printing (regional editions of Fortune, Time, Business Week); Quebecor Printing, Inc., (US West phone directories, in-flight magazines); and Brown & Bigelow (advertising, calendars). West Publishing (law books and software) is based in a St. Paul suburb. The
53
FIGURE 21. Minnesota History Center, Capitol Mall, St. Paul. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
D
state's printing and publishing industry no longer depends upon doing business with Minnesota's Fortune 500 companies. In 1988, 68 percent of printing jobs produced were for out-of-state customers.27 The richest person in Minnesota seems to be Curtis L. Carlson, empire builder of Carlson Companies, which owns and operates more than a hundred companies, including the Radisson Hotel chain, restaurants, catalog showrooms, and real estate and travel agencies. In 1960, engineer Earl Bakken marketed the implantable cardiac pacemaker, and his firm, Medtronic, Inc., remains the industry leader, with more than 30
percent of the world market and nearly 40 percent of the U.S. market in pacemakers firmly in its grasp. Community-mmded Dayton Hudson Corporation, which donates 5 percent of its federally taxable income to philanthropic causes each year, was founded in 1902 by George Draper Dayton, and was run by two succeeding generations of Daytons. It went public in 1968 and expanded to include Target, Lechmere, B. Dalton's (sold in 1987), and Mervyn's, with more than 1,000 stores. A strong banking network has always worked along with the business community. Two giant financial services companies have dominated banking in the
Upper Midwest for decades: First Bank Systems, Inc., and its chief competitor, Norwest Corporation. The largest banks of each of these parent companies, First Bank Minneapolis and Norwest Bank Minnesota-Minneapolis, were about equal in 1990 assets ($11.5 billion) and deposits ($8.3 billion). Before 1987, there were no branch banks in Minnesota. Each bank was separately chartered. Many of the banks were independent; others were owned by bank holding companies. When the new banking laws allowed banks to open branches, many formerly independent banks became branches of larger banks. Rural banking in Minnesota has stabilized since the tumult of the 1980s farm foreclosures and bank failures, thanks to improved farm loan procedures and a stronger regional economy.
immigrant history of the state, a populist history. Of course, history is ongoing, so the Historical Society takes in items of significant current interest to preserve for future generations. In this spirit, the "Homer Hanky" of the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins hangs proudly in the Society's new building on the capitol mall. In 1992, the Historical Society moved into a new $74 million Minnesota History Center, where its holdings have been consolidated from six former locations. The center includes a 40,000-square-foot museum space. The active interest of Minnesotans in their past both sustains and is sustained by the Minnesota Historical Society. The institution exemplifies the pride and, more importantly, the continuity in the life of the place.
Remembering Our Origins Minnesota's living memory of its foundations is one of its sustaining forces. The memory is kept alive through ethnic ties, rural connections, and the never-broken thread of political history. Plenty of artifacts remain from the past—old buildings, literature, art—but these objects cannot be understood until their stories are reconstructed (fig. 21). That is the job of the Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota's oldest institution. The Historical Society is older than the state, in fact, having been established by our New England founders as the fifth act of the Territorial Legislature in November 1849. The legacy stored at the Historical Society is abundant: more than half a million books, 90 percent of all the newspapers ever published in the state, 25,000 maps, 70,000 feet of state archives, and the secondlargest women's history collection in the country. Equally important are the everyday things—the letters, photos, household items, and diaries that document the
55
BUSINESS ENTREPRENEURS FROM New England
56
contact with regionwide transportation systems founded the Twin Cities as a moneymaking venture, (rivers, railroads) in the and their enterprises attracted waves of immigrants downtowns, making them the principal points of conseeking a share of the action. The most influential tact between the local group—including Franklin Steele, Caleb Dorr, Cadwal- economies and the rest of the world (fig. 22). Downlader C. and William D. Washburn, and Dorilus Morritown St. Paul, on the east son—arrived with the vanguard of lumbermen who had side of the river, enjoyed better access to regions east and north of the Twin Cities. The center of St. Paul's set off from New England and worked westward, cutdowntown grew up west of the riverboat landing and ting the Great Lakes forests. They were joined by other eventually moved away from the river several blocks, then slowly shifted westward to about Seventh and Yankee businessmen—Bassett, Pillsbury, Eastman, Robert streets. Downtown Minneapolis, on the west Welles—who were eager to harvest the region's forests side of the river and west of the milling district, enjoyed unrestricted access to western agricultural areas. and fields and supply its residents with goods and Originally, three downtown contenders emerged services. in Minneapolis and St. Anthony—Bridge Square where Washington, Hennepin, and Nicollet avenues met at the western end of the Hennepin Avenue Bridge at Yankee Economic Heritage Nicollet Island; downtown St. Anthony at the east end Some types of jobs created by these entrepreneurs of the bridge; and Lower Town on Washington Avenue attracted revenue and investment capital into the Twin near the falls. Lower Town was soon crowded out by Cities. This basic or export employment centered on manufacturers (fig. 23). Downtown St. Anthony, beleagathering raw materials, on manufacturing, and on guered by the competition, dropped from the running to shipping goods to other regions. These jobs were concen- become a shopping center for East (of the river) Mintrated at St. Anthony Falls, at the Nicollet Island river neapolis. Meanwhile, the commercial center of downcrossing, at the riverboat landing by the mouth of Trout town Minneapolis migrated southwest toward the highCreek, and later in railroad yards and shops. An addiclass Lake District, settling finally around Seventh and tional category, local service jobs, served the needs of Nicollet, despite the changing geography of population Twin Cities residents. These jobs were concentrated in and purchasing power and the unrelenting machinadowntown centers near the intersections of major tions of real estate speculators, which perpetuated a streets and horsecar lines. steady tug toward the southwest. In each city, the export job district and the downEarly City Centers The local transportation systems town lay on the land like a figure eight. Residential (streets, horsecar lines, then streetcar lines) came into areas crowded in on every side, with the rich preempt-
3
Inside the Centra Cities: Land Use, People, and Neighborhoods
57
FIGURE 22. St. Paul in 1875. Rail lines moved up the Mississippi Valley to Trout Creek, up the creek valley on the eastern edge of downtown, then fanned out to serve areas lying east of the river. The railroads and heavy traffic on them discouraged settlement east and north of the lines. Settlement was heaviest west of downtown where rail obstacles to easy movement were absent. BASED ON SCHMID 1937, CHART 28.
58
ing the most scenic sites. In St. Paul, the small morainic hills directly north of downtown, along with Dayton's Bluff overlooking the river east of downtown, became fashionable places to live for a while, but then tastes shifted and affluent families abruptly relocated to the bluffs at the east end of Summit Avenue where there was ample room for westward expansion. The relatively flat site of early Minneapolis offered little distinctive terrain as a preserve for merchants, millers, and town leaders. Some influential families, including the Pillsburys, settled between the East Side milling district and the university. Others built houses on Park Avenue, which started at the falls as Cataract Street in early days and ran southward past the Washburn Fair Oaks estate. As time passed and the city grew, the southward-bound Gold Coast swung westward past
Lowry Hill to the hills and lakes of Kenwood near Lake of the Isles. A few affluent families remained in the East Side, but most of the newly rich joined the rush to the southwest Lake District. How Rail Development Shaped the Landscape Before 1900, neighborhood quality generally improved with increasing distance from industry, railroad yards, and the downtowns. Congestion, high densities, and general squalor near the mills gradually gave way to lower densities, higher ground, and cleaner air farther away. At the same time that St. Paul's upper class selected the bluffs west of downtown as the best place to live, they assigned increasing amounts of land east and north of downtown to railroad and industrial uses at locations where rail lines converged.
shrewdly avoided the congestion created by a hundred trains and more than a thousand railroad cars entering, waiting in, and leaving the cities daily, blocking streets and isolating certain neighborhoods for hours on end. For decades railroads crossed streets at grade in both cities. South Minneapolis and western St. Paul were the only places where residents enjoyed continuous and unrestricted access to the downtowns without railroads blocking the way. So in both cities, early upper-income migrations charted the dominant directions of middleand upper-middle-class residential growth that continue to the present day—Minneapolis southward and St. Paul westward.
FIGURE 23. Minneapolis in 1875. Railreads from St. Paul crossed the river at Nicollet Island just above St. Anthony Falls, then continued westward, hindering easy access between downtown and North Minneapolis. Settlement was heaviest south off downtown where rail obstacles to easy movement were absent. BASED ON SCHMID 1937, CHART 27.
The same thing happened in Minneapolis. Extensive stretches of East Side land and parcels along the river on the West Side were devoted to railroads and industry as the upper-middle class moved into south and southwest Minneapolis. The rich, having alternatives, chose to avoid the noise, soot, and odors of transportation, industry, and commerce. In addition, they
The Residential Landscape Emerges By the turn of the century, Minneapolis community leaders—who were mostly Protestant and native-born and who monopolized finance, civic administration, trade, management, and the professions—lived south and southwest of downtown. A mixed middle-class neighborhood developed in North Minneapolis beyond the railroad tracks and Bassett's Creek. Named after a Minneapolis pioneer, the creek begins on the south side of Medicine Lake in Plymouth and flows about fifteen miles to its Mississippi outlet in North Minneapolis above the Plymouth Avenue Bridge. In early days, the creek wound a tortuous course through the city in a deep and rugged chasm, blocking travel from downtown to North Minneapolis except for a few congested bridges. Northeast Minneapolis, carved into residential islands by crisscrossing railroads and strips of industrial land, first attracted Scandinavians and later mainly immigrant Poles, Slovaks, Ukrainians, and Italians. A middle-class residential neighborhood surrounded the university's East Bank campus. Bohemians settled south of the university's current site on the west side of the river, and the main line, yards, and shops of the
59
60
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad running southeast of downtown Minneapolis became the spine of the immigrant Swedish neighborhood (fig. 24). In St. Paul, the upper classes were well established by 1900 in the Summit Hill neighborhood west of downtown. The city's main middle-class neighborhood— settled by Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, and later by large numbers of Irish—developed to the west and northwest. The East Side (east of Rice Street), carved up by railroads and industry, attracted immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, in a fashion analogous to Northeast Minneapolis. The West Side, actually located south across the river from downtown, contained mixed industrial activities, the city's main Jewish settlement, and other residential neighborhoods ranging from slums on the flood plain of the Mississippi to occasional elegant mansions on the high bluffs facing downtown St. Paul. By the turn of the century the dominant immigrant groups in the Twin Cities were Swedes, Germans, and Norwegians. Poles, Russian Jews, Czechs, Slovaks, Danes, Irish, and Italians were present but were much less influential. Most groups lived in all parts of both cities, but occasionally concentrations were high enough in certain neighborhoods to lend them a predominant ethnic cast. Before the trans-Canada railroad was completed, people moving from eastern to western Canada were often intercepted by opportunities in the Twin Cities. During much of the nineteenth century, the Canadianborn represented one of the area's largest immigrant groups, but they were seldom noticed as immigrants, except for the few who spoke French. European foreign stock remained significant in the Twin Cities into the interwar period, when it began to decline as immigration was greatly reduced and as the original immigrant generation aged and passed on.
After World War II, the decline became more dramatic, with a drop of 13 percent in the metro area between 1960 and 1970. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, the loss was even higher. Each city lost about one-third of its foreign stock, which dispersed to the suburbs faster than the rest of the population. The pause in foreign inmigration from about 1950 to 1970 was not to last. As the Vietnam War and other political and economic upheavals around the globe created new generations of immigrants—many of them refugees—the nation entered a new immigrant era, and the Twin Cities again received their share of newcomers.
People Today Between 1970 and 1990, the population of the elevencounty Twin Cities area grew by more than 24 percent,
FIGURE 24. Railroad and industrial corridors carved up Minneapolis and St. Paul into a series off residential islands. The western part of St. Paul and South Minneapolis have been the largest parcels of uncongested land, inviting continuous middle-class residential development. COMPILED FROM MAPS OF THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL.
TABLE 6
Twin Cities eleven-county metropolitan area population by county, central city, race, and ethnicity, 197O, 198O, 199O METRO TOTAL
POPULATION
ANOKA
CARVER
CHISAGO
DAKOTA
HENNEPIN
(BLMGTN. CITY)
(MPLS. CITY)
ISANTI
RAMSEY
(ST. PAUL CITY)
scon
WASHINGTON
ST. CROIX WRIGHT
(WIS.)
1970
White
1,931,282
153,420
28,242
17,441
139,038
928,507
81,329
406,414
16,474
460,454
295,741
32,302
82,350
38,810
Black
32,248
178
7
18
182
20,044
228
19,005
49
11,525
10,930
15
189
19
22
American Indian
10,071
509
25
15
277
6,722
106
5,829
16
2,146
1,906
81
198
37
45
Asian0
5,004
280
12
10
220
3,136
217
1,927
8
1,181
704
11
113
19
14
Otherb
3,114
169
24
8
91
1,671
90
1,225
13
949
699
14
98
48
29
1,981,719
154,556
28,310
17,492
139,808
960,080
81,970
434,400
16,560
476,255
309,980
32,423
82,948
38,933
34,354
27,729
2,372
249
9
12,251
902
6,109
—
9,914
7,179
228
23
85
White
2,036,881
192,489
36,786
25,543
190,079
882,674
79,464
325,415
23,393
430,132
245,795
43,307
111,212
58,261
43,005
Black
49,332
320
38
12
1,162
32,773
702
28,469
61
14,200
13,018
49
641
54
22
American Indian^
1 7,276
1,305
29
81
565
11,075
184
9,198
92
3,180
2,558
200
477
187
85
Asian
24,495
1,574
142
73
1,817
11,334
5,358
40
8,248
5,345
155
900
136
76
3,514
73
341
43
74
113,571
58,681
43,262
171
138 49,895
Total Hispanicc
1,424
1,174
34,244
1980
Otherb Total
1,203
9,149
310
51
8
656
3,555
278
2,511
14
4,024
2,137,133
195,998
37,046
25,717
194,279
941,411
81,831
370,951
23,600
459,784
270,230
43,784
119
70
8,184
443
4,762
95
9,229
7,553
265
47,167
30,188
264,854
922,321
81,766
288,967
25,583
427,677
223,947
56,583
141,266
68,035
103 112
65
3,411
60,114
1,394
47,948
68
22,674
20,083
267
74
44
125
893
14,912
248
1 2,335
1 37
3,697
362
1,601 687
233
121
4,643
29,588
2,669
1 5,723
106
19,197
534
553
4,010
478
1,868
17
765
17
1,648 337
277 29
148 7
640
74
Hispanic6
22,666
1,212
2,018
1,165
199O
White
2,270,360
Black
89,710
1,289
American Indian
23,956
Asian'
444
236,791
65,204
1,865 2,934
Chinese
7,475
404
22
90 1
4,509 24,792 2,078
Korean
8,721
773
147
36
908
4,104
383
1,448
43
1,801
157
531
147
Vietnamese
7,819
605
44
11
663
4,353
607
1,648
2
1,875
1,211
104
145
7
10
Other Asian
41,189
231
42
2,519
17,121
10,759
44
19,038
16,581
256
635
94
57
1,426
5,496
258
3,410
27
6,113
5,311
100
694
91
43
275,227 1,032,431
86,335
368,383
25,921
485,765
272,235
57,846
145,896
68,710
50,251
805
7,900
119
13,890
284
192
Otherb Total
1,152
14,894
762
89
53
2,464,124
243,641
47,915
30,521
37,448
2,269
252
137
Hispanic6
4,025
13,978
1,201
1 1 ,476
407
1,895
DATA SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Population and Housing: 1970, 1980, 1990. a
Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino. Korean and Pacific Islander are included in "Other."
"Persons who did not specify race, or whose race could not be inferred from national origin. Mostly Hispanic of mixed or unspecified race. c
Persons of Spanish/Hispanic origin may be of any race (number already is included in "Total"). Based on 15 and 5 percent samples of households.
"Includes American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut. e
Based on 100 percent sample.
'Includes Asian and Pacific Islander.
61
from just under 2 million to almost 2.5 million. While expanding faster than most midwestern metropolises, the Twin Cities population also has been changing in racial and ethnic composition and has been redistributing itself within the metro region (table 6). Hennepin County is the largest county in population, with just over a million persons. Dakota County was the fastestgrowing in the 1980s, expanding in population by almost 42 percent. Minneapolis remains the largest city, with a stable population of around 370,000. St. Paul, also stable at 270,000, is the second central city of the metro area. Bloomington, now the third central city of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), had a 1990 population exceeding 86,000.
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Minority Population Trends Through World War II, Twin Cities minority groups were defined mainly by ethnic origin. In the postwar period, group identity increasingly has been linked to race, a trend that has been reinforced by U.S. census classifications. There are important ethnic, social, and class differences within minority groups, but, of these, only ethnic subgroups readily are reflected in census counts. The 1980 census reported that the ten-county MSA1 had a small but rapidly growing racial minority population of 106,000 people. Minorities had more than doubled between 1970 and 1980, with Indo-Chinese people providing a major source of immigrants. Despite the rapid rate of minority growth, nonwhites still made up only a small proportion of the Twin Cities area's population, about one in twenty of the total population of 2.1 million. Because of regional slowdown in population growth, however, minority growth became a significant component of change, accounting for half of the approximately 8 percent growth in the 1970s.
FIGURE 25. African-American population in the Twin Cities area, 199O. The Twin Cities black population lives in many parts of the metro area today yet remains concentrated in three historic cen-
tral city neighborhoods: south central Minneapolis, the near northside in Minneapolis, and St. Paul west of downtown. Some members of this group are recent immigrants
from northeast Africa, other countries in Africa, and from Caribbean lands. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
During the 1980s this trend continued, with the MSA growing by about 15 percent and minorities nearly doubling again, to one in thirteen residents. Change was especially significant in the central cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul where, as in most large U.S. cities, racial minorities historically have been concentrated. In Minneapolis, which experienced absolute population losses in both decades, about one in sixteen residents belonged to a minority group in 1970; by 1990 the ratio was one in five. St. Paul's population stabilized in the 1980s after a decline of about 12 percent in the 1970s. The city's minority ratio rose from one in twentytwo to one in six over the past two decades. Despite these increases the Twin Cities remain the "whitest" large metro area in the United States. The African-American population in the Twin Cities area expanded from 32,000 to almost 90,000 during this time, while its share of the total doubled, from less than one in fifty in 1970 to about one in twenty-five in 1990, with more than 90 percent living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties (fig. 25). Blacks remain the largest minority group, with almost 4 percent of the total regional population. Three areas of black concentration persist, one in St. Paul and two in Minneapolis. More than half of Twin Cities blacks live in Minneapolis, where the Jewish departure from Near North Minneapolis left many quality homes vacant, which promptly were occupied by black families. Prosperity encouraged better-off and upwardly mobile black households to move steadily westward and northward away from the former North Side ghetto core near Sixth Avenue and Lyndale Avenue North. As they moved, others followed, pushed along by urban renewal, until the Sumner Field public housing project and the Willard/Homewood neighborhoods became the heaviest African-American concentrations in the city.
The second Minneapolis concentration is in the south-central area around East Thirty-eighth Street and Fourth Avenue South. Historians are uncertain why Minneapolis developed separate black neighborhoods on the north and south sides, but the Glenwood Avenue North/Fourth Avenue South streetcar line that ran for three generations between the two neighborhoods through downtown Minneapolis without a transfer stop may provide a clue. The South Side black community developed in a residential area that was vacated rapidly during the 1930s and 1940s by upwardly mobile middle-class families seeking newer housing farther out. St. Paul's principal black neighborhood also developed at the western edge of downtown at the type of location where black neighborhoods usually develop— the inner precincts of the city's most vigorously expanding middle-class sector. Despite these concentrations, there has been a substantial dispersal of blacks within both cities and to surrounding counties and suburban communities over the past two decades (fig. 25). Even Northeast Minneapolis, the white ethnic stronghold where the black/white ratio in 1970 was only one in three thousand, has opened up to a small percentage of blacks. In recent years, Twin Cities African-Americans have entered middle- and professional-class employment in steadily increasing numbers, and they constitute a sizable cadre of professionals, civil servants, corporate executives, and foundation personnel. Professional employment sometimes has proved more open to African-Americans than are some skilled trades and blue-collar jobs, where hiring practices favoring relatives and acquaintances often discriminate by race. Despite these gains, African-Americans continue to make up a large segment of the Twin Cities poor, so that groups that advocate for the poor and for the con-
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64
cerns of African-Americans often serve the same clientele. Hispanics and American Indians also are overrepresented in low-income categories, particularly in the central cities where they are concentrated. A great many Americans share some Indian ancestry, but Twin Cities residents identifying themselves to the census as American Indians numbered just over 10,000 in 1970 and about 24,000 in 1990 (see table 6). About half the Twin Cities area Indian population lives in Minneapolis, especially in South Minneapolis in a triangular area bounded by Hennepin Avenue, Thirty-eighth Street, and Hiawatha Avenue. Remaining concentrations are in North and East Minneapolis and in St. Paul (fig. 26). In the Twin Cities, American Indians tend not to live in city-owned public housing as much as do AfricanAmericans and Asians. Rather, they concentrate in rental (and some owned) housing around Franklin Avenue and Eighteenth Street and are not widely dispersed to other areas of the city. What was initially the only Indian-owned and Indian-run public housing complex in the United States, the 212-unit Little Earth of United Tribes complex, is on Cedar Avenue south of Franklin. The unique development provides housing for about 1,200 residents, of whom more than 90 percent are Indians, and was subsidized heavily by federal and city funds. Financial difficulties sent the complex into receivership in 1983, and by the early 1990s the Little Earth community was awaiting decisions by the city and the courts to determine the future ownership of the complex. Meanwhile, it was being managed by Westminster Corporation, a development and management organization that began as the nonprofit housing agency of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul. American Indians are perhaps the most economically and socially distressed group among Twin Cities minorities when integration into the community and
FIGURE 26. Native American population in the Twin Cities area, 199O. About half the Twin Cities area Indian population lives in Minneapolis, especially in South Minneapolis in a triangular area bounded by Hennepin,
Thirty-eighth Street, and Hiawatha Avenue. Remaining concentrations are in North Minneapolis, East Minneapolis, and St. Paul. The Twin Cities metropolitan area has the third highest percentage (1 percent)
of native Americans among the twentyfive largest U.S. metropolitan areas, a share exceeded only by the Phoenix and Seattle-Tacoma areas. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
prospects for the future are assessed. Ties with reservations in northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin remain strong, and many residents commute seasonally or even weekly between the city and the reservation. The status of Indian lands has created conflicts in parts of the Twin Cities. For example, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Reservation is partly situated within the boundaries of the city of Prior Lake, a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis. Residents of the reservation receive municipal services but do not pay municipal taxes. City officials complained about providing police service on reservation land, and about the potential adverse effects of the Indian-owned Mystic Lake Casino, which draws thousands of visitors on an average day. In 1983, Prior Lake reorganized its precinct boundaries to exclude reservation residents from voting in city elections. The Mdewakanton Community contested in court and won back its members' right to vote. The community now makes a voluntary annual contribution of $60,000, in lieu of taxes, to offset the city's cost for municipal services it provides, including extra policing for the gambling facilities. FIGURE 27. Asian-American population in the Twin Cities area, 199O. The AsianAmerican population includes Korean business and professional families, Chinese scholars and students at the University of Minnesota, families from the Philippines, Hmong from Indochina, Cambodians displaced by civil war, and Viet-
namese who found themselves on the losing side when the war in their country ended, along with many other immigrants and natives with origins in East, Southeast, and South Asia. Low-income Asian families concentrate in low-rent districts of inner Minneapolis and St. Paul and in student housing surrounding
the University of Minnesota, but much of the Asian-American population in the Twin Cities area forms part of the broad middle and upper-middle class and lives in all parts of the metro area. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
Asian and Hispanic Newcomers Within the racial minority population groups, the greatest growth has occurred in the Asian, Pacific Islander, and "other nonwhite" categories. In the 1970 census, about 5,000 persons of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino descent were identified as Asian-Americans in the Twin Cities area. Koreans, Pacific Islanders, and persons of non-Asian origin were grouped into a category labeled "other." The Asian population is composed of many diverse groups such as Korean business and professional families, Chinese scholars and students at the University of Minnesota, and white-collar and blue-collar families from the Philippines (fig. 27).
65
66
During the 1970s, following the end of the war in Vietnam, large numbers of people displaced by the war came to the Twin Cities. Their entry into the United States was facilitated by the Immigration Act of 1965, which abolished national-origins quotas, and the 1976 and 1978 immigration acts, which extended per-country immigration limits, replaced old quotas with numerical country ceilings that were equal across all Eastern Hemisphere countries, and extended refugee status to persons displaced by the war. As a consequence of these new laws, Asian populations in the Twin Cities rose to more than 24,000 in 1980 and to more than 65,000 in 1990. Refugees from Indochina belong to four distinct ethnic groups. The Hmong, a minority group from the mountains of Laos and Thailand, are by far the most numerous. The Khmer, a smaller group from Cambodia, were perhaps the most devastated during the war. Their entire society was torn apart, families destroyed, and community disintegrated. The smallest of the four groups is the Lao. They tend to be older, better educated, and more urbane. They have not clung together as tightly as have some of the other refugee groups but instead live in small, loosely organized clusters. The fourth group, the Vietnamese, were the earliest of the refugee groups to reach Minnesota. Their progress here most closely resembles that of nonrefugee Asian immigrants: high aspirations, high achievement, and economic success. The Vietnamese were more urban, affluent, and educated than their counterparts when they arrived; for the most part they were intellectuals and political and military personnel who found themselves on the losing side when the war in their country ended. A third of Minnesota's 40,000 refugees are Hmong, and one-fifth are Vietnamese. Local church congregations and social service agencies have spon-
FIGURE 28. Mt. Airy Homes public housing community, located a few blocks north of the capital east of Jackson Street in St. Paul. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
sored refugee families, providing food and clothing, housing, and job contacts until they are able to fend for themselves. Many Hmong had contact with Christian missionaries in Laos, while others are being actively missionized here. Many Twin Cities Asian-American residents are dispersed throughout the metro area and are part of the broad middle and upper-middle classes. Some lowincome Asian families concentrate in low-rent districts of inner Minneapolis and St. Paul and in student housing surrounding the University of Minnesota. The largest concentration of Indo-Chinese refugees is in St. Paul, where they constitute the fastest-growing minority group. New immigrants to the Twin Cities usually have no problem locating affordable housing; public and publicly assisted housing are available for those arriving with limited resources. The dual problems of immigrants who also are refugees and qualify for special help, however, are a growing concern for city officials. By 1990, 80 percent of St. Paul's public housing and 70 percent of Minneapolis's occupied public units were
home to Southeast Asians (fig. 28). Conflicts have arisen between Hmong and other public-housing residents due to differences in language and culture, and because of differing ideas about how many people should live in one household. Southeast Asians who have settled into private and rental housing have concentrated in the Phillips and Elliot Park neighborhoods in South Minneapolis, traditionally areas of low-cost housing, and in the Selby-Dale area west of the St. Paul Cathedral. These newcomers become more visible on the landscape as they become economically established. In the Capitol-University area of St. Paul, for example, there is an International Plaza of restaurants, grocery stores, and other small businesses, mostly Asian-owned. The project was started by a Vietnamese refugee who obtained a $1 million Urban Development Action Program grant to remodel an abandoned property. New immigrant-owned businesses are filling in along either side of the shopping plaza. Unemployment and underemployment rates among the Hmong have been high; most of them were peasant farmers in Laos. Efforts have been made to help the refugees turn the talents they already have into marketable job skills. Classes in industrial sewing and housekeeping have been offered for women. Cooperative farm plots have been given to the Hmong community where they can raise labor-intensive vegetables for sale. A few families have been relocated to rural farm co-ops, where they are being taught American farming methods. More recent Hmong refugees arriving in Minnesota will be better prepared for life in the United States as human services agencies develop programs in refugee camps to teach English and survival skills to waiting immigrants. Meanwhile, the struggle of the Hmong to enter the mainstream of American society received a
boost in 1991, with the first election of a Hmong citizen to a U.S. public office, a seat on the St. Paul School Board. The "other nonwhite" category also includes, among others, people who identified themselves as Hispanic. The Hispanic population is hard to measure consistently from one part of the United States to another and from one census to another, because the category includes people of widely varying origins. Also, census respondents often misunderstand census questions, and some Hispanics take steps to avoid being counted by the census. In 1970, the Census Bureau instructed a 15 percent sample of households to identify "persons of Spanish language" and a 5 percent sample to enumerate "persons of Spanish origin or descent." On the basis of the sample responses, the bureau estimated that almost 28,000 Twin Cities residents were "persons of Spanish origin or descent." Four out of five were estimated to live in Hennepin and Ramsey counties; St. Paul, with more than 7,000, reported the largest concentration (see table 6). In 1980, using questions addressed to all households, the Census Bureau identified about 23,000 persons "of Spanish/Hispanic origin or descent." However, on the question regarding race, more than 9,000 persons did not specify a race, and their race could not be inferred from their national origin. Most of these, the bureau believes, were Hispanic of mixed or unspecified race. The resulting total of persons of Hispanic origin may be somewhere between 23,000 and 30,000, but no one knows for sure. In 1990, the Census Bureau counted more than 37,000 persons of Spanish or Hispanic origin in the eleven-county Twin Cities area. Hennepin and Ramsey counties each accounted for about 14,000 of the total. Conspicuous concentrations appear in inner South Minneapolis and throughout the city of St. Paul (fig. 29). St.
67
Paul's Mexican and Hispanic neighborhoods emerged on the West Side when former Jewish residents abandoned it for better housing across the river along Selby Avenue west of downtown, and later in Highland Park southwest of downtown and the suburbs beyond (fig. 30). Now, however, the area is only about 20 percent Spanish and Hispanic. The remaining Twin Citians in this group are spread throughout the suburbs. Both Asians and Hispanics have claimed to be the fastest-growing minority group nationwide. Undercounting by the U.S. census of all minority groups is an important political problem, as resources and representation are allotted proportionally.
Religion in the Twin Cities
68
Catholics and Lutherans in Minnesota Any study of religion in the United States inevitably focuses on Catholicism and Lutheranism, the two largest nineteenth-century immigrant religions in a country formed of immigrants. Both the Lutheran and Catholic faiths were transported to the New World largely intact after initial settlement of the United States. Thus these faiths missed much of the frontier experience that so greatly modified other denominations. Lutheranism and Catholicism are called immigrant religions because their establishment and expansion in America were undertaken by the masses of European immigrants who landed here between 1825 and 1925. Both groups expected their faiths to remain the one unchanging bastion of their security throughout the trauma of immigration. Upon arriving in America, however, they discovered that certain accommodations would have to be made to the Anglo-Saxon Protestants who had already dominated life here for two centuries. Over the next century, both groups also had to concern themselves
FIGURE 29. Hispanic population in tho Twin Cities area, 199O. The largest group traces its origins to Mexico. Others originated in Central America and were dislocated by war, political perse-
cution, and economic hardship. Still other recent newcomers have arrived from Caribbean lands. Conspicuous concentrations appear in inner South Minneapolis and throughout the city
of St. Paul. The remaining are scattered throughout the suburbs. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
FIGURE 30. Torre de San Miguel Homes, a public housing community located just north of the intersection of Concord and Robert on St. Paul's West Side. PHOTO COURTESY OF WESTMINSTER CORPORATION.
primarily with serving the needs of their enormously diverse ethnic constituencies. Among those professing Catholicism were Irish, Germans, Poles, Italians, Slovaks, Croatians, Hispanics, French, and French Canadians, plus members of the smaller Eastern Rite groups—Ukranians, Lebanese, Ruthenians, and others. Each group had its own style of worship, traditions, and rituals, not to mention language. The Lutherans were only slightly less diverse, made up of Germans, Scandinavians, and smaller groups of Slovaks, Lithuanians, and Swiss. Since the immigrant era, Catholics in America have outnumbered Lutherans by five or six to one, with about 50 million Catholics and about 8 million Lutherans in total. This difference in number has contributed to Catholicism's larger presence in American life. Moreover, the Catholic church always has been doctrinally and administratively a unified entity, while Lutheranism has been partitioned along ethnic and doctrinal lines. Religious Character and Observance The social ethics of the two groups had a great influence on America's social development. Catholicism's premodern, precapitalist values, which questioned ambition, love of worldly goods, and pursuit of social status, had to be
adjusted to America's Calvinist ethic of hard work and social mobility. Catholic social teaching encouraged participation in worldly life in the form of mutual aid societies and labor unions. Lutheranism, in contrast, held a preindustrial, rural ethic of traditional social values and "social quietism"—keeping unto oneself—that delayed Lutherans' entry into the public problem-solving realm. Both denominations proved conservative on issues involving women, such as sexuality, birth control, and abortion.2 The religious character of the immigrant Catholic church embodied the intense piety of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century revivalists. In America this evolved into a Catholicism that was equally intense, centered on the local parish and the clergy, and that emphasized moral authority and guidance to parishioners. Modern Lutheranism also is a product of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century religious upheavals in Europe. Like Catholicism, Lutheranism was oriented to local parishes and practices, but engaged less in the outreach of moral authority and more in maintaining a pious and sober demeanor in the world. In sum it might be said that American Catholics and Lutherans were more like each other than like the American evangelical mainstream, to which they both were outsiders.3 A1983 study titled "Faith and Ferment" reported that half of the 2,000 Minnesotans surveyed went to church at least once a week.4 In analyzing the data, Martin Marty, professor of church history at the University of Chicago, concluded that Minnesota's Christians are divided into two main groups. One is conservative, evangelical, and somewhat distanced from the secular world, concentrating on the religious experience and on increasing church membership. The other, made up of mainline Protestants and liberal Catholics, expresses its faith through political and social involve-
69
ment, with less emphasis on conversion and more on giving the church a stronger impact on society. A 1987 Minnesota Poll grouped respondents into four categories of religious belief and activity.5 Almost half of those surveyed were "intense practicing believers" who hold an exceptionally strong faith, are almost all church members, and of whom four out of five attend church at least once per week. One-third responded as "cultural believers," with a less intense faith than the first group but with 71 percent church membership. The one in five who are "mystical believers" have a strong faith in the supernatural, including a God who intervenes in human affairs, but their church involvement is lower; two-thirds belong to a church and onethird attends at least weekly. Almost twice as many men as women registered as the 5 percent "marginal believers and non-believers," with almost no belief in a God and only rare church attendance. The poll revealed that, overall, the church plays an important part in the lives of many Minnesotans, with more than three-fourths attesting that churches and synagogues do help people to find meaning in their lives. Even the majority of the "non-believer" category joined in this chorus.6
70
Catholics The Twin Cities are the most important Catholic center in the Upper Midwest, as the Archdiocesan headquarters for Minnesota and parts of the Dakotas, and with a growing Roman Catholic population that will increase by 100,000 by the turn of the century (fig. 31). Minnesota has two major Catholic seminaries, the St. Paul Seminary and St. John's University in Collegeville; there are no others in the northern tier of states between Minnesota and the Pacific Coast. The traditionally conservative immigrant Catholic church in America has struggled throughout its lifetime to reconcile its pietism with the needs of its members to
FIGURE 31. Cathedral of St. Paul, located at the east end of Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Construction began in 19O6 during the episcopate of Archbishop John Ireland. The city took its name from the first church near Fort Snelling, a log chapel of St. Paul, built by Father Lucian Galtier in 1841. PHOTO COURTESY OF MSGR. AMBROSE HAYDEN AND CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL ARCHIVES.
participate in the secular world. The growing Catholic liberal movement, characterized since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) by lay involvement in church affairs and by liberalized social norms, has led the church to address vigorously several important contemporary issues. During the 1980s the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued pastoral letters—"white papers" addressed to America's 50 million Catholics— on nuclear disarmament, social justice and the economy, and AIDS. A sign of increasing lay involvement in the Catholic church is the 1983 opening to lay students
FIGURE 32. The Dayten Company's flagship department store, located at Seventh and Nicollet in downtown Minneapolis, decked out in celebration of twenty years of Norwegian independence, 1925. PHOTO BY NORTON AND PEEL, COURTESY OF THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
of graduate programs and enrichment courses at the St. Paul Seminary. Lutherans The Lutheran church has deep roots in Minnesota. Most of the nineteenth-century Scandinavian immigrants who landed here were Lutheran, and in total they founded several hundred Lutheran congregations from the early 1850s onward (fig. 32). The various national groups developed their own branches of Lutheranism, differentiated along doctrinal lines. The largest groups in the Midwest in the late nineteenth century were the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Free Church (Norwegian); the American Lutheran Church (German); the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish); the Swedish Augustana Synod; and the Suomi Synod (Finnish). The story of Lutherans in America has been a saga of gradually bringing together an array of congregations with different languages, traditions, and doctrines. After the peak era of immigration, these groups gradually loosened their ties to Europe and united into American synods. Over many years and with much struggle, they have slowly ironed out their differences and joined into larger, stronger, and more unified bodies. Throughout this struggle to unify America's Lutherans, Minnesota's church leaders have been at the forefront. In 1917, the explicit ethnic expression of the Lutheran church began to give way to Americanization when the Norwegian Lutheran Church, Swedish Augustana Synod, Lutheran Free Church, and United Danish Church joined to become the Church of the Lutheran Brethren. Then, in 1960, the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran and Lutheran Free churches, the old German ALC, and the Danish United Evangelical Church formed the rural, midwestern American Lutheran Church (ALC). In 1962, the Swedish, Finnish,
and other Danish synods created the urban, ecumenical Lutheran Church in America (LCA), and the Germans, Slovaks, Norwegian immigrants, and American blacks formed the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). A generation later, on January 4,1988, after years of negotiation and compromise, the LCA, ALC, and the American Evangelical Lutheran Church joined together to inaugurate the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), creating the fourth-largest Protestant denomination in the United States. The first presiding bishop of the Chicago-based ELCA and its first general secretary were Minnesota clergymen. Lutheran presence and leadership in Minnesota are centered partly in two excellent Lutheran colleges, and congregations in the Twin Cities are tied by origin and religion to these two institutions. In 1868, Swedes who immigrated to Minnesota founded Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter to promote the social mobility
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and assimilation of the second generation, while preserving traditional Swedish cultural and religious values. In 1874, the Norwegian immigrants who landed in America and found their way to Minnesota established St. Olaf College in Northfield (also the home of Carleton College). Both immigrant groups had been drawn not from the intelligentsia but from the ranks of farmers and tradespeople. Today, these two major colleges, along with several other small Lutheran colleges and seminaries throughout the state, provide continuity of both the high academic standards and the moral and religious heritage of Minnesota's strong Scandinavian Lutheran element. To maintain a strong local clergy and assure high standards for their training, the United Lutheran Church of America established Northwestern Seminary in Minneapolis, and the LCA established Luther Seminary in St. Paul. As part of the process of consolidating Lutheran organization in America, Northwestern Seminary moved to the Luther campus in 1967, and the two merged in 1982 (fig. 33). Among the array of Lutheran-sponsored social services is the ELCA-affiliated Ebenezer Society of Minneapolis. The Society operates four nursing homes for about 1,500 patients, provides housing for another 1,500 elderly persons, and provides a variety of community services to Twin Cities elderly. A tangible symbol of Lutheranism in the Twin Cities is Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis, whose 12,000 members rank it the largest Lutheran congregation in America and one of the largest in the world. The church was served for several decades by the renowned theologian the Reverend Reuben K. Youngdahl, whose brother was Minnesota governor Luther Youngdahl, and whose son Paul Youngdahl succeeded him as senior pastor.
FIGURE 33. Bockman Hall, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, located north of Como and east of Eustis Street, St. Paul. One of the nation's most important Lutheran seminaries and a symbol of the Lutheran presence in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. PHOTO COURTESY OF LUTHER NORTHWESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
Other Protestant Denominations Several of the Twin Cities' Protestant founders were Methodists, including the family of J. Paul Getty. The Twin Cities' first Methodist service was held in 1852, and the congregation eventually expanded and built the Wesley United Methodist Church, the first Methodist church built on the west side of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Among its members was once General George Custer. Other landmark churches that reflect the early Protestant denominations of Twin Cities founding families include the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mark, across from Loring Park, and Westminster Presbyterian Church on the Nicollet Mall, both in Minneapolis, and House of Hope Presbyterian Church on St. Paul's Summit Avenue. Minnesota also is home to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, a nonprofit religious corporation established in 1950. The organization is the biggest customer of the Minneapolis Post Office, sending out more than 100 million pieces of mail each year, including its Decision magazine, with a U.S. subscription of 3.5 million and foreign circulation of nearly half a million. Minnesota's fifteen largest nonprofit corporations all are hospitals or health care organizations, except for the Billy Graham organization, which ranks eleventh with 1990 revenues of nearly $82 million, over 94 percent of that from contributions. The Jewish Community7 The first Jewish settlers in Minnesota were German merchants who established businesses and residences in and around downtown St. Paul in the 1850s. In 1856, eight of these Jewish families in the Lowertown area established the first synagogue in the Midwest, Mt. Zion, an Orthodox temple which began its life in a third-floor meeting room. In Minneapolis, a similar story began in the late 1860s. German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Bohemian Jewish
families established shops and homes in and around downtown, mixing easily with German and other Northwest European settlers. In the 1870s, political and economic problems triggered outmigration of Jews from Eastern Europe, and Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Hungarian Jews came to the Twin Cities to become peddlers and merchants. German Jews already established in the cities were able to help these refugees with housing, food, and clothing until they could find jobs. In the 1880s, the stream of migrants swelled as renewed anti-Semitism in Europe created more refugees, and soon the Orthodox Eastern European Jews outnumbered the more progressive German Jews. While the Germans continued to help the newcomers get established, they distanced themselves from these less sophisticated Yiddish-speaking peasants. The permanent housing found for them was on the north side of downtown, far from the southside concentration of the earlier arrivals. Eastern European Jews continued to arrive through the early 1920sJ raising the Jewish population in Minnesota from 1,000 to between 30,000 and 40,000. Some continued westward to homestead in the Dakotas, and about 2,500 settled in small cities in northern Minnesota and in the southern Minnesota city of Rochester where the Mayo Clinic had been established, but most ended their journey in the Twin Cities. Dramatic differences in culture and language set these Orthodox Jews apart from the Northwest European mainstream, and discrimination kept them from assimilating easily. Minneapolis had few light industries requiring unskilled workers, as did, for example, the needle trades of New York, and many of the larger industries were closed to Jews. Many Jews became small merchants. The Jewish population alone was not large enough to support the many small enterprises
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that sprang up in their communities, so their clientele was drawn from the city at large, and they thrived. Discrimination was lodged more deeply in housing and employment than in trade, and for the many years that Jewish-owned businesses prospered, their owners were restricted from certain professions, from buying real estate in many areas, and from joining mainstream social, business, and service clubs. After World War I immigration tapered off. The second-generation Jewish community was striving to assimilate, on the one hand, and to establish a new identity for the American Jewish community in Minneapolis on the other hand. The upper-middle-class German Jewish community of the south side had followed its progressive tendencies and evolved into Reform congregations. The Shaarai Tov synagogue they had established in 1878 was soon renamed the more American-sounding Temple Israel, and migrated south and west of downtown along with its congregation to its current location at Twenty-third Street and Emerson Avenue South. The northside Eastern European community had established several schools and synagogues and was sorting itself out into those who wished to hold onto Orthodox traditions and those who wanted to leave the Old World behind to embrace Reform theology. Many northsiders aspired to levels of economic success that would admit them to Temple Israel, and as more families achieved that goal the barriers between the East and West European communities began to break down. The socioeconomic hierarchy of Minneapolis's Jewish community was marked not only by a family's particular synagogue affiliation, but by membership in the several social clubs that had been established by the Jewish community. Even after World War II the Athletic, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, and American Automobile clubs of Minneapolis were closed to Jews, and few if any
Jews were found in public office, corporate management, or banking. In response to the difficulties that Jewish physicians had in securing jobs in major hospitals, Minneapolis businessman J. Phillips began a drive in 1948 to raise funds to build Mt. Sinai Hospital at Chicago Avenue South and East Twenty-second Street, which employed Jewish staff but opened its doors to serve the entire community. A magazine writer visiting in 1946 suggested that Minneapolis could rightly be called "the capital of antiSemitism in the U.S."8 His observation was based on a historic residue that through the 1940s expressed itself in the local social dynamic in ways that were hard to miss. New England Yankee Protestants had settled the town and monopolized leadership of the most important industries, with just a few middle-class German Jews mingling peacefully among them. The Scandinavians who followed had little previous contact with Jews, and undertones of state Lutheranism were tucked into the religious culture that emigrated with them. Especially virulent were one or two Protestant clergy who preached anti-Semitism from the pulpit. Their myths born of ignorance were often worse than some longstanding antagonisms based on previous acquaintance. As time went on, the social altitude of Minneapolis's WASP elite kept them from concerning themselves with middle-class ethnic relations, while Jews were systematically excluded from social and service clubs, civic leadership, and political office. St. Paul, in contrast, had a diverse ethnic and religious population from its earliest days, including a large number of Germans with whom the early immigrant German Jews could easily fit in. Catholics and Protestants were more evenly represented, so religious tolerance was higher. As the cities matured, their residential patterns sorted themselves along class and ethnic lines, with the upwardly mobile scrambling to move outward from
downtown into bigger and better houses on larger lots, in better neighborhoods. The original West Side Jewish community in St. Paul edged westward along Selby Avenue and eventually onto Summit Avenue, building a new Mt. Zion Temple in 1903, then on toward the Mississippi River, finally crossing over to the suburb of Mendota Heights. The north- and southside communities of Minneapolis both moved westward as well, with the southsiders joining the upper-middle-class community around the city's lakes in the southwest, and with some eventually moving on into the suburb of St. Louis Park. The northsiders migrated west along the commercial strip of Plymouth Avenue, into the Homewood subdivision at the west edge of the city, and then on out into the suburbs of Golden Valley and St. Louis Park. The last of the Jewish-owned enterprises on Plymouth Avenue closed its doors and headed west after several blocks of businesses were burned during racial disturbances in the 1960s. Between 1957 and 1971, the city of Minneapolis lost 60 percent of its Jewish population. In contrast with other ethnic groups, large numbers migrated en masse to a couple of suburbs while the Jewish proportion of the area's population declined to under 2 percent. Near North Minneapolis, which had 38 percent of the area's Jewish population in 1957, lost 94 percent of its Jewish residents during that period. By 1971, more than three-fourths of the Minneapolis-area Jewish community lived in the suburbs, with 48 percent living in St. Louis Park, where 20 percent of the population was Jewish. Today the Twin Cities Jewish community numbers about 22,000 in Minneapolis and suburbs and about 9,500 in St. Paul and suburbs, with a total of about 34,000 in the state. A new immigration wave was triggered in the 1970s as 1,500 Soviet Jews emigrated to the Twin Cities. After the Iranian revolution, many
Iranian Jews fled Islamic persecution; Ethiopian Jews fleeing famine and political strife are the most recent arrivals. There are still three Orthodox Jewish congregations in the Twin Cities, including Adath Israel in St. Paul (on Edgecumbe Road in Highland Park) and Kenesseth Israel and Sharei Chesed, both in St. Louis Park. Mt. Zion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul and Temple Israel in Minneapolis are the largest of the Twin Cities Reform congregations, and there are smaller congregations of Reconstructionists, Conservatives, and Hasidim. The contrasting experiences of the Jewish communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have been the object of much speculation, but the consensus among historians attributes the differences to several factors. In St. Paul, German Jews were among the first settlers in a town whose predominant language was French, and which was home to a large contingent of Catholic settlers. The early Jewish settlers in St. Paul spoke German and were indistinguishable from other German immigrants, either by class or culture. Minneapolis, on the other hand, was founded by descendents of colonial Anglo-Saxon Protestant Puritans, was populated by Northwest European Protestants, and had far less religious and cultural diversity than did St. Paul when the mass arrivals of East European refugees escalated. The greater cultural and religious diversity and the early claim laid by the Jewish community in St. Paul created far less acrimony than Minneapolis experienced. Churches and Schools Residential neighborhoods grew up around job opportunities. In these neighborhoods, immigrant groups organized much of their life around churches and schools. Twin Cities church membership, descended primarily from Scandinavian and German origins, is overwhelmingly Lutheran or Roman
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Catholic. A controversy over public education developed in Twin Cities Lutheran circles during the nineteenth century, but the immigrant press and people generally supported the public schools and do so today. More than 40 percent of Twin Cities church members in the 1980s were Roman Catholic. They support an extensive system of territorial parishes serving all parts of the metro area. The United States was considered missionary territory by Rome until 1908. Church authorities in Rome and in the states responded to the threat of Protestantism and the risk of losing members by creating both territorial and personal parishes. Each diocese, including the St. Paul diocese containing the Twin Cities, was subdivided by the authority of the local bishop into nonoverlapping areal units called "territorial parishes." In addition, national or languagebased parishes were formally constituted without boundaries as "personal parishes" (Polish, Slovak, German, Lebanese) or resulted from the bishop formally recognizing the ethnic composition of the area served by a territorial parish (such as German parishes west of Minneapolis) by designating it a national parish and by assigning to it parish priests who were members of the ethnic group and who spoke the language. Personal parishes also were established in the black neighborhoods of the central cities—two in Minneapolis (St. Martin de Porres on Fifth Street and Bryant Avenue North, and St. Leonard of Port Maurice on Fortieth Street and Clinton Avenue South) and one in St. Paul (St. Peter Claver on Oxford Street, north of 1-94). A significant number of upwardly mobile black families, uncertain about the educational and social environments of the public schools and wanting something distinctive or more exclusive for their children, send them to parochial schools. Several Eastern Rite Catholic parishes and Orthodox parishes (Ukrainian, Byzantine, and Greek) were
established in Northeast Minneapolis by Eastern Rite Catholic and Orthodox bishops headquartered outside the area. In each type of Catholic parish—territorial, personal, national, or Eastern Rite—an elementary school and occasionally a secondary school were usually built for the parish children as an alternative to the essentially Protestant-oriented public school system. Besides the Catholic schools, about two dozen additional parochial elementary and secondary schools operate today in the Twin Cities, mainly under Baptist and Lutheran jurisdiction. Almost a third of all church members in the area are Lutheran. In traditionally Scandinavian middle-class South Minneapolis and the southern suburbs, a number of Lutheran parochial schools enroll fair numbers of students. A few private nondenominational academies operate without institutional support and enroll mainly children from upper income families. Patterns of parochial school attendance in the Twin Cities today tell us as much about class structure as about the local geography of religion. In 1989, about 65 percent of nonpublic enrollment was in Catholic parochial elementary schools. The largest and strongest of these thrive in middle- and upper-middle-class areas having substantial numbers of third- and fourth-generation Catholic families of Irish, German, and Austrian descent. In the Twin Cities this means the middle- and higher-income areas of South, Southwest, North, and Northeast Minneapolis and most of the west half of St. Paul and its eastern edge. During the 1980s, several Twin Cities Catholic parochial schools closed or merged, and enrollment declined by 6,000 pupils. Catholic parochial schools find it most difficult to survive in lower-income, black, and American Indian neighborhoods, even though a substantial fraction of Indians are baptized Catholics. These schools tend to be in the older areas of the city. New Catholic schools are
not being established in areas where demand might be greatest, as in the fastest-growing suburbs where school-age population is outgrowing classroom capacity.9
Housing and Neighborhoods From the time of initial settlement until today, Twin Cities population growth has been accompanied by a steady expansion in the local housing supply. In fact, the housing inventory has increased faster than population growth, a difference accelerated by the sharp decline in average household size in recent generations. Almost all nineteenth-century houses were constructed of wood, the cheapest and locally most abundant building material. After the usual series of major fires that swept through nineteenth-century midwestem cities, the cities established fire limits, zones around downtown within which only brick and stone buildings and fireproof roofs were permitted. Many of these sturdy structures have endured and remain in use today. Fires and the expansion of the downtowns removed most of the housing built before the 1880s. Pre-1890 housing in the Twin Cities was compactly clustered around the original employment and shopping cores. People and housing huddled within walking distance of downtown. But during the economic and population boom of the 1880s, the cities became increasingly congested. Reliance on walking, especially during winter, prevented the cities from sprawling outward. Upward expansion was impossible because before the 1880s no one knew how to build economical tall buildings that would support their own weight. Moreover, even if the buildings could be built, a limit of six stories or so existed on the number of flights of stairs a person could climb without tiring. Thus, one force pulled the cities inward, and another kept them low in profile.
Early Immigrant Niches Most midwestern cities have old immigrant neighborhoods; in the Twin Cities the earliest of these was St. Paul's Swede Hollow. The ravine of Phalen Creek, running from Lake Phalen to the Mississippi River, became a squatter settlement for hunters and trappers in the 1840s. As the land boom of the 1850s began, the rush of settlers chased off the game. As Swedish immigrants went to work in the nearby mills and breweries, they moved into the ravine, which became known as Swede Hollow. Eventually they vacated the shanties for better housing and made way for immigrant Italian railroad workers and for new Irish settlers, brought to the United States by Archbishop John Ireland and the Catholic Colonization Bureau of St. Paul to escape the potato famines. As these groups moved on, Mexican migrant workers arrived to harvest the sugar beets of the Red River Valley and wintered in this cheapest of neighborhoods. In 1956, the last families were moved out of Swede Hollow due to health concerns, and in 1974 the ravine was turned into Swede Hollow Park, to commemorate the immigrant heritage of all those who found shelter there. Minneapolis's first immigrant neighborhood also was Scandinavian. It was strung along Washington Avenue east of downtown, adjacent to the mills and rail yards where many of the new arrivals found work. This Scandinavian community migrated east along Washington Avenue toward the "Seven Corners" intersection with Cedar Avenue, and then around the bend southward to the corners of Cedar and Riverside. The Danish immigrants who arrived in the 1870s settled in a shantytown along the river flats, just below the bluffs where the university now stands. As the Danes moved up the hill to join other Scandinavians on "Snoose Boulevard," and Slovaks and Bohemians took their place, "Danish Flats," Minneapolis's version of Swede Hollow, soon
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became Little Lithuania, Connemara Patch, and finally Bohemian Flats. The Cedar-Riverside area today would be barely recognizable to its former residents. Riverfront development replaced the last of the houses on the river flats in 1963, and the concrete plazas and brick towers of the university's West Bank campus stand on the bluffs above. The Cedar-Riverside community surrounding the university has been an object of contention between long-time residents and urban redevelopers, and the conflicts between them have produced a mix of old—the original storefronts of the immigrant era—and new—a high-rise apartment complex, hotel, cooperative rental housing, and moderately priced owner-occupied townhouses.
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From Dinkytown to the Lakes Most university campuses have adjacent commercial districts. The University of Minnesota has Dinkytown, at the north edge of campus between University Avenue and Eighth Street Southeast, and stretching from Tenth to Seventeenth avenues southeast. The clientele of the district has changed with the times, from the well-dressed fraternity and sorority members of the pre-World War II era to the indigent philosophers of the 1950s, the poets and musicians of the 1960s, and the political protesters of the 1970s. Alumni remember Bob Dylan playing at the Scholar Coffeehouse, before corporate fast food invaded the village and the coffeehouses and bookshops migrated to the West Bank's Cedar Avenue. The origin of Dinkytown's name is not certain, but the legend most vehemently presented by a longtime shopkeeper is that the old University Theater, now called the Varsity Theater, was so small that students called it "The Dinky"— and thus "Dinkytown."10 The Kenwood neighborhood, tucked between Lake of the Isles and Cedar Lake southwest of downtown
Minneapolis, is the city's largest concentration of expensive homes, and was rediscovered following the suburbanization boom of the 1950s and 1960s as a desirable place to live because of its lakes, antique houses, and proximity to the city center. The area's homeowners are affluent but not always rich, and house prices since the early 1970s have driven tax assessments so high that many homeowners find the financial burden intolerable. The additional rub is that part of their tax dollars are used to maintain and improve the city's parks, which suburban dwellers use heavily for virtually no charge. At the southwest corner of downtown Minneapolis stand the low rolling hills and placid lake of Loring Park, an eighty-acre tract of greenery set aside in 1883 and originally named Central Park. Encircling the park today is an array of structures that embodies the city's history, from turn-of-the-century mansions to modern townhouses and high-rise condominiums of the new urban upper-middle class (fig. 34). For a time, the park area declined as the suburbs boomed, and middle- and lower-income renters shared the area with indigents. But as life in the central city once again attracted the well-to-do, more than two thousand new luxury tower and townhouse units were constructed at the northeast edge of the park, giving it once again the cachet of desirability of an earlier time. As the upper middle class returned to the city to live and to work, they brought their social values with them, and so the days of the winos, panhandlers, drug dealers, and prostitutes of Hennepin Avenue's Block E were numbered. Block E, the stretch of Hennepin Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets, was for two decades the sleaze entertainment strip of the city and the bane of city planners' existence. Upscale developments during the 1980s surrounded Block E and isolated it in a sea of shops, bars, and restaurants, but beau-
FIGURE 34. Open space at the southwest edge of downtown Minneapolis at Loring Park. Recently built condominiums near the south end of the Nicollet Mall rise above the trees. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
tification plans for the block were long thwarted by an absence of bidders with viable proposals for redevelopment that would justify tax increment financing. In 1988, the city bought the block for more than $9 million and razed most of it to make way for more acceptable businesses. Razing Block E put some of the undesirable enterprises out of business and scattered the rest. As for planners' visions of a new middle-class entertainment complex arising in their place, visitors swarming downtown for the 1992 Superbowl took no special notice of Block E because it was just another parking lot. St. Paul grew up with a working-class identity and, although every city's character changes over time, St. Paul's blue-collar image has persisted. Census data testify to the city's evolution into a middle-class enclave since the mid-1960s. A 1983 statistical profile of seventeen St. Paul neighborhoods revealed that only five of these were predominantly blue-collar, with the highest concentrations in the Dayton's Bluff and Thomas-Dale areas. Some of the study's other findings were predictable; for example, the upscale Summit Hill area showed the highest percentage of people in the work force, white-collar workers, and women workers. The Como neighborhood, with its hills, trees, parks, and single-family homes, had the highest proportion of owneroccupied houses and the fewest poor people, while downtown had the most renters, and the adjacent Thomas-Dale and Summit-University areas had the highest percentages of poor people. The downtown, West Seventh Street, Thomas-Dale, and Como areas showed the lowest proportion of women in the work force, the first three because of relatively high overall unemployment rates, and Como because of its large proportions of nuclear families and students. The affluent St. Anthony Park neighborhood, adjacent to Hamline University and the University of Minnesota's St. Paul
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campus, had the highest proportion of college graduates. White Bear Lake has been to St. Paul what Lake Minnetonka has been to Minneapolis: an end-of-the-rail line summer resort in the latter nineteenth century, a breeding ground for enclaves of wealthy corporate executives and old-money dynasties, and the site of a stable, modest, and unassuming small city. Mark Twain attested that it was the resort town of the Twin Cities, and it gained a national reputation as a respite for the "pulmonary brigade" seeking an environmental cure for their respiratory ailments. Today the resort hotels are gone, but the town of White Bear Lake is much as it was—a quiet commercial district filled with specialty shops, recreational businesses, and the offices and industries of any working city.11
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The Streetcar System and Residential Expansion Major cities that grew rapidly during the late nineteenth century had only one significant means of dispersing houses and people, and then only for the privileged classes—the railroad suburbs of the sort found around very large cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Chicago. Other fast-growing cities accommodated their pre-1880 growth by squeezing the poor and working classes into tight quarters, with block after block featuring population densities that sometimes reached several hundred people per acre. Two important inventions of the 1880s removed the constraints preventing the expansion of cities and encouraged lower-density residential development. One was the construction of steel- and metal-frame buildings, beginning with the Chicago skyscrapers in the mid-1880s, which demonstrated how cities could expand upward. The other was electrification of the horsecar lines and steam-propelled street railroads, which produced the electric streetcar, permitting out-
FIGURE 35. Expansion of the electric streetcar system in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Population led, then followed, extensions off the streetcar lines, which were the principal means of opening up new areas for residential development between the I88Os and the 192Os. South Minneapolis and western St. Paul were far better served than other districts off the cities. BASED ON SCHMID 1937, CHART 31.
ward dispersal of the city and enabling working-class people to live outside the congestion and still move quickly and cheaply to work and shopping. The new housing during the electric streetcar era was built in neighborhoods reached by streetcar lines. Most streetcar lines in Minneapolis were built to serve the south side, reinforcing growth in that sector of town, especially into the southwest Lake District. In St. Paul, the first streetcar lines ran west and north of downtown, setting the future course of residential growth. By 1905, the cities' limits had almost reached their present extent (fig. 35). The transit systems of the two cities merged on Como and on University avenues in St. Paul's Midway District, setting the stage for that area's rise in the 1920s as a major zone of manufacturing and goods handling, close to the railroads of both cities, with plenty of flat vacant land, and easy for workers to reach by streetcar from either city. The outstanding growth of the Twin Cities during the 1870s and 1880s nurtured such extravagant expectations on the part of the streetcar company owners that they eventually overbuilt the network. Perhaps taking a cue from railroad magnate James J. Hill, who had made a fortune on land grants, the streetcar companies under the management of Colonel William S. King and Thomas Lowry also entered the land business. Any land served by the streetcar could be developed for residential use, while transfer points between lines formed ideal commercial locations. Lowry was a young lawyer who made a fast fortune in land development during the 1870s. Among his more visible developments were the Groveland Addition, where Dunwoody Institute and Parade Stadium now stand, and the site of his own home on Lowry Hill, where the Guthrie Theater and Walker Art Center were built. The less visible of Lowrys accomplishments can be seen in the Twin Cities landscape today. In 1878,
he acquired the Minneapolis Street Railway Company from the bankrupt Colonel King, and over the course of the 1880s and 1890s expanded the renamed Twin City Rapid Transit Company into 368 miles of track serving the entire metro area. The company built its own streetcars, generated its own electricity in a power plant beneath the Third Avenue bridge, and was the area's largest employer. The extension of the streetcar lines opened up vast stretches of suburban land and was largely responsible for the low-density development of Twin Cities residential areas. When urban growth fell short of expectations, the surplus land was eventually absorbed by platting large lots, producing some of the lowest residential densities found among midwestern cities. St. Paul streetcar lines reached South St. Paul and the stockyards, Stillwater on the St. Croix River, North St. Paul, and Wildwood Park on fashionable White Bear Lake. Minneapolis lines reached out to the towns of Robbinsdale, St. Louis Park, and Hopkins, and to the streetcar suburbs and resort areas on the north (Wayzata) and south (Excelsior) sides of Lake Minnetonka. Trolley lines also connected with interurban lines to Hastings and Anoka. Like streetcar entrepreneurs in other cities, Lowry built amusement parks at the ends of the out-of-town lines to keep people riding on holidays and weekends. Lowry's streetcar system even extended onto Lake Minnetonka, with steam-powered "streetcar boats" built in Twin City Rapid Transit's Thirty-first Street and Nicollet Avenue shop during the winter of 1905-1906. The boats crisscrossed the lake, serving the small resort towns and summer homes and cottages of city residents. The boat rides were a great attraction for summer entertainment, and for showing off the lake to visitors. Wildwood Park north of St. Paul and Excelsior Park built in the 1920s on Lake Minnetonka were easi-
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ly reached from either city and pulled a disproportionate amount of residential construction in these directions. In 1954, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company converted to motor bus operation, and what had generally been regarded as one of the finest streetcar systems in the country was lost. Nostalgia for the days of the streetcar led enthusiasts in 1962 to create the Minnesota Transportation Museum. The 120 volunteers involved restored the last remaining streetcar and one mile of track between Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet, and offer rides during the summer months. The museum has also restored rail steam engines and trolleys, as well as the old Milwaukee Road depot in Minnehaha Park. National and local housing construction rates alternately waxed and waned with business and immigration cycles. In good times, such as the years after 1900 and before World War I, incomes rose, immigration increased, and the housing industry boomed. Periods of war and economic recession cut the demand for and supply of new housing almost to zero. During each building era, the volume of residential construction and the densities permitted by the prevailing urban transportation system controlled the amounts of land devoted to residences in the Twin Cities. Around the downtowns today mere traces remain of housing from the walking and horse era (pre1890). Downtown expansion and urban renewal destroyed the rest. The streetcar period produced finger-shaped extensions of residential areas because it was easy to build outward along the lines but hard to expand between them (fig. 36). In the 1920s and 1930s, when automobiles made it possible to move easily in every direction, a filling-in process yielded a circularshaped city once again. Then in the postwar period, highways fanning out from the cities encouraged subur-
FIGURE 36. Average year off housing construction in different areas of the Twin Cities in 196O. Patterns reflect steady outward growth at ever lower densities.
By 197O, first- and second-tier suburbs were filling in and a third tier was developing. Patches of urban renewal near downtown St. Paul mean substantial
numbers of newer houses in those zones. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1960 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
FIGURE 37. Mobile homes in the Twin Cities, 199O. Although mobile homes offer a lowcost housing alternative, many Twin Cities municipalities, including Minneapolis and St. Paul and most of the western
suburbs, discourage them or ban them outright as a land use that generates more local government cost than is covered by taxes paid, since mobile homes do not pay conventional real estate taxes.
DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
ban development at the built-up margins or leap-frog development beyond. Each concentric addition to the housing stock captured the architectural styles and consumer tastes of that particular building era. The boundaries between the tree-ring-like increments show up clearly. Troughs in the housing supply profile were sharp and their consequences endure. Every time the nation emerged from a serious depression or war, the cities seemed eager to adopt new housing styles. In a boom period like the 1920s, duplexes were the rage. Real estate was a bull market, with amateur and professional investors alike seeking quick riches by buying a duplex, renting half to pay for the building, and living in the other half. This scheme worked well until too many people got into the act and owners found themselves unable to meet their contract-for-deed obligations. Yet despite the bankruptcies and shattered hopes, the houses remain. Most of the finest duplexes in the Twin Cities are monuments to the unflappable optimism of the middle 1920s. In housing construction, when a new product enters the market successfully, developers and builders are quick to imitate the innovation repeatedly until a bankruptcy or a depression suggests it is time to stop. Coming out of the Depression, for example, developers built only single-family houses. Duplexes and apartment houses had led to so many foreclosures during the late 1920s and 1930s that builders stuck to singles in the late 1930s and after 1945. During the chronic postwar housing shortage, houses could even be sold as basements with roofs before the rest of the house was finished. The builders assumed no one wanted anything but singles, if they thought about it at all. In the mid-1960s, a few venturesome developers began building row houses and apartment houses in Twin Cities suburbs and discovered a strong market for them. This local experiment was part of a nationwide
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trend toward greater balance in the mix of new housing styles encouraged by success in Reston, Virginia, and Columbia, Maryland, and closer attention to household composition and tastes. Widespread interest in mobile homes is another feature of the current housing scene (fig. 37). There are more than 20,000 mobile homes in the eleven-county Twin Cities area, with almost half of them clustered in the suburbs north and northwest of St. Paul.
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Shopping Districts and Urban Transportation Every urban transportation era modified existing shopping districts and prompted the development of new ones. In the walking and horsecar era before 1890, almost all commercial activities concentrated in the downtown cores. When streetcar tracks branched out in all directions, outlying commercial districts sprang up. Centers featuring small department stores, doctor and dentist offices, and a wide variety of other occasional goods and services developed at the intersections of streetcar lines. Smaller clusters of stores prospered at transit stops by supplying groceries, meat, bakery goods, Pharmaceuticals, and other everyday goods and services. Mom-and-pop stores at corners and mid-block locations between streetcar lines sold bread and milk to residential areas. In parts of the cities built up after 1920 during the era of the recreational automobile, shopping districts grew up on bus and streetcar lines but made provisions for car parking. Shopping districts also appeared beyond the lines at the intersections of major streets. By 1940, suburban shopping centers oriented toward the automobile were being planned. During the post-World War II housing boom that accompanied the freeway auto era, car-oriented shopping centers of every size and description appeared at intersections of suburban roads and highways. Develop-
ers borrowed from the streetcar era the idea of locating stores and shopping centers at traffic intersections and in strips along well-traveled streets, reasoning that if such locations had prospered before 1920, similar locations farther out should work just as well. But the congestion and clutter of the first-tier suburban shopping center intersections of the early 1950s caused some unanticipated problems. Pedestrians could move around transit intersections more easily than cars can negotiate highway intersections—and pedestrians require no parking. So the second generation of postwar shopping centers were placed away from busy intersections and provided with ample parking. Currently, most of the stores along transit lines are steadily going out of business. The exceptions are found along strips serving stable and relatively prosperous working-class areas (such as Central Avenue northeast), or upper-middle-class areas located in migration and transportation culs-de-sac (Grand Avenue in St. Paul; Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis). In most other
FIGURE 38. Commercial deterioration on Lower Broadway, North Minneapolis. Marginal storefronts and the businesses they house are casualties of diminished neighborhood purchasing power as better-off residents move to more desirable neighborhoods, while the modest purchasing power remaining increasingly supports modern discount stores offering a wider array of merchandise at lower prices. A new shopping center with a Target store anchor operates a few blocks east on Broadway. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
central-city neighborhoods the populations are sparser, poorer, and more mobile than they were fifty years ago. As people move outward they take their business to newer shopping centers and malls. Those who remain are usually poorer than those who moved away. Sometimes the newcomers bring different tastes, such as when blacks replaced the Jewish families along Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis or along Selby Avenue west of downtown St. Paul. But even the lowincome households often have cars or use taxis to carry them to larger stores and lower prices in nearby suburban shopping centers. As retailers, dentists, doctors, and movie houses abandon the old streetcar trunk lines—Nicollet, Broadway, Central, Lake, and Hennepin in Minneapolis; Seventh, Grand, Selby, University, Snelling, and Rice in St. Paul—the space is converted to general office uses such as insurance and real estate or to specialty goods and services such as carpet and reupholstery shops, television and electronics sales and service, pizza shops, second-hand stores, and the like (fig. 38). In subtle but forceful ways, new housing added on the edge draws upper-income families outward and erodes the support base for central-city retailers. Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, in contrast with other large American cities, have been holding their own in retailing, but the suburban shopping centers are booming. The leading suburban shopping center developer, Dayton Hudson Corporation, also operates the leading department store in each downtown. In 1958, suburban stores had only 20 percent of total Twin Cities area retail trade, but by 1982 that share had reached almost 75 percent. Total Hennepin County suburban sales exploded from $318 million in 1958 to more than $4 billion by 1982.
Open Space for the Twin Cities The Twin Cities metropolitan area, according to a study done in the late 1960s by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, had the highest overall opportunities for participation in outdoor recreation of any metropolitan area in the country. There are two principal reasons. First, the summer is reasonable—not too hot for outdoor activities—and the winter's continuous snow cover encourages winter sports. Second, the Twin Cities have a large amount of open space available for public use. Within the suburban areas there is a system of regional parks and a large number of lakes that are public open space. For weekend recreation beyond one hour's drive from the cities there are thousands of lakes and more than 10 million acres of public land. Minnesota is the third largest landowner in the United States, following only the federal government and the state of Alaska. A Heritage of Open Space New England pioneers who built the Twin Cities region brought with them a serious concern for open space preservation. Most notably, Horace W. S. Cleveland, a gifted and original landscape architect, came to St. Paul from New England in 1872 bent on nurturing beauty in nature. He presented to the city council an imaginative plan for parks at Lakes Como and Phalen, at that time far distant from the residential centers of St. Paul. He advocated a high and commanding hill for state buildings, a splendid avenue between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and generous boulevards along the Mississippi River, which flows through both cities. Cleveland correctly anticipated that future growth would make the cities physically one, scorning "artificial decorating" and advocating a permanent "heritage of beauty." St. Paul was slow to respond, but did acquire Como Park in 1873 over the
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opposition of shortsighted aldermen who labeled the park a playground for the rich who had carriages to get to it. Minneapolis was no less lethargic at first, but when Charles M. Loring, another Maine native, became president of the newly created Board of Park Commissioners in 1883, he immediately engaged Cleveland as an aide and adviser and in two years the city purchased ten major pieces of land for parks. The board acquired the area around Minnehaha Falls and designed and constructed scenic Minnehaha Parkway linking the falls and the Minneapolis lakes. It also acquired wide strips of land around the city's five largest lakes and worked with development interests to dredge a swamp to create Lake of the Isles. Cleveland's vision was to create a city that was "itself such a work of art as may be a fitting abode of a race of men and women whose lives are devoted to a nobler end than money getting, and whose efforts shall be inspired and sustained by the grandeur and beauty of the scenes in which their lives are passed."12 The natural focus of the parkway system was the Chain of Lakes, along the city's western edge, left behind when the retreat of the last glaciers filled the mouth of the Mississippi River with sediment, diverting it from its path to a new one of less resistance. Theodore Wirth, serving as the first full-time park commissioner for the city, oversaw most of the design and shaping of the park system during his term from 1905 to 1935. Wirth's goal was to give the parks to the people to use and enjoy, and to overcome the "keep off the grass" atmosphere of nineteenth-century urban open space. Minneapolis's largest park was named for this pioneer, whose ideas became popular across the nation. He was helped by a city charter that gave taxing authority and virtual autonomy to an elected park board, the same arrangement that existed for the school board and the
library board. Other functions were left to general city government. The lakes were drained and dredged and shaped to take on individual personalities over the years. Lake Calhoun was named for John Caldwell Calhoun, who was secretary of war under President Monroe and who in 1819 ordered Lt. Col. Levenworth to establish a garrison at Fort Snelling. Today it is the most accessible of the lakes, with year-round recreation and a major share of the Minneapolis Aquatennial's festivities. Lake Harriet was named for Lt. Col. Levenworth's wife, Harriet Lovejoy, and has been managed to retain a natural lakeshore, drawing urban wildlife of all kinds. A bandstand has stood at the northwest shore of the lake since 1886, where summer concerts draw a citywide audience (fig. 39). The smaller Cedar Lake, named for the surrounding cedar trees, borders the south edge of Wirth Park in a mostly residential setting. Lake of the Isles is the most picturesque lake in the chain with its irregular shape and small inlets and channels. The lake stretches through the heart of Kenwood, the city's most affluent neighborhood. Today the Minneapolis park system holds 15 percent of the city's land, encompassing 38 miles of bikeways and 39 miles of footpaths within the 76-mile Grand Rounds, an elaborate parkway system encircling the lakes on the perimeter of three sides of the city. Many of the city's most expensive houses were built within a block or two of the lakes, particularly those to the southwest and along the Grand Rounds. Most important, these parks (Minnehaha, NokomisHiawatha, Wirth, Central Riverfront, and Chain of Lakes) are within the city of Minneapolis, as are four regional trails (Memorial Parkway, Minnehaha, Mississippi Lower Gorge Trails, and North Mississippi River Trail).
FIGURE 39. Band shell on the northwest shore of Lake Harriet, Southwest Minneapolis. One off the most heavily frequented of the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes, nightly band concerts draw large crowds from city and suburb, augmenting groups who come to walk, jog, canoe, fish, skate, bike, picnic, or just sit. PHOTO BY NANCY CONROY, COURTESY OF MINNEAPOLIS PARK AND RECREATION BOARD.
Open Space Planning and Management In keeping with Minnesota's tradition of preserving and protecting natural open space from development, the Minnesota legislature in 1976 passed the Metro Parks and Open Space Commission Act, creating eight regional park districts and directing each to secure and develop suitable parkland, in accordance with the commission's metrowide plan. The Metropolitan Council grants each implementing agency (the special park districts, counties, or cities) the funds needed to comply with the act.
The Metropolitan Council and the State of Minnesota finance acquisition and development of regional parkland and improvement of existing parks. Administration of the system remains with a Metropolitan Council agency (in cooperation with cities and counties), and taxes levied in the special park districts bypass county government coffers. Most of the large open-space areas in the suburbs are county parks. Few suburban communities have done an adequate job of preserving open space or providing public park space around lakes in the Minneapo-
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lis-St. Paul tradition, probably because they are too shortsighted or too small to do it. The largest suburban park system is maintained by the Hennepin County Park Reserve District. This system contains 25,000 acres of land, almost all of it in thirteen large parks. The county follows the policy goal developed by the Metropolitan Council, to keep 80 percent of regional park reserves in a natural state and to develop the remaining 20 percent for day recreational use. No other metropolitan counties in the Twin Cities have park systems that compare with the Hennepin system. There are more regional parks in the western suburbs than east of St. Paul because of availability of land and present and projected demand, and the system continues to expand. The metropolitan regional park system extends into Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Carver, Wright, and Anoka counties. These parks and trails are meant for regionwide use and are owned and operated cooperatively by counties, special park districts, and cities. The system includes twenty-nine parks, ten park reserves, and four regional trail corridors.13 Ramsey County maintains 5,700 acres as regional parks and trail corridors, county parks, protected open space, and special facilities. The Twin Cities metropolitan area has done a splendid job during the past three decades of reserving land for parks before it could be overrun by urban development. But the time has come to begin developing the connecting trails to create a genuine regional park system. Such a network of trails would offer new recreational opportunities for area residents and would make the regional parks more accessible and enjoyable for more people. When several government jurisdictions overlap at a single location, there is inevitably conflict, and park development has generated its fair share. In the mid-1980s, the Hennepin Parks Board began to eye a park site on Lake Minnetonka, but the City of Min-
netrista, whose jurisdiction took precedence, resisted the proposal because it viewed the land as valuable for development and for tax base. The Parks Board, with the backing of the Metropolitan Council, sought power from the state legislature to expropriate the land. The board was allowed to condemn and acquire the property, despite a court challenge by the city. As with school desegregation, management of area parks presents a challenge to the Twin Cities tradition of metrowide cooperation for the long-term benefit of all. Besides acquiring and developing new open space, city and county park systems must maintain the health of lakes and trees. Continued urban expansion alters surface water conditions by decreasing the permeability of the ground surface and increasing the rate of runoff. The spring-fed lakes currently are of higher quality than the runoff. This contrast presents a serious water management problem for a region that leans heavily on its lakes and streams. The runoff water carries loads of pesticides, fertilizers, petroleum, heavy metals, construction debris, glass, salt, sulfur dioxide, and hydrocarbons. Diverting the runoff to keep contamination out of the lakes requires the pumping of Mississippi River water from above the city into the Chain of Lakes to maintain their water levels during spells of dry weather. While pollution threatens the water, disease threatens many of the region's trees. More than a million stately American elms that once lined the boulevards and graced the houses of the Minneapolis and St. Paul area will die over the next thirty to fifty years of Dutch elm disease, which is carried by beetles that nest in the dead branches of live trees. In Minneapolis, most of the boulevard trees came from the park board nursery, so they shared the same American elm genetic lineage. Once planted, root grafting speeded the spread of the disease. Annual public and private losses peaked at
32,000 trees in 1977. There are about 200,000 now, 60 percent publicly owned, with annual losses running between 3,000 and 4,000 per year. On the other hand, since 1964 Minneapolis has planted 160,000 new trees—more than were lost. The Park Board tries to replace 2 to 3 percent of its elms with different species each year as they remove dead, diseased, and damaged trees from public property. St. Paul has about 120,000 city trees and removes 700 to 1,000 per year. The suburbs, for the most part, do not have boulevards along their streets and therefore have few publicly owned trees. Diseased trees on private property receive much less conscientious attention, but they slowly are being replaced. A new malady appeared in the early 1990s to attack ash trees—some of them replacing the elms—but it is not expected to have as great an impact as Dutch elm. St. Paul and suburban areas face the same problem of Dutch elm disease, but by the end of the 1980s had not responded fast enough to slow the spread of the disease. Similar blights threaten red oaks and certain species of maple. The diseases spread fastest through heavy concentrations of a single species, so upperincome areas with a rich variety of trees are best protected, while lower-income areas with mainly elm trees for shade and decoration are denuded first and most completely. There is an extensive and fast-growing private open-space system in the suburban areas. Private golf courses are the most obvious part of this private open space. Corporations such as Honeywell and 3M have built large corporate parks. There are now many apartment and townhouse developments that set aside open space owned in common by residents. They also have swimming pools, ponds, garden plots, tennis courts, and picnic areas. The largest of these developments contain
private open-space areas as extensive as many large public parks. Most open space available for public use lies to the north of the Twin Cities in the forested part of Minnesota. About two-thirds of this forested land is in public ownership. In this forest zone, most recreational use takes place on lakeshores and to a lesser extent in managed public areas such as Itasca State Park, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and Voyageurs National Park. Lakeshore cabins account for 42 percent of all the person-nights spent in weekend recreation accommodations. This is twice as high as the resort percentage and five times as high as the camping percentage. The heaviest concentration of lakeshore cabins is in the Brainerd area. Here the northern pine forests and lakes lie closest to the Twin Cities. The total cabin development in this area forms the third largest built-up area in the state, exceeded only by the Twin Cities and Duluth. Although commercial, industrial, and office activities support the Twin Cities economically, most Twin Cities land area is devoted to residential uses. These neighborhoods are a different kind of resource. They contribute to the tax base, but more important, they draw and hold human capital to the economic life of the cities. A rich endowment of natural amenities strengthens that attraction, as does the quality of many other aspects of Twin Cities life. Sustained attention must be paid to the quality of residential areas if the Twin Cities metro area is to continue to stand out as an inviting place to live.
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IN EACH ERA of Twin Cities economic expansion and city building, the local transport network defined the extent of the local land market, and vacant land prices within that market regulated the densities at which housing was built. When movement was difficult and prices high in early days, high development densities resulted. New transport technologies like the streetcar and eventually the automobile brought easier movement outward, large new inventories of buildable land for housing, lower land prices, and lower housing densities.
Transit Development and Population Distribution
90
The early streetcar company, in a flush of optimism about local growth prospects, built streetcar systems for cities much larger than those that eventually appeared and in so doing inaugurated the local tradition of lowdensity residential development. After 1920, increasingly widespread ownership of cars and the availability of easily developable land on every side of the built-up area promoted suburban growth in many directions. Large lakes, bays, an ocean, or a wide river would have confined residential expansion to fewer places and kept the Twin Cities from becoming the nineteenth lowestdensity metropolitan area of the twenty million-plus metro areas in the United States in 1960. Since then, densities have gone even lower. The lethargic streetcar system never recovered from its post-World War II slump. Although it began upgrading its rolling stock after 1950 and then complet-
ed a scandal-plagued conversion to buses in 1954, it catered mainly to captive ridership, neither promoting its services nor trying to compete with the car. Finally, in 1967, the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) was created by joint agreement of many cities and was confirmed by the legislature, which subjected commission plans to the approval of the Metropolitan Council. The MTC immediately began a long-range transit development program, starting with the 1970 acquisition of the faltering Twin City Rapid Transit Company and aiming toward an elaborate "family of vehicles" transit system, built around proposed fixed-guideway, high-capacity rail transit lines between major centers. Critics of those early MTC plans argued that the sprawling multicentered Twin Cities need no high capacity lines—especially between the centers. Freeway buses between the downtowns work well, and highcapacity rail systems cannot provide block-to-block service to low-density areas as buses do. As the argument continues, the Twin Cities area retains its title as the metropolitan area that has spent the most money on transit development research without building anything new. All of that may change, however, as Hennepin County—under pressure from rail buffs, impatient editorial writers, real estate speculators, equipment suppliers, ambitious politicians, bond underwriters, and transit planners and managers eager to join the exclusive club of rail transit operators—makes plans for a small "light rail" or streetcar system for the county. The demand or need for such a system has yet to be convincingly demonstrated, especially since public subsidies
4
Postwar Suburban Growth and Consequences for the Central Cities
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per ride are projected into the indefinite future at about two dollars on top of every dollar of fare collected. Despite the costly lessons from other cities, the light rail transit drama continues to unfold while boosters cheer and frustrated background choruses wail about monies and energies diverted from more urgent but less glamorous public agendas like groundwater quality, child welfare, and education. Innovative ideas like aligning elementary and secondary school attendance areas with transit routes and allowing school children to ride free to and from school, thereby teaching them to use bus transit while releasing school busing monies for educational needs, are seldom, if ever, publicly discussed. Yet as talks proceed about ways to merge central city and suburban public school programs, important transport questions arise that should bring school planners and transit planners together. It remains to be seen whether elected county and school district leadership in the Twin Cities area will rise to the challenge. In the long run, thoughtful and vigorous transit controversy serves the area well. The stakes are extraordinarily high. The one-hundred-mile Washington, B.C., subway system will cost more than $10 billion, or upwards of $100 million per mile. The annual interest alone on such an investment runs between $600 million (in good times) and $800 million. Operating subsidies must be added to these costs. In contrast, the 1989 operating revenues of the Metropolitan Transit Commission were $33 million, with an operating loss of $85 million, covered mainly by operating subsidies of $73 million on total assets of almost $200 million. The MTC provides 95 percent of Twin Cities transit services and manages the largest all-bus system in the United States. The MTC's primary concern is public bus service, but in recent years other specialized services have been developed to meet user needs and to
cooperate with metrowide transportation planning. The commission coordinates the Minnesota Rideshare program, a computerized service that matches riders with carpools and vanpools, mainly for daily trips to and from work. Transit pools are given incentives of special freeway lanes and discounted downtown parking. The Metro Mobility system, which provides transportation tailored to the needs of the area's disabled citizens, is also administered by the MTC. In addition, access to route and schedule information has been improved, express routes connect many neighborhoods with the downtowns and the university, and logistical management has been automated to keep costs down and efficiency and rider satisfaction up. Alternative forms of service are being tested on undersubscribed routes. By 1991, for example, a few suburban routes were served by minibuses in Anoka, Roseville, and between Bloomington and Edina. These call-for-service buses require only about one-third of the government subsidy of fullsize MTC buses running on regularly scheduled routes. Metro bus ridership in 1991 fell to a twenty-year low of 64.9 million, losing passengers because of insufficient suburb-to-suburb service, increased fares, and changing attitudes. The MTC continues to upgrade its equipment and service to attract new riders and reclaim former users. The fleet of more than 950 buses averaged 4.4 years of age in 1990, compared with 15 years of age when public ownership began in 1970. A major effort to replace or refurbish the oldest equipment began in 1986. The buses serve 1,409 miles of routes (counting multiple routes once), up from 521 miles at the time of acquisition. In addition, the Metropolitan Council and the Regional Transit Board (created by the state legislature in 1984 to coordinate transportation services in the metro area) may add more frequent suburban service, better security, special freeway lanes and ramp bypass-
The result has been a slow but steady westward movement of the region's population center. A generation ago the center of gravity of the metro area's population lay just inside Minneapolis between the two downtowns. Today the population center has drifted to just southeast of downtown Minneapolis (fig. 40). In contrast to the geographical good fortune of Minneapolis, the centers of the St. Louis and Detroit metropolitan areas have migrated steadily away from their city centers, leaving their downtowns increasingly remote from the people they should serve. In the Twin Cities, downtown Minneapolis remains close to the center of the area's population. Some of the area's most desirable residential neighborhoods—once at the edge of the built-up area—increasingly enjoy a position at the geographical center of the metropolitan area. Air travelers to the Twin Cities remark on the unexpectedly large and busy Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Upon reaching downtown Minneapolis, where they often go first (unless they stop along the strip of hotels west of the airport on 1-494), FIGURE 40. Twin Cities es for buses, park and ride lots, and improved route they express surprise that the central business district population center patterns. (CBD) is not larger, forgetting that another city of simiof gravity, 194O9O. The center has lar size, with its own vigorous downtown, lies just to the moved steadily east. Close inspection of daily traffic flows shows that westward and now Urban Transportation and Suburban each city draws from its own well-defined commuter resides just southDevelopment after World War II suburbs. Until the I-35E bridge linked St. Paul with east of downtown The Twin Cities post-World War II population distribu- Eagan southeast of Minneapolis, each suburb belonged Minneapolis. As time passes, the to one city or the other, never to both. As a consequence, tion was modified by steady losses, mainly from highMinneapolis centhe Minneapolis portion of the region might be viewed density inner-city areas undergoing extensive public tral business disas two-thirds of the total and the St. Paul area as oneand private clearance and rebuilding, and by large trict enjoys an third. gains, mainly in the far-flung suburbs north, west, and increasingly cenIn both central cities, the oldest and most distral position within south of Minneapolis. Middle- and upper-income newthe metro area. tressed neighborhoods today lie within a mile or two of comers to the area were especially attracted to the subthe downtowns. One- and two-unit wood-frame strucurbs south and west of Minneapolis, while an equal DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS; CALCULAnumber of middle- and lower-middle-income newcomers tures on thirty-five- and forty-foot lots predominate. TIONS BY THE AUTHORS. The pre-World War I houses and narrow streets made settled on both sides of the river north of Minneapolis.
Twin Cities population center of gravity, 1940-90
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no provision for automobiles, so whatever amenity is provided by the remaining stately elm trees lining the boulevards is diluted by streets that are difficult to clean and maintain and are clogged by cars. Absentee landlords invest little for upkeep of rental properties. Families, especially those with children, usually move when they can to newer houses in better-maintained neighborhoods. Despite city and community efforts to stabilize and revive these areas, residents with the initiative, information, money, and skill often move on to something better. By leaving and taking their human and material resources with them, they strand those worse off than themselves (fig. 41). Neighborhood deterioration is mainly a social process with physical consequences. People who move out of a neighborhood are typically of a higher social and economic class than those left behind, but they usually represent a lower class in the areas they enter. The reverse is often the case in transitional neighborhoods where the minority proportion is rising, yet tensions still develop. In south-central Minneapolis, at the western edge of Near North Minneapolis, and beyond the western edge of the Summit-University neighborhood in St. Paul the newcomers are often young black business and professional families, with better educations and incomes than the (often elderly) white families from whom they buy their houses. Their entry into a previously all-white area nevertheless sometimes is mistakenly interpreted as a threat to the attractiveness of the neighborhood and to the average status of the families living there. In the long run, then, neighborhood stability becomes a social class and status issue rather than simply a race question. In order for neighborhoods to remain stable over the long term, property-owning families of mixed ages must continue to want to live in them, and owner-occupants and landlords must main-
FIGURE 41. Housing units renting for under $25O per month, 199O. The vast majority off inexpensive rental housing units are small apartments in old buildings highly concentrated in central Minneapolis and central St. Paul. Included were 44,4OO units of
publicly subsidized housing in the seven-county area at the end of the 198Os. About 48 percent were for the elderly, and the rest were for mixed use and families. About 43 percent off the subsidized units were in the suburbs. More than 10,OOO low-income house-
holds had their names on waiting lists for subsidized housing in 1989, with 72 percent on lists in suburban communities. SOURCES: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING; METROPOLITAN COUNCIL 1990.
FIGURE 42. Owner-occupied housing units valued at $ 1 5O,OOO or more, 199O. Significant concentrations off expensive housing are west and southwest of Minneapolis, the south suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and north of St. Paul. A large quantity of high-
priced housing in attractive neighborhoods remains in Minneapolis and in St. Paul. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
tain their properties. This comes about only when city neighborhoods offer advantages unavailable at comparable net cost after tax in newer suburbs. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, some central neighborhoods are relatively undesirable by contemporary Twin Cities standards. They fail to attract stable households committed to house and neighborhood maintenance. As the maintenance-conscious households leave these neighborhoods, some homes become rental units and others are sold to lower-income families who lack the longterm orientation, resources, skills, or interest in maintenance, so the neighborhoods slip to even lower ranks in terms of social class and the quality of their day-to-day upkeep. One of the truly distinctive features of the Twin Cities area, however, is the stable residential areas that surround the aging core in each city. They are found on the outer periphery of Minneapolis at its northwest and northern edges and the northeast and southern edges of St. Paul. The largest and most outstanding, however, lie in two horseshoe-shaped zones opening toward the downtowns—one in South Minneapolis bounded by the Chain of Lakes, the crosstown Minnehaha Parkway, and the Mississippi River Parkway in eastern South Minneapolis; and the other in western St. Paul from the north side lakes west past Lake Como to St. Anthony Park, then south along the river through the Country Club area to Highland Park, then back along the river bluffs to Summit Hill. These residential areas may be unmatched among American central cities in their combination of sheer size, beauty, access to magnificent lakes and streams, and the nonthreatening mixture of social and racial groups that live in them. Almost all lake and stream frontages are public parks. Fine houses facing the lakes sell in a few days for prices ten times the area's median family income, while house prices away from the water drop sharply block by block to a
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third or less of the peak prices (fig. 42). Thus the neighborhoods remain highly heterogeneous in their income composition, yet the residents prefer to stay. Few suburbs offer as much. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul contain an unusually wide variety of residential areas suiting assorted tastes, needs, and incomes. There is somewhat less variety in the suburbs. Lower-income households find little housing there, either to rent or to own (table 7). Most of the area's inexpensive housing lies near the cores of the central cities or huddled in mobile home parks at the edges of the lower-income sectors of the urbanized area. Some suburbs explicitly exclude lowpriced housing. An example is the Ramsey County municipality of North Oaks, developed in 1950 at the end of Rice Street in northern Ramsey County on a former country estate owned by James J. Hill. North Oaks lies in the third tier of suburbs, but its origins differ from its neighbors. This community is a unique example in the Twin Cities of a private enclave for the uppermiddle class, with large homes, secluded wooded lots, and security patrols. Development, crime, and traffic are controlled through strict zoning and private provision of community services, including streets. The idea of an elite private enclave for the better-off is largely antithetical to midwestern culture, however, and there is debate among North Oaks residents about opening up some of the recreational amenities there to public use. The 4,600 acres of North Oaks resemble a country club more than a residential suburb for 3,386 residents. The streets, lakes, trails, tennis courts, hockey rinks, and other facilities are privately owned and controlled by the homeowners' association to which all residents must belong. Unemployment is rare. In 1990, the estimated per capita money income of North Oaks residents exceeded $30,000, compared with just under
TABLE 7
Highest and lowest median rents and median home value, selected cities over 2,OOO population. Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area: 198O, 199O County HIGHEST MEDIAN RENT LOWEST MEDIAN RENT
Median Rent ($) 1980
1990
Change, 1 98O-9O DOLLARS
PERCENT
Median Value, OwnerOccupied Homes % CHANGE 1990($) 1980-90
Washington County Lakeland
275
675
400
125,000
+56
Hugo
217
372
+ 155
+71.4
97,600
+45
Maple Grove
390
637
+247
+37
213
330
+ 117
+63.3 +54.9
96,000
Dayton
91,600
+37
Mendota Heights
243
608
+365
+ 150.2
152,700
+74
South St. Paul
200
389
+ 189
+94.5
72,200
+29
245 199
576 376
+331 + 177
+ 135.1 +88.9
98,300 104,500
+52
+ 145.5
Hennepin County
Dakota County
Ramsey County White Bear Lake0 Falcon Heights Anoka County
+46
262
520
+258
+98.5
Circle Pines Scott County
390
345
-45
-11.5
82,500 75,000
Prior Lake New Prague Carver County
273
488
+215
+35
294
+ 103
+78.8 +53.9
99,600
191
69,100
+46
Victoria
200
461
+261
+ 130.5
129,600
+74
Watertown
203
291
88
+43.3
73,800
+40
Coon Rapids
SOURCE: Metropolitan Council; Star Tribune, 28 November 1 991 ;U.S. Census Bureau, 1990 Census. a
lncludes part of city in Washington County.
$14,000 for the average Twin Cities municipality. The 1990 median tax-assessed value of North Oaks owneroccupied housing was $224,700, compared with a metropolitan median value of $88,900. Similar exclusive enclaves include Dellwood, Sunfish Lake, Orono, and recently developed parts of Edina and Minnetonka. The Metropolitan Council, for its part, argues that North Oaks and other upper-income communities should provide a balanced housing supply in the corn-
+32 +33
munity, including multifamily housing. The council worries about the area-wide consequences if every suburban community prohibited the construction of lowand moderately priced housing. The controversy is essentially political, centering on the desire of upperincome persons to create private living spaces to their tastes, insulating themselves from low-income households and metropolitan problems by the use of municipal boundaries, versus the desire of the Metropolitan Council to ensure a choice of neighborhood and housing styles for all citizens, rich or poor. During the 1970s, the council forced many suburbs to make plans for publicly assisted housing as a condition for council approval when the suburbs applied for funds from various federal park open space and other programs. The Metropolitan Council is the area agency that must review and comment on all such applications before they go to Washington, B.C. Within the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area, housing opportunities for lower-income persons are increasing slowly. Almost one hundred municipalities in the region offer some subsidized housing, either planned or existing. Unfortunately, the reduction or elimination of many programs of federal assistance to local areas during the 1980s diminished the leverage of the Metropolitan Council in pushing the suburbs to accommodate low-income housing. There are more than 44,000 subsidized housing units in the Twin Cities metro area, including cityowned public housing and federally subsidized private rental housing. In 1971, there was a disproportionate concentration of these units in the two center cities, which had 41 percent of the area's population but 88 percent of its subsidized housing, while the suburbs with 60 percent of the metro population contained only 12 percent of all subsidized housing. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, the central cities' share of shrink-
ing federal housing funds decreased while the expanding suburbs incorporated new subsidized construction, mostly for elderly and disabled persons. Since 1974, the suburbs have outpaced the central cities in creation of new subsidized housing. The city/suburb ratio of subsidized housing reached about 60/40 by 1980 and has stabilized there, while the central city/suburb population ratio hovers at about 30/70. Nearly 80 percent of the metro area's subsidized housing is in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.1
Housing Construction Eras and Vacancy Chains Nineteenth-century midwestern cities like St. Paul and Minneapolis expanded outward from job centers at their cores. Industrial areas expanded outward along waterways and heavy transport corridors; commercial activity crept outward along streetcar lines; and housing filled in on land left over after businesses and transport interests had taken what they wanted. Toward the end of the century, new high-rise construction techniques and elevators allowed downtown activities to grow without needing much additional land, so the boundaries of the downtowns, which had been creeping outward for decades, began to stabilize while local economies and populations continued expanding rapidly. More people meant a need for more housing, which for the rich was custom designed and built in the developing enclaves for the upper classes. Up through the 1880s, the pace of growth and change in both cities was vigorous and unplanned. Elite areas grew up in fits and starts, by trial and error. While the Pillsburys were building in St. Anthony on the east side, the Morrisons and the Washburns were building south of Franklin at the site of today's Minneapolis Institute of Arts. An
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even greater number of early sites contended for elite status around downtown St. Paul—Dayton's Bluff on the east side, what became Capitol Hill to the north, the river bluffs on the West Side, and the eventual winners, Ramsey Hill and Summit Avenue. The upper-middle classes tried to mimic the styles and locations of the rich, but at a much diluted scale. Their houses were custom designed and built near the elite neighborhoods and avenues but on smaller lots and with more modest price tags. On still lower rungs of the economic ladder, most new houses were built from mail order plans and blueprints (when formal plans and blueprints were used at all) by immigrant tradesmen who bought one or a few adjoining lots, then erected the housing on a speculative basis using mainly cheap, locally produced pine lumber and millwork. The majority of the new houses were bought not by the rich or upper-middle classes but by salaried employees, professional people, and business owners who could afford to pay cash or could arrange a loan from a bank or savings society to cover a five-year contract-for-deed, the typical home finance instrument in the decades prior to World War II. Some remnants of pre-1890 housing can be found near the edges of the downtowns, compactly clustered within walking range of the downtown center. The new housing built during the electric streetcar era (1890s1920s) was located in outlying neighborhoods and nearby towns and villages, formerly remote and isolated but later efficiently linked to the downtown employment and shopping cores. Through a steady succession of economic and building cycles, each year brought to each city a tree-ring-like band of new housing around the existing stock. In the years of prosperity and rapid urban growth the new bands were wide. Reduced demand and slowed construction during years of war or economic depression meant narrow growth rings. Along
the streetcar lines, developers platted narrow lots on these higher-priced parcels anticipating multiple-unit housing to exploit the willingness of early owners and renters to pay more to live on the transit line. A block or two from the lines, land prices dropped, lots widened, and larger single-unit houses dominated many neighborhoods. The construction cycles of the streetcar era were followed by those of the recreational automobile era (1920s-1940s), when people of above-average means continued using streetcars (supplemented by buses) for downtown jobs but increasingly used cars for shopping, visiting, and recreation. Following World War II, the freeway automobile era (1940s-1970s) brought rapid construction to the far-flung first-, second-, and thirdtier suburbs of the Twin Cities, devouring newly urbanized land at a brisk pace. The supply of land newly accessible to urban populations rose so fast after the war that prices plummeted, encouraging builders to use land extravagantly. Large lots, often half an acre or more in size, featuring single-unit housing, became the rule in newly platted Twin Cities suburbs. Each of the last three urban transportation eras in the Twin Cities—electric streetcar, recreational auto, freeway auto—brought easier movement and an opportunity for dispersal of people and activities to lower densities. In fact, the energetic expansion of the streetcar system beyond what might have been efficient and cost-effective for its day, followed after World War II by a double ration of intraurban freeways to serve a double-centered metro region, laid the basis for one of the lowestdensity large metro regions in North America. The low densities keep getting lower, bedeviling transit advocates who insist that the region needs rail transit even if it can never be justified on the basis of realistic patronage projections, but pleasing residents who favor
FIGURE 43. Housing aging and the filtering process. In early decades of midwestern cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul, densities of housing and population (measured on the vertical axis) were highest near the central business district (CBD). New houses were added to the edge of the built-up area, and the expanding downtown encroached on and eventually displaced much of the oldest highdensity housing. In time, the addition and elimination of housing at different locations produce a redistribution of the city's housing inventory. A house located at A, at the edge of town in early days, now lies deep in the urban core. BASED ON ADAMS 1979, FIG. 4.
low densities and enjoy the comparatively manageable flows of local automobile traffic. Urban neighborhoods usually pass through welldefined stages during a typical life cycle. The cycle starts when formerly rural land is subdivided. Houses are built and occupied, but as they age and become obsolete they may be neglected, allowed to fall into disrepair, and eventually may be abandoned and demolished. After World War II, suburban developments engulfed large chunks of Twin Cities countryside. Each
new subdivision spawned another example of the youthful stage in the neighborhood life cycle. As the houses age, some of the first residents stay to grow old with their houses. Others move on to the next suburban frontier, to be replaced by younger and less affluent households. Another way to view the life cycle of Twin Cities neighborhoods is as a "vacancy chain" process. A vacancy is created whenever a new housing unit is built, when an old unit is subdivided, when a household dies and leaves its housing vacant, or when a household leaves the local market. For example, when a newly built unit in Burnsville is filled by a family moving in from Bloomington, the vacancy moves to that family's former address in Bloomington. The addresses in Burnsville and Bloomington form the first link in a vacancy chain. When a household from south Minneapolis or Richfield moves to the Bloomington address, the next link in the vacancy chain is defined as the vacancy moves a step closer to the older housing stock near the city center. The vacancy chain grows from the original vacancy, link by link, until the chain ends at a demolition, consolidation into another unit, or permanent vacancy. The geographical pattern of vacancy chains can be depicted in a histogram of housing units distributed according to year of construction, with the earliest on the left side and ranging out to the most recent on the right (fig. 43). Over the years the distribution is transformed as most of the oldest units disappear and new units are constructed. Within this array of housing units, a once-new unit steadily moves downward toward the aged portion of the stock, heading eventually toward obsolescence and perhaps demolition. In order for a house or a neighborhood to remain stable, it must somehow manage to retain or enhance its desirability, compared with other housing or neigh-
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borhoods in its submarket. Certain neighborhoods, such as St. Anthony Park or Highland Park in St. Paul, or the Lake District in Minneapolis, seem to defy the normal trend. They feature unusual housing, distinctive cultural traditions and institutions, special cachets, local physical amenities, or attractive views enabling them to maintain their relative desirability despite the passing of years, while others slip slowly toward eventual disfavor to be occupied by households that simply are unable to obtain more desirable housing. The gap between a household's desire to own a home and its financial ability to do so often is prohibitive. New forms of housing tenure have become common since the 1970s to fill the gap, the most common of these the condominium. In 1970, only about 950 condominium and cooperative housing units were counted in the Twin Cities metro area. Between 1970 and 1980, converted structures contributed more than 6,000 condo units and nearly 1,000 co-op units, while new structures produced 4,900 condos and 670 co-op units in the sevencounty area.2 By 1982, there were 24,980 condominiums alone. Some units were newly built and others were created from existing apartment houses, hotels, and other structures (fig. 44). In 1980, the median value of a condo in the Twin Cities area was $59,600, about $6,000 less than an existing single-family home and about $9,000 less than a new house. This means that the average condo was aimed at the lower end of the home buyer market, the end that inevitably is softer and appreciates in real terms less if at all compared with the upper end that households aspire to enter when their means permit. As the condo market became saturated by the mid-1980s, the units became hard to resell. The 1988 median price for a new condo was $57,200. Conversions and new construction slowed, and some units reverted to rental use. The supply contracted to meet the less-
FIGURE 44. Condominium housing units, 199O. Owner-occupied housing units in multiple-unit buildings were rare before the 19 70s, but they now exist throughout the central cities and sub-
urbs. Some are in former apartment buildings that were converted to condo ownership. Others are newly constructed. Concentrations exist in downtown St. Paul, downtown Minneapolis, and in
a broad zone southwest of downtown Minneapolis toward the lakes. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1990 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
ened demand, and falling prices and continued high mortgage rates revived interest in condos at the end of the 1980s. By 1990 the median price was $61,800. Senior-only developments and downtown buildings contributed to increased condo sales.3
Housing Demand and the Tendency to Move Outward from the Center During the late nineteenth century, when the downtown cores were taking shape and most residents were immigrants and their children, the ethnic groups that dominated the jobs in each activity area lived adjacent to their work. A congregating bond kept Swedes with Swedes, Germans with Germans, Poles with Poles, and so on, giving them comfort and community in a new land while they worked at industry, trades, and commerce. In time, most of these ethnic enclaves dissipated, but in the meantime the bonds of congregation were intensified by segregating forces arising from nativist sentiments of long-term residents and negative reactions of earlier immigrants who faced competition from an increasing tide of newcomers at the end of the century. In a new land lacking a hereditary class structure, immigrants were invited to pull themselves up to the middle class, a feasible goal for many but overtly and covertly opposed by others once they had achieved their own goals. This mood of fear and selfishness led to various forms of discrimination and segregation in the Twin Cities as well as elsewhere in America. Hard-won status, it was thought, had to be defended against an onslaught of unwashed newcomers lest its value be diluted by becoming too widely shared. Thus, from compact, congested centers around 1890 at the dawn of the electric streetcar era, Minneapolis and St. Paul spread outward in many direc-
tions. The outward push was powered by continued foreign and rural influxes, natural population growth as births exceeded deaths in the young cities, higher disposable incomes to spend on housing, and the improved mobility of the streetcar and later of the automobile, making it increasingly unnecessary to live close to one's job. The principal transportation corridors radiated outward from the downtowns. Radial traffic flows in and out linked wedge-shaped residential sectors with their respective downtowns, but these sectors evolved separately one from another. Not only was crosstown traffic between sectors difficult, usually there was no social or economic motive for such movement. Jobs, stores, government, doctors, and so forth were located downtown, while friends and relatives, schools, and churches were nearby in the neighborhood. The behavior of housing consumers reflected and reinforced the sectoral residential structure of the pre19408 city. In either city, a household living between the downtown and the suburbs viewed housing closer to downtown as older, cheaper, and more cramped, while housing farther out generally meant newer construction, bigger yards, roomier houses, and easier transportation movement. As families moved up in the world, they typically moved outward in short steps. Occasionally a death, divorce, or abrupt financial reverse meant a drastic reversal and a long inward move. Lateral moves were relatively uncommon, because housing of the same vintage was essentially similar to what was already occupied, and people moved to obtain something different—a different kind of house, or neighbors, or both. Moreover, lateral moves could take a household into a different ethnic environment. Groups seldom invaded the territory of another ethnic group, unless one group followed another on its way into the suburbs. A group might try to push outward faster than periph-
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eral groups were willing to vacate, because of population increase or rapid income gains. A town's most prosperous residential sector pushes continuously outward from the center and pulls the downtown center behind it. In Minneapolis, the downtown center migrated southwest toward the Lake District from its first location at Bridge Square, where Washington, Nicollet, and Hennepin avenues meet, along Nicollet to Seventh Street where it settled during the early postwar decades, and then onward toward Grant Street as old department stores north of Sixth Street closed and extravagant new shopping opportunities emerged south of Eighth Street. In St. Paul, early commercial developments north of the Union Depot in today's Lowertown were pulled north and westward to Sixth and Seventh streets between Jackson and Robert. The downtown centers are the commercial and shopping cores. They have simply gravitated over the years toward the sectors of maximum consumer purchasing power. The upper-class sectors of town are usually flanked on one or both sides by middle- and uppermiddle-class sectors of upwardly mobile households. Such households gravitate into the middle-class sectors and move as fast as they can through them. Housing markets are traditionally strongest in these sectors, combining as they do the most abundant and intense demand for ever better housing with the means to pay for it. Sometimes the outward relocation of households is so rapid and complete that the inner precincts of the middle-class sectors are partially or completely abandoned, as there are too few people of modest circumstances to replace those who moved to better areas. Overall, despite outmigration, the central cities still dominate suburban areas in power and influence. An important vehicle for this influence is the circulation of metropolitan newspapers. Minneapolis's Star Tribune is
the major daily for the entire western half of the metro area and has expanded its sphere into Dakota County, traditionally a stronghold of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The expansion of these major metro dailies into exurbia, some say, has accelerated the "metropolitanization" of those areas. Amid major trends in housing demand, important minor chords operate, each with effects on Twin Cities area housing markets. The number of people living alone in the metro area rose by 26 percent during the 1980s, a bit higher than the increase in households overall (22 percent), which was in turn higher than the population growth rate during the same period. Households are getting smaller, due in part to family dissolutions and to children reaching working age and establishing their own households. The 1980s also saw households of unrelated individuals increase by 31 percent, and female-headed households by 20 percent.
Three Tiers of Suburbs The metro area expanded through the decades by adding ring upon ring of residential development around its twin cores. The growth rings were narrow and densities were high during the pre-1920 era of high land values and slow movement of pedestrians and transit. In the post-World War II decades of fast cars and good highways, however, the residential suburbs sprawled easily over cheap land into the surrounding countryside. Streetcar suburbs started to develop in the 1920s as developers created exclusive enclaves for upper-middle-class buyers, often using deeds that restricted sale or resale to white Protestant households only. The desire for municipal separateness was reinforced by rural-dominated legislative sentiment that curtailed the fast-growing cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul from
easily annexing new suburban developments and thereby diluted the political clout of the central cities. The first tier of suburbs grew up at the ends of the streetcar lines that extended into Richfield, Edina, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Robbinsdale, Golden Valley, Brooklyn Center, Columbia Heights, Roseville, South St. Paul, and West St. Paul. St. Paul found itself with large stretches of vacant land within its city limits compared with Minneapolis after boundaries stabilized in the 1930s, so much of St. Paul's first-tier "suburbanization" of the 1920s and 1930s occurred inside the city, largely in Highland Park in the southwest and around Lake Phalen in the northeast part of the city. After World War II, the first-tier suburbs filled in quickly with single-family houses and absorbed the initial postwar suburbanization of young families. The frenetic house-building boom often created a disorganized landscape without a good balance of services and retailing to serve the sprawling tracts of new homes. An exception was the southwest suburb of Edina, which has been a model of careful land-use planning and control. The affluent, professional residents have historically kept a tight rein on development. Only upper-mid-range-or-better homes, higher-end retailing, and recreational areas have been allowed, and most of the retailing has been confined to a close huddle around Southdale shopping center, on the border shared with Bloomington. A second tier of suburbs emerged mainly in the 1950s and 1960s, offering lower population densities and more dispersed housing than occurred earlier. Toward the end of the 1960s, as the first offspring of the baby boom began leaving home to form households of their own, suburban apartment complexes sprouted along the major suburban highways to meet new housing demand near the neighborhoods where the young people had been reared and to house others migrating
to the Twin Cities from origins throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. Typical examples of second-tier development are Minnetonka, Brooklyn Park, Maplewood, and Bloomington, the last of which emerged from the 1990 census as Minnesota's third-largest municipality and is the third census-defined "central city" of the MinneapolisSt. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area. During the 1980s, Edina's neighbor to the south went for the "boom" approach to growth; not surprisingly, tension arose along the shared Seventy-eighth Street border south of Southdale mall. A Bloomington plan for high-density, mixed-use development adjacent to the last undeveloped parcel of land in Edina led to a mediated compromise wherein traffic impact would be projected prior to construction and an upper tolerance limit would be set for congestion levels, beyond which no further development would occur. Development in Bloomington presents a mixed blessing for Edina's retailing future. Construction of housing and offices just across the border from Southdale can only help sales there, but major retail development much farther south may draw significant business away as newer, more innovative mixed-use centers are built. By the mid-1970s and through the 1980s, the third tier of suburban expansion was in full swing, with strict controls on developers, who increasingly were obliged to build roads and install all utilities, then add these costs to the price of the newly built houses. More restrictions meant higher costs for improved land and housing, but first-time home buyers of the 1970s and 1980s often worked in crowded labor markets and had purchasing power relatively lower than their parents had achieved a quarter century earlier. The result was a proliferation of new housing styles—condos, townhouses, and two-, three-, and four-unit structures—with
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less land and floor space per unit and price tags and financing arrangements that responded to the harsher legal and financial realities of the past two decades. Third-tier suburbs offer a wide variety of housing types, development styles, and sophisticated site plans. Good examples are found in Burnsville, Apple Valley, Eden Prairie, Plymouth, Maple Grove, Elaine, Shoreview, Cottage Grove, Inver Grove Heights, and Eagan. The third tier will be the last major tier for years to come. As distance from the city centers rises arithmetically, the amount of land available for housing and other development increases geometrically. Currently, there is enough vacant land served by roads, sewers, and other basic infrastructure to meet residential development needs well beyond the year 2000. As the secondtier suburbs fill in, the population rankings undoubtedly will change. With 86,335 people in 1990, Bloomington (no longer classified as a suburb) has less than 1 percent of its land still available for new housing and is expected to peak at 95,000 people, as is the third-tier suburb of Plymouth (at 50,889 in 1990). Brooklyn Park, in contrast, still has one-third of its land available for new development, so it could grow from 53,000 to as many as 100,000 people. Moreover, central city land is being recycled for new uses. Thus, the residential map of the Twin Cities area will continue to look pretty much the same in the years ahead.
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Sectoral Housing Markets The construction of most new housing at suburban edges and the steady outward movement of households have meant that inner-city neighborhood character is transmitted outward to adjacent suburbs over the years. Working-class neighborhoods spawn workingclass suburbs. Middle- and upper-middle-class areas push with their distinctive tastes and lifestyles out-
ward. Elite areas do the same once their direction of growth is established. There appear to be fourteen distinct housing sectors in the Twin Cities area, each one forming a submarket that operates somewhat independently from the others (fig. 45). Each sector develops and maintains its unique history, character, demography, housing market conditions, and retailing tastes. Submarket A: Cedar/Riverside, Hiawatha, Lake Nokomis, Minnehaha Park Starting at Seven Corners around a core of Scandinavian immigrant settlement before 1900, this sector extended southeast to Minnehaha Park along the Milwaukee Road yards and the adjacent industrial corridor paralleling Hiawatha and Minnehaha avenues. Scandinavian and Lutheran character persists in this working-class and lower-middle-class area of modest housing and quiet tastes. The sector is a cul-de-sac terminating at river valleys, the airport, and the Fort Snelling national cemetery. It lacks adjacent suburban development and an immediately adjacent rural source of in-migrants, so movement outward has been modest and housing turnover is traditionally minimal. Submarket B: South Minneapolis, Richfield, East Bloomington This middle-class sector expanded along the Nicollet Avenue streetcar line past the Washburn estate at Fiftieth Street and enjoyed unimpeded access to downtown. It extended southward through a glacial outwash plain to the Minnesota River and beyond, a terrain easily developed to meet pent-up demand for housing on the south side of the city after World War II. South Minneapolis has claimed the majority of the city's housing and forms the part of the city lying closest to the most populated part of rural and small-town Minnesota. For more than a century the
ers, professionals, and clerks; then the Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians of the second wave; then Romanian Jews and blacks after 1900; and finally American Indians and Southeast Asians.
FIGURE 45. Sectoral structure of Twin Cities housing submarkets. BASED ON ADAMS 199L, FIG. 7.2.
surrounding region has sent migrants to the Twin Cities, and South Minneapolis has absorbed the lion's share of the newcomers to feed this active sector of upwardly mobile households. The strong market for new suburban housing in the sector attracted developers by the score. The vacancy chains that were set in motion by sustained southside development meant the eventual softening of housing markets just south of downtown, making it possible for a succession of newcomer groups to enter and make their way in the city: first the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant business lead-
Submarket C: Southwest Lake District, Edina, Minnetonka The southwest sector is home to the outof-sight rich, the affluent professionals and captains of local industry who initially settled just south of downtown around Lake of the Isles and Lake Minnetonka, and more recently have found refuge in retreats in Orono and around Long Lake. Million-dollar houses used to be the stuff of Beverly Hills and Las Vegas entertainers, but in the early 1980s that barrier was broken in the Twin Cities housing market. Such houses have been built in Orono, Woodland, Deephaven, and Ferndale, the "Golden Horseshoe" around the eastern, more established end of Lake Minnetonka. The southern flank of this sector is home to the ostentatious newly affluent of Edina, Eden Prairie, and Minnetonka, where expensive and sometimes vulgar displays of material overconsumption are often seen side by side with the understated elegance of British landscapes, which take time to learn and are harder to effect. Growth of this sector is slower than that of South Minneapolis. The financially secure have less reason to continue "moving up by moving out" than do those who mark their steady progress by frequent changes of address. Real estate values hold up well throughout this sector, the strongest in the Twin Cities (fig. 46). Submarket D: Near North Minneapolis, Golden Valley, Crystal, New Hope, Plymouth, Maple Grove The northside sector is best understood as a smaller version of the South Minneapolis sector, enclosed largely by West Broadway on the north and Olson Memorial Highway (State Highway 55) on the
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south. Over the years what began as a prosperous wedge of Scandinavian and German settlement extended northwest of the city through Wright and Stearns counties. A few semi-exclusive upper-middle-class residential developments emerged on either side of Penn Avenue, but the physical amenities of the North Side could not compete with those of the southwest. Nevertheless, steady development of new housing at the outer edges of the sector after 1920 meant large numbers of vacancies in the sector's inner neighborhoods, leading to the emergence along Plymouth Avenue from the river to Penn Avenue of the city's major concentration of Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Southeastern Europe and Russia. With the prosperity that followed World War II, they relocated, often to St. Louis Park and Golden Valley, and their former housing was occupied by African-Americans moving up from lower rungs on the social and economic ladder.
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Submarket E: North Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park This sector originates between West Broadway and the Mississippi River. Its origins were rooted in the railroads and in the industrial activity that pushed upriver from St. Anthony Falls as grain milling boomed at the falls after the 1870s. A mixture of working-class and lower-middle-class tastes persists into the suburbs, although Brooklyn Park has achieved a solid reputation for aggressive development management and intelligent land-use planning. Some of the riverfront bounding this sector features parks, open space, and high-quality residences, but much of it is squandered on run-down houses, relict industry, and low-budget commercial activity that reflect neighborhood tastes and attitudes. Submarket F: Northeast Minneapolis, Columbia Heights, Fridley, Coon Rapids To the extent that
Minneapolis has genuine blue-collar, working-class, immigrant, ethnic-flavored neighborhoods resembling those of the industrial cities of the Northeast United States, they are probably in Lower Northeast, south of Lowry and west of Central. Crisscrossing railroads, small factories and machine shops, fourth and fifth generations in the same Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) ward clubs, and Roman Catholic, Eastern Rite Catholic, and Orthodox churches all testify to the Eastern, Southeastern, and Southern European origins of the families who entered here after 1900 when the original Scandinavian and German laborers and tradespeople prospered and moved to Upper Northeast, to higher land and nicer houses north of Lowry and east of Central. Ever since World War II, a house on or near Stinson Boulevard and membership in St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church have been solid signs of achievement in this "Nordeast" sector of the Twin Cities (fig. 47).
FIGURE 46. Lake Calhoun in the Southwest Minneapolis Lake District. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
FIGURE 47. Mobile home park, Columbia Heights. Note how the mobile home park is located along the freeway, across from a trucking terminal, and as a buffer between the highway and single-family homes. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
Submarket G: Southeast Minneapolis, New Brighton, Mounds View, Blaine Southeast Minneapolis (east of the river and south of Hennepin) until recent years was largely a cul-de-sac surrounding the university and bounded by St. Paul, Northeast, and the river. The construction of I-35W provided a suburban outlet for this sector and attracted developers so that today the sector thrives as a broad mixture of middleclass and working-class tastes and life-styles. Lots are large, land is cheap, fishing and hunting thrive nearby, vegetation is thin, and landscaping is minimal on this infertile glacial outwash sand plain. But the ice left plenty of shallow lakes behind, making possible a true democratization of lakeshore housing in this sector. Submarket H: Como Park, St. Anthony Park, Roseville, Shoreview St. Paul's elite established their homes in Ramsey Hill and on Summit Avenue, while their admiring middle-class imitators flanked them in sectors that extended to the northwest and the southwest of downtown St. Paul. Although workingclass houses filled in near industrial areas along the rail corridors through the Midway District, the dominant atmosphere has been middle class and upwardly mobile. As Roseville developed, it was settled by St. Paul households moving up and out, and carrying outward the flavor of the tasteful and well-tended neighborhoods left behind. Submarket I: North End St. Paul's North End developed around Rice Street as a tightly knit, white, Catholic, working-class and lower-middle-class area. Its expansion northward was thwarted first by the tendency of working-class areas to expand outward slowly when they move at all, and second by the upper-middleclass North Oaks enclave at the northern terminus of Rice Street. Working-class sectors do not expand into
elite and quasi-elite areas. Not only will the lower classes not be admitted (walls and fences are sometimes erected to document the social separation), but developers and merchant builders shy away from working in zones where the nature of the prospective market is unproved or ambiguous. Submarket J: Lake Phalen, Maplewood, White Bear Lake Arcade Street and Johnson Parkway run northeast from St. Paul's East Side Lake Phalen neighborhood and out to the south shore of White Bear Lake, which developed early as a public recreation area and summer place for many of the city's wealthy families. The elite recreational cachet added luster to this sector, but the small East Side population base kept postWorld War II suburbanization rates to low levels. Moreover, the sparsely populated areas northeast of the Twin Cities provide a steady but only a small migration flow into this East Side housing sector. Submarket K: East Side, Battle Creek Park, Hudson Road, Cottage Grove This small middle-class area on the East Side faced the Wisconsin border to the east when the main thrust of St. Paul and metro area
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development was to the west. The steady growth of 3M's corporate offices and adjacent facilities on Hudson Readjust east of the city has been a major stimulus to East Side developments, as has the boom in small hobby and horse farms. The recreational areas on the St. Croix River and the small ski areas near Afton are growing steadily, as are St. Paul Park and Cottage Grove along U.S. Highways 10 and 61, which are major traditional routes to Red Wing and southeastern Minnesota, but the sector remains relatively quiet and undeveloped despite its proximity to both cities, which simply have been oriented in their growth in other directions.
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Submarket L: West Side, West St. Paul, South St. Paul, Inver Grove Heights St. Paul's West Side has always had a distinctive personality, and as the neighborhood expanded down Robert Street and Concord Street to the meat packing plants and industrial areas of South St. Paul, the lower-middle-class and workingclass character of the sector was maintained and extended. When the West Side's Jewish immigrant population began relocating from the floodplain and lowlying areas to the Selby and Dale neighborhood west of downtown after World War I, their places were taken up by Mexican migrants who had worked their way north to St. Paul and then decided to stay. As they make their way into the mainstream economy and society they join the others in this sector from Europe and the Middle East who arrived earlier. Submarket M: Summit Avenue, Macalester Park, Highland Park, Mendota Heights St. Paul's best addresses were along Summit Avenue, and for those who failed to achieve the big prize, there were vast expanses of high-quality, upper-middle-class areas throughout the western and southwestern parts of the
city. Then, as further expansion to the southwest was blocked by Minneapolis and the river valleys, this sector made a sharp left turn, leaped over the Mississippi River, and continued onward into Mendota, Mendota Heights, and Sunfish Lake. When I-35E opened in the 1980s, it tied the parts of the sector together more snugly and promoted further development of its highly favored suburban housing areas. Submarket N: West Seventh Street Originally developed along a path connecting downtown St. Paul with Fort Snelling, the street became the main thoroughfare of a low-income, working-class neighborhood. Its mixed industrial, commercial, and residential landscape lacks the amenities that might attract and retain the middle class, but it does offer satisfactory low-cost housing to a large and vital fraction of St. Paul's lower-income working households. Like the North End, it is a cul-de-sac and does not project its character outward into nearby suburbs. The West Seventh sector includes the old Upper Levee neighborhood, between the High Bridge and Chestnut Street, which was a reception area for many immigrant groups in the early 1880s, much like Swede Hollow in St. Paul and Bohemian Flats in Minneapolis. Born as a shantytown built by Polish, German, and then Italian squatters, the levee shacks and streets were improved bit by bit over the decades, until a major flood and subsequent zoning changes in the early 1950s dispersed the levee's residents to other parts of the city.
Twin Cities Retailing Five Generations of Twin Cities Shopping Centers The steady improvement of urban transportation during the past century, the expansion outward of the built-up area of the Twin Cities, and the relocation
FIGURE 48. Southdale Center, view to the west. Southdale is located within a superblock bounded by Crosstown highway 62 on the north, state highway 1OO on the west (fust visible near the horizon), l-494/West Seventy-eighth Street on the south, and I-35W on the east. This location avoids the extreme congestion that accompanies regional shopping centers located at major highway intersections. PHOTO COURTESY OF DREW TRAMPE PHOTOGRAPHY.
Hennepin Avenue and Harmon Place in Minneapolis and University Avenue in St. Paul each emerged as an "Automobile Row," close to the high purchasing power located southwest of downtown in Minneapolis and west of downtown in St. Paul. The Sears store on Lake Street and Elliot Avenue and the Wards store near Snelling and University opened at the end of the 1920s, both carefully sited at the center of middle-class mass markets and easy to reach by streetcar, but providing parking for customers coming by car. The new generation of shopping centers in this era was tied to customers moving mainly by car—western University Avenue in the Midway, Excelsior Boulevard, Wayzata Boulevard, and the Cleveland Avenue-Ford Parkway area in St. Paul's Highland Park. After the war, old centers were altered to accommodate more cars, and a fourth generation of centers sprang to life. Between 1945 and the 1960s the downof population, purchasing power, and consumer tastes towns added private and municipal parking ramps, within the fourteen housing sectors laid the foundation freeways fanned out from the downtowns, and skyways for a succession of five generations of Twin Cities shopbegan to knit the downtown business and commercial cores into an auto-oriented center. Shopping centers ping centers. The first generation arose in the downfrom the streetcar era, located at congested intersectowns during the pre-1890s period of pedestrian movetions, had a hard time adding free parking. Few of them ment and horsecar lines. Between 1890 and 1920, downtown retailing responded to the electric streetcar retrofitted as well as Fiftieth and France in Southwest by concentrating the major department stores and vari- Minneapolis and Edina, or University Avenue in St. ety stores next to the principal downtown streetcar Paul's Midway District. The centers and shopping strips intersections (Seventh and Nicollet in Minneapolis, and from the 1920s and 1930s had an easier time remodelSeventh and Robert in St. Paul), and a second generaing for the postwar auto boom. The first of the postwar, tion of major centers cropped up at major outlying auto-oriented shopping centers underestimated the streetcar intersections such as Lake and Nicollet, or requirements of the private automobile and the size of Snelling and University. the retail market by erecting centers like the Hub at During the recreational auto era, the earlier shop- Sixty-sixth and Nicollet. They were too small, and ping centers were modified to accommodate cars, and a because they were positioned at busy street intersecthird generation of centers appeared. Downtowns added tions (borrowing an idea that worked well during the parking lots and garages, upper Nicollet Avenue added streetcar era), they often were chronically congested. shops patronized by automobile shoppers, and upper
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110
The full flowering of the postwar auto-oriented shopping center occurred when Southdale mall opened in 1956, deep in the center of a superblock away from highway traffic and congested intersections and providing unlimited free parking (fig. 48). The center was envisioned by Donald Dayton in 1952 while its site near Sixty-sixth and York Avenue South was farmland. Market analysis highlighted the growth in size and outward movement of the huge middle-income sector south of downtown and the smaller upper-income sector to the southwest. The Southdale site lay adjacent to both sectors and served both markets perfectly as they pushed outward toward it. Los Angeles architect Victor Gruen translated the Dayton dream into reality. When the $20 million enclosed shopping mall—the first of its kind in the United States—opened in October 1956, it had seventy-two stores. Later Rosedale, Brookdale, Ridgedale, and other malls duplicated and embellished the concept that characterizes the fourth generation of Twin Cities shopping centers. Since 1970, old centers have been upgraded and a fifth generation of centers has appeared: upscale centers located conveniently near the homes and workplaces of upper-income households. In this telecommunications era of "placeless places," developers evidently feel that any commercial development can create the conditions of its own success if its concept is bold enough and sufficiently grand in execution. This line of thinking holds that profitable retailing is essentially recreational shopping in "festival markets," catering to discretionary shopping for nonessential upper-priced goods and services. It is hard to draw a line between necessary purchases and discretionary purchases by upper-income households, and these newest centers have met with mixed success (fig. 49). Those on the wrong sides of downtown (Riverplace, St. Anthony Main, Lowertown),
too far out (Eden Prairie Center), or overbuilt for their market (Town Square, Galtier Plaza) have a harder time than those better situated (Calhoun Square, City Center, Crystal Court). Riverplace and St. Anthony Main were two of the best examples of fifth-generation shopping centers in the Twin Cities, and became two of the best examples of market mismatch. The Mall of America in Bloomington presents a similar risk. Fantasy, entertainment, and visual excitement are certainly more important experiences in these centers than buying shoes for the kids or grabbing lunch before heading back to the office. The Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis was a focal point for shopping for twenty years, with a metro retail market share that peaked in 1972 at 13 percent and had fallen by 1991 to 9.7 percent. As the fortunes of downtown retailers lagged in the competition with suburban centers, the response was to copy the suburban mall idea in the central city. Minneapolis's City Center and St. Paul's Town Square and Galtier Plaza consolidated dozens of specialty shops under one roof, with indoor parking. Almost all downtown retailing is now connected by second-floor skyways, and efforts have focused on drawing the higher-income, urban shopper back to the city with better-label specialty shops and
FIGURE 49. Bandana Square in Energy Park, St. Paul. Located between Snelling and Lexington, south off Como, Energy Park reflects the St. Paul Port Authority's ambitious effort to recycle railroad yards and buildings into effective energy-efficient new uses, including housing, recreational retailing, entertainment, offices, and light industry. The locomotive roundhouse above was converted into a festival mall. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PORT AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF ST. PAUL.
FIGURE so. Nicollet Mall, downtown Minneapolis. Remodeled in the late 1980s, anchored by thousands of new housing units at both north and south ends, and serving substantial office employment within the downtown core, the Nicollet Mall continues to be one of the most successful retailing streets in the United States. PHOTO COURTESY OF CRAIG AMUNDSEN (BRW INC.).
such upscale large retailers as Saks and Neiman Marcus. The Conservatory in Minneapolis caters to higherticket and specialty retailing. In 1989, Minneapolis's Nicollet Mall shopping district ranked as the highest concentration of retail space in North America, with 2.1 million square feet along three city blocks (fig. 50).4 The Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area in 1987 was thirteenth-highest in retail sales ($16 billion) among the nation's twenty largest statistical areas, sixteenth in population, and seventh in per-capita retail sales (ahead of San Francisco and San Diego).5 Continuing faith in the vitality of the central city has been expressed by large developers and major public and private enterprises that have built and rebuilt the downtowns, such as Norwest Corporation in Minneapolis and the World Trade Center Commission in St. Paul, accompanied by ongoing development of higher-priced condominiums and apartments. The ongoing competition between city and suburb has forced each to create new ways to lure shoppers for more than just shopping. On any given day there will be strolling musicians, craft exhibitions, markets, fashion shows, seminars, fairs, and other events designed to entertain and involve consumers, while they serve as well to satisfy their material wants. The outcome of the competition, however, likely will rest not so much on where people want to shop as on where they want to work and live. The success of the efforts of city leadership to maintain and attract new jobs and to draw people back to live in the central city will largely determine the long-term success of retail ventures there. Shopping Opportunities and Shopping Behavior The Twin Cities traditionally have been a strong market for retailing at all price levels. At least one in every five households earned more than $50,000 per year in the 1980s. A strong contingent of baby boomers (40 per-
cent) is now in the child-rearing and material acquisition phase of the household life cycle (ages 25-49). The state's strong economic standing in the region (fastestgrowing disposable income) and the nation (thirteenthhighest level of disposable income), along with healthy, stable employment rates and steady growth in business development and population, all contribute to the Twin Cities ranking ninth-highest in general merchandise store sales among metro areas in the United States. The downtown retailing districts of Minneapolis and St. Paul were the predominant shopping destinations of Twin Citians for over a century, until freeway construction allowed easy access to suburban locations. The daily influx of workers helped to ensure the primacy of the central business districts. From the 1960s until well into the 1980s, however, suburban development of every kind boomed, drawing those who could follow it to new homes, new jobs, and new stores at the fringes of the metro area. Then, instead of being the unquestioned place to go, the downtowns became just two among a large set of options.
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TABLE 8
Retail sales for selected cities over 2,5OO population in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, 1977-87 (in millions of current dollars)
112
Total retail sales in downtown Minneapolis rose from $284 million in 1958 to $390 million in 1982, but those figures are misleading, because the average cost of goods purchased downtown more than doubled over the same period. Taking inflation into account, 1982 downtown Minneapolis retail sales were actually 30 percent less than they had been twenty-five years earlier. Downtown St. Paul fared even more poorly, with current dollar sales dropping from $117 million in 1958 to $97 million in 1982, a real dollar decline of more than 60 percent. In contrast, the largest suburban shopping malls boomed. Sales in the Southdale area increased from $48 million in 1963 to more than $350 million in 1982, and the Brookdale area experienced growth from $21 million to $220 million over the same period.6 Other leading centers outside the CBDs in the mid-1980s, in order of sales volume, were Ridgedale ($267 million), Midway ($222 million), Rosedale ($206 million), Burnsville Center ($191 million), Southtown ($185 million), Southview Square in West St. Paul ($150 million), Sun Ray ($126 million), and Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis ($109 million). The top retailing cities of 1987 in each of the seven metropolitan counties are listed in table 8. The local and regional retailers support, in turn, the wholesalers, who thrived in the 1980s (table 9). In the 1990s, with suburbanization still frenetic in some directions, shoppers must decide to head into or out from downtown on the basis of parking ease, availability, and cost, the contrasting "images" of each place (downtown is perceived as relatively "high ticket"), and the sort of crowd with whom one would be mingling at each place. About one in four Twin Citians ventures to one of the downtowns at least once a month, two-thirds going to Minneapolis. About one-third of these monthly shoppers work downtown as well. More significant though is
CITY (CO. TOTAL)
Anoka Co. Fridley Blaine Coon Rapids Anoka Columbia Hts. Carver Co. Chaska Waconia Dakota Co. Burnsville West St. Paul Apple Valley Inver Grove Hts. Eagan Hennepin Co. Minneapolis Bloomington Minnetonka Edina Brooklyn Center St. Louis Park Richfield Brooklyn Park Plymouth Golden Valley Hopkins Ramsey Co. St. Paul Roseville Maplewood Scott Co. Shakopee Prior Lake Washington Co. Stillwater Forest Lake Cottage Grove Metro area total
1977 SALES
1987 SALES
% CHANGE, 1977-87
535
1,315
168
308
83
86
307
257
100
306
206
57
113
98
62
96
55
73
145
99
23
49
113
20°
33
65
578
1,681
191
138
653
373
131
269
105
33
156
373
67
150
124
32
105
228
3,917 1,314
8,301 2,316
112
401
815
103
146
76
253
758
200
340
725
113
270
580
115
215
405
88
203
383
89
84
333
296
33
331
903
144
305
112
143
229
60
1,715
117
929
3,716 1,716
239
713
198
157
415
164
104
221
113
53
103
94
22°
39
85
77b
238
501
111 270
53
196
40
84
110
35
80
129
7,160
15,880
122
SOURCE: Marlin Gilhousen, "Selected Data from the 1987 Special Censuses," Metropolitan Council Economic Report, Publication No. 620-90-129, August 1990, Table 4. a
l 982 sales; 1977 not available. Percent change, 1982-87.
b
TABLE 9
Wholesale trade, Minneapolis-St. Paul ten-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1977, and eleven-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1987: establishments, sales, and paid employees, by standard industrial classification 1977
1987
(10 counties)0 TWIN CITIES METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA
| ESTABLISHI MENTS
All Wholesale Trade Durable Goods, Total: Motor vehicles, parts, supplies Furniture and home furnishings Lumber, construction materials Professional and commercial equipment and supplies (computers, peripheral equipment are more than half of this category) Metal and minerals, excluding petroleum Electrical goods Hardware, plumbing, heating equipment and supplies Machinery, equipment and supplies (farm, industry equipment and supplies are more three quarters of this category) Miscellaneous (sporting goods, toys, jewelry, etc.)
(11 counties)
SALES ($ BIL)
PAID EMPLOYEES
ESTABLISHMENTS
4,473 2,936
21.6 11.5
5,645 3,861
423
2.9
189
.4
203
1.0
61,815 38,752 5,911 1,651 2,316
247
81,029 55,036 5.7 6,270 1.0 2,573 3,254 1.4
694
4.1
137
2.8
554
2.8
16,385 1,939 6,323
459 229
SALES ($ BIL)
PAID EMPLOYEES
44.7 24.4
115
.3
117
1.0
422
1.3
1,053 1,766 4,516
271
.4
2,562
288
1.0
3,224
1,036
3.5
15,962
891
4.1
11,257
160
.4
3,015
362
1.6
3,811
SOURCE: 1987 Census of Wholesale Trade, Geographic Area Series, Table 8; 1977 Census of Wholesale Trade, Geographic Area Series, Table 4. a
lsanti County not reported.
the proportion of metro residents who almost never set foot downtown, both because of their negative perceptions of the city centers and because so much suburban retailing is now available conveniently close to their homes.7 Parking problems are the most often cited barrier to downtown shopping; three of four metro residents perceive the cost and inconvenience of finding parking downtown as enough to dissuade them from shopping there. No doubt this perception lingers even as facilities have been improved in both downtowns. An unfortu-
nate but inevitable conflict exists between the need to control auto congestion in the city centers by keeping costs high and building parking facilities only on the CBD periphery and the need of downtown retailers to compete with suburban malls, with their sprawling and ostensibly cost-free parking lots. Even the most innovative and convenient park-and-walk system is unlikely to lure shoppers away from the malls' easy parking. Added to perceived parking problems is the twoedged success of downtown redevelopers in redefining both downtowns—but especially Minneapolis—as urbane, cosmopolitan retailing centers that can compete with cities such as Chicago. The new image was created precisely to combat the down-at-the-heels atmosphere that evolved during the 1970s as disposable income and general merchandisers fled the central city. The "upscaling" of downtown was an effort to lure middleand upper-income residents back to the CBD, not just to shop but to live. Thousands of units of higher-ticket housing were constructed in the downtowns in tandem with development incentives to major upper-end retailers (Saks, Neiman Marcus) and to many small elite shops, in hopes of repopulating the downtowns with the professional classes. These efforts met with modest success but produced just the opposite effect on many middle- and working-class householders who are more interested in inexpensive, basic merchandise than in the latest designer fashions. About one in four Twin Citians avoids shopping downtown for this reason. The typical consumer in this group is likely to look at the renovated downtown as a place to go for an occasional lark, to window-shop but not to buy. This effect has been particularly costly for St. Paul's downtown redevelopers, and huge mixed-use complexes stand halfempty, patiently awaiting the hoped-for turnaround in consumer behavior.
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114
Lastly, the persistent negative image of just who resides downtown also deters about one in five would-be shoppers, despite recent changes. During daylight hours downtown streets are bustling with office workers, businesspeople, and street traffic. Still, many lowincome and unemployed residents of the inner city spend their days in the CBD as well, and their mere presence can make both urbanites and suburbanites uncomfortable. Suburban shopping opportunities in the Twin Cities became comprehensive in the 1970s and 1980s. Postwar strip centers expanded and transformed into enclosed malls, with adjacent strip centers added to them as markets expanded. In the 1990s, it can safely be said that virtually any retail item available downtown also can easily be found in the suburbs, which claim a market share of more than 75 percent and more than $4 billion in gross annual sales. In addition to the ubiquitous Dayton Hudson outlets—including Target Stores—all manner of specialty merchandise and services are available, supported by fast-growing suburban populations. There are at least two hundred retail centers of more than 10,000 square feet in the metro area, with Edina's enormous Southdale Center and surrounding strip centers consistently leading in suburban gross sales receipts. The capstone of the suburban shopping experience—some would say the last hurrah of retail expansion—is the megascale Mall of America developed by Melvin Simon Associates, Inc., and the Triple 5 Corporation (which also developed the West Edmonton megamall) on eighty-seven acres southwest of Cedar Avenue South and 1-494 at the site of Bloomington's former sports stadium as the city's effort to assert its identity as a retailing destination. Designed to be the ultimate shopping and recreational experience, the "megamall" encloses an eight-acre amusement park (as large as the
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome), hundreds of shops, and a full line of restaurants and services designed to attract visitors from the entire Upper Midwest region. In addition, the school districts of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Richfield, St. Louis Park, and Bloomington have organized a new school at the mall, managed jointly by a board of district superintendents, school board members, and corporate sponsors, and supported by corporate and other contributions. The competitive threat that the megamall poses to the downtowns and to other suburban malls is difficult to assess. When (and if) all phases are completed, the retail/entertainment/sports/education complex will rank as the largest mall in the Western Hemisphere. Projections are for $1 billion in revenues by 1996 (the developers have $76 million in bonds to repay). Analysts differ on whether sales at the mall will be lost to other Twin Cities retailers or will come from the larger Midwest region. Some expect at least one quarter of the mall's business to be drawn from downtown St. Paul, Mendota Heights, Eagan, and Bloomington's other retailers, and about 5 percent from downtown Minneapolis. Another 25 percent will come from the remainder of the sevencounty metropolitan area. Visitor projections made by the mall's developers exceed those made by Bloomington officials by about 100 percent, but underestimate how much each visitor will spend by about the same margin. The megamall will have to generate sales of about $350 to $400 per square foot per year in order for tenants to stay in the black and pay developers their contractual profit margins. Southdale, with the highest sales figures of all Twin Cities malls, averages $270 per square foot, and is among the top 15 percent of sales performers in the nation. The mall is expected to provide about 10,000 jobs—although many will be parttime and low-paying—once again giving Bloomington
more jobs than people. More than half of the new megamall jobs are expected to be lost from other Twin Cities area retailers.8 The megamaH's novel entertainment features undoubtedly will appeal to many in the same way that the downtowns do—as a once-in-a-while adventure. Winning and Losing Locations on the Retailing Map From center to suburb, the "festival" malls have, in large part, failed to achieve the formula for lasting success. Riverplace and St. Anthony Main, across the river from downtown Minneapolis, overestimated their local markets and became virtual ghost towns, as did Bandana Square in St. Paul to a lesser degree, while the developers of Calhoun Square in Minneapolis's Uptown district near Lake Calhoun were right on the money in their projections of available disposable income within their market area. The more traditional retail districts within the central cities, centered mainly on transportation hubs and major traffic routes, have entered maturity in varying states of health. Lake Street, South Minneapolis's east-west arterial between Lake Calhoun and the St. Paul border, was in the mid-1950s a "miracle mile" and then some; a river of bright lights, garish billboards, and neon logos, all competing for the attention of the thousands of nearby residents and spectators streaming by day and night, and all turning out for that piece of the American dream that seemed within everyone's grasp: the automobile. In 1955, Lake Street was one of the biggest car rows in the world, with fourteen new-car and nearly sixty used-car lots lining its length. It was the place to cruise, the place to shop south of downtown, and the place to gaze longingly at the latest shapes in chrome and metal. As the city aged, however, Lake Street aged along with it. The upwardly mobile of South Minneapolis
moved farther out; newly formed households settled in the suburbs, and suburban retail development drew their income outward. The car dealers followed, and Lake Street slowly deteriorated through attrition into an endless row of discount and second-hand merchandisers, homestyle diners, social service offices, and bars, with only lowest-end used and reused car dealers left behind. Only the far west end, supported by Lake Calhoun, was fit to be revived. Franklin Avenue, running parallel to Lake Street a mile south of the CBD, suffered a different sort of decline. Shortly before the turn of the century it was the transfer route and retail district for horsecar commuters on its east end, and a district of midsize mansions belonging to downtown businessmen on the west end, near Lowry Hill. By World War II, however, the affluent had moved farther out to stay ahead of the invading immigrant hordes, and the upwardly mobile middle and working classes had continued their migration southward, freeing up their older, low-cost housing for the influx of newly arriving poor. East Franklin became the center of the American Indian community in Minneapolis, and the area has high unemployment that has required federal, state, and local intervention. The American Indian Cultural Center has helped to provide some needed services, especially to the nearby Little Earth of United Tribes housing development. As long as the surrounding residential area remains one of the poorest in the city, Franklin Avenue will no doubt remain one of the city's most challenging areas for commercial revitalization. Two redevelopment efforts have had encouraging results, however, and may hold promise for East Franklin (fig. 51). The American Indian Business Development Corporation (AIBDC) used a $10,000 start-up grant from the Minneapolis Foundation and federal economic development funds to open a neighborhood shopping center at Fourteenth and
115
116
East Franklin in 1982. In 1990, the retailers, including a supermarket, paid $80,000 in property taxes to the city and provided jobs for ninety employees. The shopping center's success encouraged the city to cosign a loan in 1988 for the AIBDC's next project, a 56,000square-foot small-business incubator across the street. Eighty percent of the space was leased before the center opened, and by 1992 nearby buildings were being rehabbed for the center's expansion.9 The Uptown end of Lake Street, with Lake Calhoun as its anchor on the west, has been revived almost to a fault, some would say. It has evolved from a fading streetcar hub in the postwar years to the most congested retail intersection in the city, and plans for further expansion are in the works. The fortuitous location of the Lake and Hennepin intersection, directly in the path of the southwestward movement of high disposable income out from the city center and immediately adjacent to the high population densities in the highdemand Lake District, saved it from needing the artificial life support required by comparable streetcar-era hubs in other locations. Although sleepy local merchants undervalued their situation and initially opposed redevelopment plans, clever and clear-eyed developers recognized the area's retail and entertainment potential as young singles moved south along Hennepin Avenue from the Wedge and Lowry Hill rental districts. The city was eager for any possible commercial revitalization within its boundaries and subsidized the development of Calhoun Square, a mixed-use
retail/entertainment/office complex that met with instant success, which spilled over to help business generally in the surrounding area. Uptown's success begat further development plans. Unfortunately, the site of Uptown—not quite downtown with its good bus access, and not quite suburbia with its wide streets and ample parking—was not made to accommodate the flow of auto traffic that the new businesses generated. Subsequent construction of a parking ramp and rerouting of traffic into one-way streets did not relieve Lake and Hennepin of its title of "most auto-polluted intersection in the Twin Cities," nor help it comply with state standards for carbon monoxide and noise levels. As a result, city officials are placed in the unhappy position of having to control or discourage the very type of commercial development they have long sought to keep the central city vital. Across the river, both St. Anthony Main and nearby Riverplace provide telling examples of the need for commercial development to meet and not exceed the demand from purchasing power within its market area. St. Anthony Main was expected to capitalize on its historic setting, at the birthplace of Minneapolis. It prospered in its first few years as a novelty, before other "festival" malls sprung up in more lucrative locations. The birthplace of the city, unfortunately, had become an area of student rental housing and industry, with few or no middle-class households nearby. If the developers counted on pedestrian traffic to walk the half-mile across the bridge from downtown, or on citywide appeal because of the site's historic interest, they were proved wrong in a few short years. The flush of initial success, however, led to the construction of a mixed-use, megadevelopment called Riverplace only two blocks away, which included condominium and rental housing designed to lock in a captive neighborhood market. Riverplace's shops were even more upscale than those
FIGURE 51. East
Franklin Avenue redevelopment, Minneapolis. At the heart of a lowincome neighborhood, where population and businesses turn over frequently, a small-business incubator created with neighborhood leadership and financial support from the city has demonstrated the possibilities for commercial success and neighborhood revitalization. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
FIGURE 52. Neighborhood shops along former streetcar lines now house offices and businesses. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
generation understand and anticipate the dynamics that affect their enterprises, they change with the times to remain competitive. Others watch their markets and their investments disappear (fig. 52). Occasionally there will be the odd bakery or butcher shop whose traditional customers drifted off to the supermarket just as a trendier new clientele arrived with little to do but stand in lines on a Saturday morning absorbing old-fashioned aromas while doing the week's grocery shopping. But such shops are the exception, not the rule. The rule is that as people with higher than average incomes move away, the lower-income households of St. Anthony Main and required a local upscale clienare left behind. The faster the out-migration, the lower tele to survive. The traffic that actually sought out the prices of housing fall in the areas emptying out. these specialty malls consisted largely of tourists, holiThese areas attract low-income households that cannot day visitors, and gift shoppers—people with limited support the businesses left behind. Plymouth Avenue time and, in Minnesota, probably with limited taste for extravagance. That kind of traffic is not sufficiently reli- west of Lyndale, Lyndale and Seventh Street North, Nicollet and Lake, and the Selby-Dale neighborhood all able to support upscale retailing at marginal locations. declined as a result of vigorous suburban housing construction and outward movement of people able and Lessons from the Retailing Landscape Each era willing to leave. The consequences have been pockets of introduces a new generation of shopping centers that cater to new tastes and transport modes, and that com- poverty in each of these areas and a steady decline of retail activity within them. pete with existing centers. Capitalized value flows out Commercial strips in working-class areas such as of old centers to the new unless the old are updated to Central Avenue through northeast Minneapolis or Rice remain convenient and competitive. In the current era, Street through St. Paul's North End show much more style and fun often overshadow need and accessibility stability and vitality because households are financially in determining where shoppers will go. It seems that whenever a basic economic activity becomes easy or non- secure and have no great desire to move away, even though many could afford to do so. essential for most people, it is reborn as a recreational Shopping districts in affluent upper-middle-class form. We have seen hunting and gathering, fishing and areas are also relatively stable, as Hennepin and Lake's gardening, farming and horse raising, simple handicrafts and manufacturing, old cars, railroads, and street- ' Uptown area, Fiftieth and France, and St. Paul's Grand Avenue illustrate. Residential and commercial transicars move into the realm of hobbies and pastimes. It tions occur fastest in the middle-class sectors where a appears that over the past two decades discretionary shopping and eating out as family recreation have joined large fraction of the households are on the move, upward and outward, carrying their demographic the ranks of the other pastimes of the affluent society. potential and their disposable incomes away with them. When owners of shopping centers from an earlier
117
DOUBLING THE AREA and population of the Twin
ment problems and
Cities metro area after 1950 initially meant serious
prospects. At the centers
problems of comprehensive planning (not enough),
lie the shiny, high-profile
physical development (too much, too fast, uncoordinat-
downtowns surrounded by
ed), and governance (overloaded, shortsighted, narrow-
jumbles of transitional
minded, understaffed). Chaotic suburban explosion,
land uses. In the second
made possible by private cars and motivated by pur-
zone are the aged and usually deteriorating pre-World
chasing power stored up during World War II and
War I neighborhoods. Finally, the outer half of each city
healthy appetites for large, privately owned houses on
forms part of the stable residential zone with attractive,
spacious lots, expressed an overdue reaction to Depres-
well-tended houses built in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
sion deprivations followed by wartime crowding and shortages. The central cities and their downtowns were affected along with the suburbs. Until the early 1930s, the cities and their downtowns always had experienced modest rates of continuous rebuilding and steady capital investment. After 1945, they entered a postwar phase of swift deconcentration and steady outward migration that lasted into the 1960s. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, the investment pendulum swung cityward
118
once again. Instead of being abandoned, the downtowns seemed to flourish as islands of energetic rebuilding, although they remained separated from suburban vigor by wide and occasionally unstable residential areas. Each of the two cities is divided into three concentric zones, with each zone presenting distinctive redevelop-
Four Decades of Landscape Renewal in Minneapolis Postwar Dilapidation and the Gateway Center
In 1947, Minneapolis was close to a hundred years old. The "City of Lakes" had reached a population of 500,000 on its way to a peak of almost 522,000 in 1950. On its north, west, and south boundaries residential development spilled into several relatively undeveloped suburbs. The aged parts of the central city foretold of deterioration to come. The average house was forty years old. Nearly 23,000 families lived in substandard houses, and 6,500 families were overcrowded in units with more than 1.5 persons per room. The city had 700 miles of oiled dirt streets handed down from horse and buggy days. From Bridge Square to Seven Corners, the Washington Avenue skid row—one of the nation's largest— was home to 3,000 persons. The Minnesota state legislature passed the Housing and Redevelopment Act in March 1947 to enable cities to respond to their postwar renewal needs. Later
5
Recycling the Central Cities: Infrastructure Change at the Core
119
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that same year, Minneapolis established a Housing and Redevelopment Authority. By the mid-1950s, renewal plans were being completed for Gateway Center, the nation's most ambitious downtown redevelopment project when it began. The depressing drain of the 1950s, when Minneapolis lost 60,000 persons in the productive fifteen to sixty-four age group and gained 16,000 elderly and 14,000 dependent children, soon gave way to the boom of the 1960s. The Guthrie Theater opened, four major league teams arrived, and the Metropolitan Airport Commission rebuilt and expanded the Twin Cities international airport. The metropolitan freeway system connected all parts of the region, the University of Minnesota grew to more than 40,000 students, and economic expansion promised renewed vitality for Minneapolis's second century. Gateway Center replaced skid row, forming part of a quarter-billion dollar private investment in downtown Minneapolis. For the first time in fifty years, new housing arose in the heart of the city. The Towers apartments and condominiums led the new wave with 500 units. Additional private high-rise condos and apartments and high-rise public housing for the elderly pushed the downtown total to well above 5,000 new units by the end of the 1980s. The Nicollet Mall, a tree-lined pedestrian spine linking Gateway Center to the heart of the retailing district, was reserved for pedestrians and buses. Completing the mid-1950s to 1970s downtown redevelopment was a pedestrian walkway system linking more than thirty downtown blocks by second-story skyways over the streets. Most businesses and residents considered that phase of downtown redevelopment an unqualified success.
A High-Density Core with Skyway Links To promote coherent redevelopment in the central business district (CBD), planners divided the core of downtown Minneapolis into a medium-density (B4-1) zone and a high-density (B4-2) zone. Surface parking surrounds the core. The reason for the high-density core and vacant periphery is economics, plus a zoning code that imposes a vastly higher parking requirement for new buildings outside the core. In the medium-density zone, no parking is required until the development reaches 400,000 square feet; in the high-density zone, no parking is required until the development reaches 800,000 square feet. Outside the core, parking must be provided at a rate of one parking space for each 300 square feet of building space on the first 400,000 square feet. Therefore, a 400,000-square-foot structure in the high-density zone requires no parking, whereas outside that zone parking for 1,320 cars would be required. Needless to say, this parking requirement has acted as a brake on real estate development outside the core. By the mid-1970s, the only major project outside the core zones was Minoru Yamasaki's Northwestern National Life Insurance building, with its large reflecting pool and sculpted sand garden decorating the north end of the Nicollet Mall at Washington Avenue. In order to build, the company had to buy from the Housing and Redevelopment Authority an entire block at Hennepin and Second Street North to meet parking requirements. This lot was permanently dedicated to parking and cannot be changed to another use. This stringent parking requirement has been both helpful and harmful. On the plus side, it has confined new development to the core area, facilitating interchange between office and retail functions. But, although the parking requirement has worked well to promote a compact retail-office core, it has left vacant parcels of land around the periphery. Another reason
FIGURE 53. Minneapolis skyway system. Begun as a private venture across Seventh Street between two buildings owned by Baker Properties, the system has grown to connect more than fifty downtown blocks. Skyways are designed, built, patrolled, and maintained as private properties owned and managed by partnerships of owners whose buildings are linked. Downtown pedestrian traffic, formerly busiest at groundlevel intersections, now reaches peak levels at skyway intersections on the second-floor level. COMPILED FROM MATERIALS FROM THE MINNEAPOLIS DOWNTOWN COUNCIL AND CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS.
for the vacant lots is that a higher short-term return can often be garnered from surface parking than from marginal, older buildings—especially warehouses, loft buildings, obsolete hotels, apartments, and small stores and shops that once served nearby residents. Careful downtown planning encouraged a compact retail and office center and provided a land bank for expansion of this center. The pinnacles of this development have been the IDS (Investors Diversified Services) Center and the First Bank Center between Sixth and Seventh streets, and the Norwest Center between Seventh and Sixth streets. Yet promoting core development has meant hindering progress in the Gateway urban renewal project area. Part of the remaining Gateway land has been designated for office and commercial use,
but development has proved to be slower than anticipated. This land seems to be just a few blocks too far northeast from a core that seems to be migrating inexorably to the southwest. The clustering of buildings resulted in the economic feasibility of building skyways that are privately financed and designed to connect the intensely used core at the second-floor level. The skyway system has been the most unusual feature of Minneapolis's downtown circulation pattern (fig. 53). The first skyway went up in the early 1960s to link two buildings across Seventh Street owned by the same interests and to shelter pedestrians from inclement weather. The original function soon redirected foot traffic from the street to the second floor, and new retailing and services sprang up all along the skyway system to take advantage of the new pass-by customers. And as pedestrian traffic moved up from the street level to the skyways, convenience shops followed—from the street level and street intersections to the interior of business blocks at the secondfloor level. By 1992, forty-nine downtown blocks were linked by skyways, with four more skyways in the works. Planners feel that the skyway system promotes real estate development within the core because a skyway link to the rest of the system will make each new building more financially sound than it would be without a link. The city gives carpools and vanpools of the Minnesota Rideshare program free peripheral surface parking, and most peripheral ramps and lots are within one block of access to the skyway system, so commuters can walk indoors from car to office. The city's compact core also lent itself to downtown district heating and cooling. The Minneapolis Energy Center at the southwest edge of the central business district serves most of the downtown core. It was intended that the center buy part of its steam from
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the Hennepin County waste-to-energy incinerator, but the incinerator has yet to be linked to the system. Cooling has become an increasingly important need downtown over the last decade. Energy-efficient building designs have insulated buildings and reduced heat demand, but internally generated heat from lights, office machines, and computers has increased. The Minneapolis Energy Center provides district cooling to twenty-four downtown buildings with a total of 15.3 million square feet—one of the largest such systems in the country. Major new construction projects including the First Bank Place complex, Target Center, Neiman Marcus/Dain Bosworth Plaza, and LaSalle Plaza are connected to the system by a satellite energy plant near the warehouse district. Thus do downtown real estate and land-use patterns change. The city of Minneapolis and the Downtown Council of business people agree that all-day parking should be restricted in the core and moved to the periphery of the CBD. Major office buildings such as the IDS Center have been limited in the number of parking spaces they can provide on their site. A revised zoning code expanded the core's B4-1 and B4-2 districts outward about one and a half blocks from original limits. The expansion not only encourages building without provision for parking, but actually limits the maximum number of spaces that can be built in a particular block. Long-range plans for the Minneapolis CBD include making the city's core as comfortable and convenient for pedestrians as possible and discouraging auto traffic. To pursue this goal the city built several municipal parking ramps on the downtown periphery with cost-only rate structures, and additional ramps are planned. Ramps over 1-394, providing direct access out of the city to the west, and 3,700 more spaces in and around the new convention center complex on the south
edge of downtown, serve both commuters and special events.
Public-Private Partnerships for Minneapolis Redevelopment Downtown Minneapolis after 198O Orderly rearrangement of land-use patterns and redevelopment of real estate in Minneapolis and St. Paul were facilitated by the so-called Minnesota Model, the strong tradition of public-private cooperation for the good of the community. This tradition extends to most realms of social and economic action, including industry, housing, parks, energy, education, employment, and welfare. Reasons given for Minnesota's tradition of joint efforts among business, government, foundations, and nonprofit agencies are the Twin Cities' distance from other large cities, their relative ethnic homogeneity, the diversified economy, the dominance of locally based firms, business leadership with deep roots in Minnesota, the large proportion of business people involved in public affairs, and the state government's efforts to accommodate large local firms whenever possible, through tax relief and other measures. Analysts with a historical perspective would claim that the "Minnesota Model" is a legacy of the Twin Cities' New England founders and their attitudes toward business and community leadership. The Twin Cities avoided the widespread flight for the suburbs that plagued many cities of the northeast United States. During the 1970s, outsiders discovered what locals knew all along: that Minneapolis and St. Paul, along with the state as a whole, are eminently livable places. Favorable publicity attracted investors and developers from many parts of the world. The debate among local planners focused on which real estate or physical development strategy might best serve the
FIGURE 54. Skyways in downtown Minneapolis. PHOTO BY B. J. VANDRASEK.
boundaries provided by the river and surrounding freeways, and with through-traffic tightly controlled. At the core is retailing, surrounded by offices. Skyways are to connect buildings on the second level, and rapid transit is to substitute for autos at street level. Parking laws and facilities should help direct these flows (fig. 54). The development of green space and recreational facilities on the Mississippi riverfront forms a prominent feature of the plan, as are major sports facilities; both are meant to draw statewide visitors to the city. Finally, along with new development, old and historically significant structures are to be preserved. The city's strategy for keeping a vital downtown has focused on Nicollet Mall retailing and adjacent housing construction and has depended upon the willlong-term futures of the two cities, especially in light of ingness of major real estate developers to shoulder the strong competition for retailing posed by suburban much of the risk of center-city redevelopment. Some shopping center development. businesses, instead of migrating to the suburbs, have Redevelopment fervor was dampened during the met the need for renewal, as Dayton's did when it comeconomic downturn of the early 1980s by the slow starts pletely remodeled the interior of its downtown St. Paul of two projects financed by special tax increment department store in 1982 and its Minneapolis store in finance districts—a plan to develop housing around Lor- 1985. ing Park, and a major discount-retail development at The Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and Lake Street in opened in 1964, was the first of its kind in the United South Minneapolis. The economic recession lifted, how- States. It is one of the Twin Cities' proudest symbols of ever; offers that the city could not refuse began to roll public-private partnership. Twenty-five years later, its in, and major new office and retail projects went forcontinued vitality as the city's premier retail district ward in downtown Minneapolis, challenging the subur- again required creative interaction between governban boom. ment and business. In the 1980s, downtown business Minneapolis has had a comprehensive plan to people and city government took stock of retail offerings guide its downtown development since 1959, with frealong the mall and concluded that a major redesign and quent updating to reflect changing needs, technology, rebuilding was needed to meet the demands from the and tastes. The city's current "Metro 2000 Plan" gives upper-income downtown workers, visitors, and condopriority to maintaining the central business district as minium dwellers living around adjacent Loring Park. the symbolic and functional center of the region and to This commitment during the 1980s produced the coordinated physical development planning. The city City Center complex at Seventh Street and Nicollet center is to remain dense and compact, with distinct Avenue; the high-ticket Conservatory, now the new
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retailing anchor of the south mall; and Gaviidae Common (Gaviidae is Latin for "common loon," Minnesota's state bird) and Neiman Marcus, stabilizing business on the north end of Nicollet. A 1989-90 renovation of the mall itself, along with additional upscale retail offerings, continues to strengthen the position of the central business district in its competition with suburban retailing nodes. Ironically, the mall was the catalyst for development of the second-floor skyway system that reorganized pedestrian traffic flows in the downtown and eventually challenged the role of the mall, diverting stroll-by shoppers especially from south of Ninth Street. Planners wish to retain the benefits of skyway traffic while revitalizing pedestrian traffic at street level and promoting a healthy vertical circulation of shoppers. Decisions about how much new office space to build downtown are even more complicated than decisions about retail space. Demand for new offices is often thought to represent jobs for the local economy, but it can arise from processes other than the expansion of the economy, such as one kind of job needing more space replacing another needing less. Some demand comes from existing activities that were too crowded and are spreading out, and a third source of demand comes from activities that simply relocate to new space from old, whether or not the old space was at the end of its useful life. A new concept in the 1980s for downtown office redevelopment in older buildings was the "office condo"—entire floors of renovated buildings that were sold to businesses. Minneapolis's $20 million Renaissance Square project at Fifth Street and Nicollet Avenue failed to attract office-condo investors due to a sagging market and tenants' preferences for newly constructed space. Office space in the square subsequently was offered on more traditional rental terms.
Twin Cities suburbs competed successfully with the central cities through the 1980s for the fast growth in service, light industry, and research firms, because they had the space to offer a new hybrid commercial building, the "office-warehouse." These one-story multiple-unit developments are 50 to 60 percent attractive front office space, and the rest is pleasant light-assembly, research, or warehouse space. Most of these new firms have followed their executives into Eden Prairie and adjacent southwest suburbs. Projected demands for new office space are tied closely to expected new office jobs and space-per-worker ratios. The 1983 projections for Minneapolis predicted an office shortage, but by 1988 the vacancy rate in one large downtown office building stood at 90 percent. Still, construction continued, with distinctive additions to the skyline, including Cesar Pelli's fifty-seven-story Norwest Center, I. M. Pei's First Bank complex, Ellerbe Becket architect Richard Varda's LaSalle Plaza, and the
FIGURE 55.
Downtown Minneapolis. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
AT&T office tower, designed by Gary Lampman and Tim Alt of Walsh Bishop Associates (fig. 55). Sources and Uses of Redevelopment Capital Redevelopment in the historic core of the city often involves complex, piecemeal financing and repeated changes of ownership as properties are bought, improved, and resold by investors. Occasionally, the legal entanglements of the process bring a project to an impasse. Renovation of Minneapolis's historic Crown Roller Mill almost became a casualty of such litigation in 1983 when an investor trying to resell the property was sued by a potential buyer after breaching a purchase agreement, stalling the project indefinitely. While the lawsuit was pending, the mill was gutted by a suspicious fire, and even efforts by the city to salvage the building's remaining shell were hampered by uncertain ownership until new investors were found. When redevelopment projects are judged to be too large or risky for available local capital, foreign investors often step in. Brookfield Development, Inc., a Canadian firm, has become one of Minneapolis's biggest landlords, owning or managing the IDS Center, City Center and Multifoods Tower, Dain Tower and Thorpe Building, Gaviidae Common, and the Dain Plaza/Neiman Marcus complex. Civic leaders are eager to attract visitors for conventions and tourism. St. Paul built a new civic center in the 1970s, and Minneapolis's new convention center opened in 1989, boasting a user-friendly, postmodern design, a location easily accessible from the freeway, and a $200 million price tag, with the city's contribution to be repaid with taxes on sales, hotel rooms, and entertainment profits. Adequate facilities are necessary for cities hoping to attract large conventions and promote tourism, but overall net economic impacts are not well understood. Many facilities are built with public financ-
ing but fail to realize an operating profit for years, leaving state and local taxpayers holding the bag for construction, debt service, and operating costs. During this period, however, the city reaps a general benefit from the extra expenditures that convention visitors make on shopping, entertainment, and lodging, which in turn strengthen the tax base in the commercial district surrounding the facility. The Twin Cities' sports stadium in suburban Bloomington began to show its age in the late 1970s. In the same period, sports franchise owners and business interests mounted a campaign for a dome to keep rain and snow from interfering with games. Minneapolis's downtown boosters seized the opportunity to offer a new domed stadium on the eastern edge of the central business district, on land zoned light-industrial near the rail-warehouse corridor along Washington Avenue. Projections promised up to three thousand new jobs and revitalization of the adjacent Elliot Park neighborhood, as well as a boom for downtown hotel and entertainment concerns. The new Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome opened in April 1982, but a year later the promised spillover benefits to the Elliot Park neighborhood remained unrealized, leaving many speculative business ventures dangling. By 1987, however, the economy had improved, the west riverfront mill district had moved development plans forward, the Minnesota Twins baseball team had begun to win, off-season civic and entertainment events in the Dome had increased, and the Dome's effect on the city was reassessed as a net gain. Urban sports fans were further treated to a new basketball arena on the northwest corner of the central business district, housing the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise and other sporting and civic events. The arena was named "Target Center" to reflect its sponsor-
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Redevelopment in Zones of Transition Around Downtown Minneapolis Downtown Minneapolis has faces in five directions. First is the old milling district looking across the Mississippi River to East Minneapolis. Next, directly to the east, is the Minneapolis Technology Corridor linking the downtown with the University of Minnesota. The south edge of downtown is bounded by the Minneapolis Convention Center, lowpriced apartments, an extensive hospital medical complex, and the I-35W/I-94 freeway corridor. To the southwest, the Nicollet Mall connects with an upper-income, high-density residential zone that forms a bridge into the Wedge, Loring Park, and Kenwood neighborhoods. Finally, on the northwest side of downtown, wholesaling, loft buildings, art galleries, and recreation spots quickly give way to factories, scrap dealers, the county garbage incinerator, vacant railroad land, and the public housing concentrations of the near North Side. As downtown redevelopment nears completion, each of these zones of transition presents a distinctive redevelopment challenge. Efforts to direct business investment and consumer traffic to selected sites on the periphery of the downtown loop have drawn only sporadic trickles and not the hoped-for flood of regular customers. Over the past decade or two, however, development interests have fixed their gaze longingly on the Mississippi's west riverfront—the old flour mill district, the rail yards, the locks—with visions of transforming it into a vital new urban community. The struggles of the scattered riverfront development projects have been attributed mostly to a dearth of affluent residents living in the condos and townhouses there.
The planning debate circles around the question of how many new metro area residents can reasonably be expected in the years ahead, and how many of those can be lured into living downtown. The visionaries assert that the required critical mass of people and purchasing power is slowly building, and will be boosted by further growth of the Minnesota Technology Corridor and completion of riverfront parkway and marina projects. Skeptics argue that, while Minneapolis has ideals and planning creativity on a par with the nation's largest cities, its market—the population from which customers will be drawn—simply is not large enough to support grandiose plans. In 1979, city planners projected 10,000 new condos and apartments on the riverfront by the year 2000, but a decade later they were questioning whether 5,500 new units might be too much to hope for. There is little debate about the river's importance to the city; the river made Minneapolis. The question remains how to create and sustain a vital new residential and commercial city center on the northeastern edge of downtown when the direction of most substantial city growth has been to the southwest. The riverfront's designation in November 1988 as a National River and Recreation Area has been a great boon to development planners (fig. 56). The promise of a permanent river parkway, part of the national Great River Road, is a strong lure to the upscale residents whose income and spending are needed to support downtown vitality. At the same time, plans call for preserving the historic character of the city's birthplace on the riverfront. Many old structures will be preserved for education and interpretation, and others will be renovated for new uses. Within the ten-block Mill District development, the block-long Whitney Mill Quarter was developed with a $3.4 million federal Urban Development Action
FIGURE 56. The Mississippi Mile. Redevelopment along the Mississippi River by St. Anthony Falls. The new Hennepin Avenue Bridge in the background reflects the design of the first bridge across the Mississippi River here or anywhere else along its length, completed in 1855. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
Grant (UDAG) and local tax increment and revenue bond money. The anchor of the Mill Quarter is the ninety-seven-room, European-style Whitney Hotel at Portland Avenue and South First Street, erected inside the shell of the old Standard Flour Mill. The Mill District as a whole has been developed with city and state monies. The Minneapolis Community Development Agency's (MCDA) vision for the district has been downscaled significantly but still includes a mix of housing, retail, restaurant, and office space and hotel rooms, plus a museum and exhibit space interpreting the history of the area. East across the river from the Mill District is the Holmes neighborhood, a mix of student and family residences, industry, the St. Anthony Main and Riverplace festival markets, Grand Metropolitan PLC's (formerly Pillsbury's) Research and Development facility, and the Winslow House condominiums, built across from the site of the 1850s Winslow House Hotel. Since 1986, revitalization efforts have been under way in the 130-acre
riverfront area to restore the historic structures there and maintain a lively mixed commercial district. Redevelopment already was under way in the 1970s when the festival market style of shopping complex came into vogue. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul remodeled several retail developments accordingly, in renovated warehouses, factories, and train depots. The St. Anthony Main shopping complex, opened in 1977, is a good example. It is located at the city's most historic spot, on Main Street Southeast directly across the river from downtown, with a splendid skyline view and a proximity to downtown that seemed certain to lure shoppers. The first phase of the development met with success, but subsequent expansion soon outpaced the flow of customers, as competing renovation projects opened elsewhere. St. Anthony Main is surrounded by a heavily student and blue-collar residential area and by industrial activity, and the close-by panorama of downtown failed to translate into traffic to support the complex. The site, the ambience, and the history were excellent, but the supply of nearby people and purchasing power was inadequate to support the trendy shops and restaurants. St. Anthony Main went into receivership in 1987. Since then it has been sold in four sections to four different buyers, including the MCDA. The vital link to tie together redevelopment efforts along the west side of the Mississippi River is the Minnesota Technology Corridor, a 113-acre development district along Washington Avenue between Portland Avenue and I-35W, which is designated for state and local government tax credits, improvements, and other assistance for enterprises involved in high-technology research and development and business start-ups. The corridor is the product of an initiative by Minneapolis city government to increase the scientific, technological, and research-oriented components of the
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city's economy. The move was a response to the shift in the economy toward high-technology and information industries, to the fact that most of these new businesses were starting up in the suburbs, and to the influence of a major research university within its boundaries. An inner-city, high-technology industrial park would boost the city's economy, provide a meeting ground for the university, business community, and outside research and development interests, and provide great growth potential for small high-technology companies needing incubator services and proximity to the university. Fortunately, the city had a strip of underused industrial land that stretched precisely from the university to the central business district, the perfect site for the project. The MCDA maintains a land bank for the corridor and provides parking and public improvements to support projects appropriate to the zone. Tenants include the Minnesota Super Computer Center, Inc., and the University of Minnesota's Supercomputer Institute; the university's Office of Research and Technology Transfer Administration; the Army High Performance Computing Research Center; Valspar's high-technology research and development facility; the Thresher Square office renovation; and Muse Ten,1 a new-business incubator. The city hopes that the corridor will tie together the central business district, ongoing riverfront develop-
ment, and the Seven Corners/University of Minnesota areas (fig. 57). On the south edge of the central business district the effects of downtown redevelopment spill into adjacent neighborhoods such as Elliot Park, a low- and moderate-income residential area north of 1-94 and between Fifth Avenue South and Hiawatha—sometimes painfully so. As downtown land values rise with renewal, tax assessments also rise according to proximity to the highest-value downtown block (the IDS block at Seventh and Nicollet). Although business activity and real estate redevelopment drop off abruptly in the direction of Elliot Park, small businesses there have seen their assessments and taxes rise right along with downtown businesses situated at equal distances from the city center. Some neighborhood businesses have appealed to the city to reduce their tax assessments, but at least until property values match forecasted levels, they are pessimistic about their long-term survival while current assessments prevail. The Hennepin County waste-to-energy incinerator stands just behind the Target Center on the northwest corner of downtown facing the heaviest concentration of low-income African-Americans in the city. Hennepin County was given a mandate to find an alternative to landfill disposal, and its Board of Commissioners won the city's approval to build an incinerator plant on the industrial edge of the CBD. The new structure replaced a blighted area but introduced its own form of blight with its emissions into the atmosphere of the CBD. Outside Downtown Minneapolis: Sporadic Redevelopment and Creative Reuse For residents of old inner-city neighborhoods, redevelopment can be a blessing or a curse. The city grapples constantly with the conflict between its need to maintain a quality housing stock that keeps middle-class families in the
FIGURE 57. Cedar Square West in the 197Os. The first and only stage completed of an ambitious effort to build the first federally funded New TownIn Town, carrying out a redevelopment plan for the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood adopted by the Minneapolis City Council in 1968. The master plan for the one-hundred-acre site proposed 12,5OO housing units for 3O,OOO people. Phase I with 1,299 units and about 3,OOO residents (left) was completed. Ralph Rapson, architect. PHOTO COURTESY OF RIVERSIDE PLAZA.
FIGURE 58. Greenway Gables at the southwest edge of downtown Minneapolis. An example of successful new market-rate housing at the core of the city. PHOTO BY CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, PLANNING DEPARTMENT/GRAPHICS, I. M. HOLLEY.
city and its obligation and desire to keep forced displacement to a minimum. A study of the effects of renewal in the Seward community, southeast of downtown, reported that almost two out of three persons who relocated did so voluntarily, glad to sell their hard-tomarket homes to the city and leave the neighborhood, or to use renter-relocation payments to purchase homes. About one in five who would have been content to stay were forced to relocate when they could not afford to upgrade their houses to meet city codes and could not find suitable replacement housing within the Seward neighborhood. So, although the Seward renewal succeeded in stabilizing the neighborhood's housing stock, there were social costs. The City at Large The need for continuous renewal presents a challenge not only in the central business district but throughout the city. The deteriorating Loring Park neighborhood drew back affluent residents with apartment, condo, and townhouse developments
such as Greenway Gables, Loring Green, and Loring Way (fig. 58). The Calhoun Square shopping complex at Lake Street and Hennepin Avenue became an even stronger anchor for the thriving Uptown commercial district. An especially creative reuse of a historic structure is the award-winning renovation of the four-building Munsingwear complex at Lyndale and Glenwood avenues just west of downtown, now International Market Square, boasting a five-story glass-roofed atrium and festival hall. In 1982, the Minneapolis School Board owned twenty-five buildings no longer used as schools, presenting a reuse challenge to the city. The former MarshallUniversity High School became a center for community and nonprofit groups. The Douglas School Project on Fifteenth Street just south of downtown produced condos and townhouses. Others were converted to low- and moderate-income housing or razed to make room for new housing. A few of the schools were rented as office, child-care, or storage space, and one junior high school was converted into an elementary school. These shortterm adaptations will allow some of the buildings to be put back into use as schools as the need arises.
Rebuilding and Revitalizing St. Paul Early Postwar Initiatives St. Paul's public renewal programs began with the federal urban renewal law of 1949. The Housing Authority subsequently undertook several federally aided projects. Others began under the Port Authority, which was created by the legislature to manage and develop river port facilities and its extensive holdings along the river. The State Capitol Approach Area redevelopment was launched under the State Veteran Service Building Commission. In addition, a large public housing program built more than three thousand units.
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Like Minneapolis, St. Paul's initial emphasis was on clearance and redevelopment in which the worst nineteenth-century slum areas were replaced by new and different uses. Today, the major blighted areas are gone and emphasis has moved to rehabilitation and conservation—retaining the basic character of communities and neighborhoods but updating the physical plant. Interest in downtown redevelopment began with a plan by Victor Gruen's firm, which was commissioned in 1958 by a group of St. Paul businessmen. The popular plan failed to materialize when the Minnesota highway department declined to reroute 1-94 to the north of the capitol, but the Housing and Redevelopment Authority responded soon with other plans, encouraged by support from the Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Improvement Committee, a group of labor leaders, professionals, and business persons organized to promote citywide renewal and improvement especially for commercial uses. In 1962, the planning board approved the twelve-block, forty-three-acre Capital Centre renewal project in the heart of downtown. All but a few of the structures had been built before 1920, and most were replaced. The redevelopment effort, financed primarily by City Urban Renewal Bonds, replaced downtown infrastructure and created a fifteen-block skyway system, the largest public system in the United States at the time, expanded by 1992 to connect thirty-six blocks (fig. 59). Between 1964 and 1978, significant office, financial, parking, and residential uses were developed, but retailing still lagged behind. To address the retailing deficit, the Seventh Place Redevelopment Project was begun, financed by local tax increments and federal Urban Development Action Grants. The result was a block-long pedestrian mall and the four-level, mixed-use Town Square Park complex, which opened in 1980.
Annual operating costs of Town Square Park are assessed to benefitting property owners. The complex was expanded with the construction of the St. Paul Center in 1985, connecting Town Square with the new World Trade Center. The third phase of St. Paul's downtown redevelopment began in 1989, aimed at enhancing the city's status as a government and cultural center and at bolstering economic activity in the central business district. This phase was financed by the sale of $18 million in tax increment bonds. Revitalized Leadership By 1977, St. Paul development interests had nibbled at the bait but had not been hooked on several downtown renewal projects. Still, optimistic city boosters predicted great changes: a twin office tower, a major chain hotel, a pedestrian mall and enclosed galleria, and to put the final jewel in the crown, a $56 million elevated transit system. Difficulties in luring successful development throughout the 1970s made the city skeptical of new suitors. St. Paul is a city of only moderate size, with a population of 272,000 and a location on the slowergrowth side of the metro region. Its professional hockey team had left for lack of fans, its sports stadium had no teams, a major hotel renovation plan had fallen flat, and the civic center was standing idle for most of the year. Some St. Paulites attributed the city's low selfesteem to its economic downturn in the 1920s and 1930s at the same time that Minneapolis was flourishing. Whatever the cause, infusion of new leadership was the cure for the city's sagging ego. In 1976, George Latimer was elected mayor of St. Paul. He immediately emerged as the city's most enthusiastic booster as well as an extraordinarily effective leader. He "hit the ground running," aided in part by a 1972 city charter change to a "strong mayor" form of
FIGURE 59. St. Paul skyway system. Although one of the nation's best-developed systems, most of St. Paul's skyways are city property and therefore enjoy virtually the same legal status as public sidewalks, which means that police and building owners occasionally face difficulties dealing with loitering and obstreperous or impolite behavior that might pass notice outside. COMPILED FROM MATERIALS FROM THE CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
government, making the mayor the chief executive of the city's departments and enabling him to circumvent much of the red tape that traditionally snags development planning. Latimer's highest priority was the revitalization of downtown, and he was resolved to accomplish the task with a minimum of general-obligation financing by the city. Instead, all efforts were focused on attracting as much state, federal, and private development money as possible. To facilitate this strategy, the city created the Department of Planning and Economic Development (FED) in 1977, merging the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, City Planning Office, and Community Development Office, in hopes of reducing
friction and increasing coordination among the three agencies. Along with the FED, the St. Paul Port Authority also has proved vital to the city's economic revitalization and real estate redevelopment. Since its creation by legislative order in 1929 and its founding in 1932, the Port Authority has been responsible mainly for clearing and rebuilding along the river and support of river traffic and port functions. After World War II, however, the quasi-public agency was given a larger role in helping to reverse the city's economic downturn. The Authority was reorganized in 1957, expanded, and given powers of eminent domain and permission to issue $28 million in general obligation bonds for riverfront redevelopment,
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used mostly for industrial parks. The Port Authority has maintained its semiautonomous status, issuing more than $550 million in industrial revenue bonds since 1965, but it is required to obtain city council approval for any development project before revenue bonds are sold to finance it. It is the state's largest landlord (after the state of Minnesota itself) and has financed more industrial development in St. Paul than has any bank. The combined and coordinated efforts of the mayor and the council, the FED, and the Port Authority proved highly successful in downtown real estate development following the mid-1970s. The city of St. Paul, which erected only one major downtown building between 1930 and 1959, managed after 1977 to draw more than $1 billion in public and private investment to downtown. Cooperative planning and promotion by the city enabled it to leverage $52 million in federal UDAG grants into $740 million in private funds, mostly through industrial revenue bonds and tax increment financing. Following extravagant activity through the 1980s, with Port Authority grants and loans to real estate developers for hotels, office space, and retailing, and the bankruptcy of several projects, the Port Authority narrowed the scope of its activities. A new mission statement focuses the agency on financing industrial and commercial developments and away from retail and special-use facilities such as hotels and restaurants. The Authority's new Business Development Finance Program has strict lending criteria and a $5 million cap on loans for any individual project. If St. Paul has a guiding credo for the way it redevelops its downtown, it is to learn from the mistakes of others and remain true to the character of the city. In the eyes of boosters and residents alike, St. Paul is a city proud of its working-class heritage that dislikes
pretension or aspirations to be something it is not. While Minneapolis can succeed with a strictly upscale retail avenue, St. Paul strives for a more mixed-use, small-scale approach with housing, offices, and retailing side by side in each complex. Minneapolis's riverfront is becoming almost completely recreation, festival-retailing, and upscale housing, but St. Paul's remains a working port with industrial parks, mixed-income housing, and all-level retailing. St. Paul Redevelopment Projects Among the pioneering projects in St. Paul's downtown "rebirth" have been the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Landmark Center. The Science Museum and the Omnitheater, opened in 1978, draw patrons from all over the Midwest with their participatory approach to public education in the sciences. The Children's Museum moves from Bandana Square into the central business district in 1994, rounding out the day for visiting families. The Landmark Center, a $12.5 million renovation of a nineteenth-century federal court building, provides space for public social and cultural events and exhibitions and is perhaps the city's most visible link to its past (fig. 60). Completed in 1902, the building originally was designed to serve as post office, customs house, and courthouse; it eventually became the headquarters of all federal offices in the Upper Midwest. In 1970, the structure was saved from the wrecker's ball by a group of historically minded citizens, and it opened its doors in its current role in 1978. The mixed-use Town Square complex opened in 1980, complemented soon after by the $12 million renovation of the adjacent Dayton's department store. Oxford Development Corporation, which owned major developments in both downtowns in the early 1980s, deliberately chose the names "City Center" in Minneapolis and "Town Square" in St. Paul, acknowledging
FIGURE 60. Landmark Center en the north side ef Rice Park, downtown St. Paul. The lormer federal courthouse was carefully restored and redecorated to become the city's most active and effective community center. Its neighbors around the park include the restored St. Paul Hotel (east side), the St. Paul Public Library and James J. Hill Reference Library (south), and the Ordway Music Theatre (west). PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
the distinctive "small big city" and "big small town" characters of the two cities.2 Several new office buildings, hotels, and housing developments filled remaining gaps, and all were linked by three miles and $9 million of public skyways. In 1985, St. Paul deployed a new $68 million hotwater district heating system serving seventy downtown buildings and homes for space heating, domestic hot water, and industrial processes. With the completion in 1983 of the twenty-five-story Amhoist Tower (with offices and condos and hope to be St. Paul's answer to the IDS Center), and the opening of the $99
million, forty-story World Trade Center in 1986, the downtown core seemed ready to join the big leagues. The 1985 opening of the $46 million Ordway Music Theatre, financed with more than $30 million in philanthropy from some of St. Paul's oldest founding families, added the needed final touch to St. Paul's "renaissance" as a home for significant cultural events—the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Schubert Club, and Minnesota Orchestra—and a boost to life-after-five in the city's downtown streets. During the 1990s, the city is promoting the cluster of institutions between the Science Museum and the Civic
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Center as a "cultural corridor" that will renew the city center's economic vitality and that already is attracting nearly five million visitors each year. The designation of St. Paul's Lowertown area, formerly the city's primary wholesaling and manufacturing district at the east end of the central business district, as a National Register Historic District has contributed to its attractiveness for development, both aesthetically and financially. Every historic district has a determined "period of significance," defined as the most important era in the district's historical development. A structure within the district is deemed "contributing" if it dates to the period of significance and has not been altered from its original appearance. Other structures are considered "noncontributing" and thus ineligible for special tax status. Owners and developers of the thirty-nine contributing buildings in the Lowertown historic district qualify for 20 percent tax breaks on the costs of income-producing renovation. There is federal, state, and local involvement in historic preservation. Federal and state rules govern actions by public agencies or publicly funded projects that threaten state- or nationally designated sites. Local authority provides greater protection because it regulates private-sector activities that affect locally designated structures or sites. Minnesota's Municipal Heritage Preservation Act of 1971 authorizes divisions of state government to establish local Historic Preservation Commissions, which identify historic sites and ensure their preservation by nominating them for protection to their city council. City councils can designate sites and then use the permit review process to protect them from the actions of private individuals.3 The Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation was formed in 1978 with a $10 million grant from the McKnight Foundation, with which it was able to draw
more than $350 million in private investment for thirtyfive different projects. Displacement of working artists in the loft district has been mitigated to some extent by public and nonprofit help to renovate warehouse space for low-rent work lofts, to be owned and managed by artist-tenants. By 1990 there were 104 loft-style units in downtown St. Paul. By the early 1990s, St. Paul's success at attracting development dollars had exceeded its success at drawing people and businesses back to downtown. Core developments were overbuilt by some estimates, but downtown boosters insist that eventually demand will catch up with supply, and that in the long term the downtown building boom strategy will be vindicated. The Lowertown development also has met with mixed success. The $140 million Galtier Plaza stood with empty apartments and office space after its first year, and its retail business was faltering as well. Refinancing enabled developers to pay off $21 million in Port Authority revenue bonds, to reduce interest payments, and to offer below-market interest rates to condo buyers. The city of St. Paul lost $9 million on the project, but recoups that loss with property tax revenues over five years. The building was sold in 1989 for $14 million. In 1990, a revised strategy brought a facelift, popular nightclub entertainment, and downscaled retailing into the lower levels of Galtier, filling 85 percent of the storefronts. By 1991, the building's 100,000 square feet of office space was 85 percent leased, and 90 percent of the apartments and 70 percent of the condominiums were occupied. St. Paul planners remain undaunted by the slow take-off of their vigorous downtown revitalization efforts. The district heating system has expanded to 22.7 million square feet in large buildings and singlefamily residences in downtown and adjacent areas—
including 70 percent of downtown building space. The heat is generated by a plant at the edge of downtown, which relies mainly on low-sulfur coal. The city also is constructing an $8.8 million cooling system, scheduled to begin operation in 1993. Still in the works is another $600 million worth of investment in Lowertown; a scheme to link the State Capitol Mall and government buildings, now separated from downtown by 1-94, to the city's core with a bridge deck and buildings over the freeway and a tunnel below; and ongoing efforts to develop and link the riverfront to the downtown core. Housing, from Lowertown to Ramsey Hill Planners in both cities agree that the key to successful downtown revitalization is bringing people to the city core not only to work and to shop but also to live. St. Paul pursues this goal by incorporating housing at several price levels into its new downtown developments, testing the theory that if enough different housing options are available, people will be drawn in. The 600 new housing units put on the market in 1988 brought St. Paul's downtown total to 3,000, with 400 units vacant and growth projections to fill 150 to 250 units per year. St. Paul planners expected that, with a boost from the World Trade Center, housing vacancy rates would drop to a normal level in two to three years, depending on the fill-in rate of the newest projects. Then the city would curtail its downtown housing push and turn its attention toward riverfront developments. At the end of the 1980s, the newest Lowertown housing developments showed one-third to two-thirds vacancies, and downtown condos and apartments reached their highest vacancy rates in five years. St. Paul's downtown population growth rate slowed in the mid-1980s, with the number of residents rising from 2,544 in 1980 to 3,200 in 1984 and 3,500 in 1987. By 1990, there were 3,756 units in the central business dis-
trict, but 1,078 reported vacancies. In Minneapolis's larger downtown area, in contrast, with 20,000 residents living in 15,000 housing units, retail expansion plans for the Nicollet Mall could make downtown living even more attractive. Although the condo market had slowed everywhere by the late 1980s, St. Paulites cite the not-yet-lively enough downtown, especially at night; the dearth of residential services such as grocery and hardware stores; parking problems; and high property tax rates as obstacles to be overcome before downtown living develops momentum. Redevelopment west of downtown St. Paul met with the most widely acclaimed and unpredicted success of any area in the city. The Ramsey Hill neighborhood, just west of the St. Paul Cathedral and adjacent to the intersections of Selby Avenue with Dale Street and Western Avenue, was the center of low-income minority population in the city through the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the area's structures had deteriorated from neglect or were abandoned during those two decades, while increases in minority population accompanied depressed rents and property valuations. Impetus for renewal came in the late 1960s when the neighborhood was designated a Model Cities Area and federal money became available. In 1971, law student John Rupp, who had grown up in the adjacent Crocus Hill neighborhood, discovered the undervalued properties in Ramsey Hill and began buying, renovating, and reselling them at a time when loan interest rates were low and most developers showed little interest in the area. The turnaround point for the neighborhood occurred when an old retail building at Selby and Western avenues was renovated and reopened as a restaurant. The city eventually joined in to narrow Selby Avenue, widen its sidewalks, and add new street lighting and more trees (fig. 61). The attention brought to
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the neighborhood by this unlikely development attracted speculative money, and soon other developers were constructing condos and apartments, restaurants, bars, and shops. Revitalization in Ramsey Hill was easier than in some other neighborhoods because many of the properties already were abandoned when reinvestment began. There were few marginal retail outlets to relocate, and few businesses of the type that might have discouraged new residents—porno shops, adult bookstores, and sleazy bars. In addition, the turnaround succeeded because the area's housing renovation kept pace with, or even led, commercial development; patrons were present for new businesses right from the start. Ramsey Hill developers do not intend to compete directly with the trendy retailing of other gentrified neighborhoods, such as Grand Avenue farther west. Rather, they envision the neighborhood as emphasizing food and entertainment and becoming one of the important commercial centers outside of downtown. Continued upgrading of its housing stock, which includes fine, large older homes, will virtually assure the area's continuing vitality.
The contrast between the continuing successful redevelopment of Ramsey Hill and Grand Avenue, on the one hand, and the continuing difficulties faced by Lowertown is explainable in part by long-term geographic processes and spatial trends. Since its founding, downtown St. Paul has migrated west and north from the mouth of Trout Creek, with offices and commercial enterprises following in the residential path charted by the city's wealthy and community leaders to Summit Hill and points west (fig. 62). This steady movement westward created the low-status cul-de-sac of Lowertown, a dead-end zone bounded on the north, east, and south sides by road, rail, and river. The pull westward relocated downtown's focus from the railroad station and First Bank building to Town Square, the World Trade Center, and the St. Paul Companies building, while enhancing Summit Hill's and Ramsey Hill's aura of distinction and desirability. In western St. Paul, money, influence, style, and social pedigrees persist. Historic cachets endure; Summit Avenue remains among the finest concentrations of preserved Victorian homes in the country. An exact parallel exists in Minneapolis, where money and community leadership moved southwest, drawing commercial activity in that direction and away from the river. So, despite the best efforts of boosters, imaginative architects, and earnest local officials, historic trends work against a scale of riverfront development in Minneapolis to match the development pace on the south and southwest edge of downtown. Energy Park and Infrastructure for the Future St. Paul's Energy Park project, on a 218-acre underutilized railroad yard and industrial site southeast of the state fairgrounds, may be unique in the country. The creative development was spawned by the energy-price scare of the 1970s. The concept was to build a new-style,
FIGURE 61. Selby-Dale redevelopment. This intersection west of the Ramsey Hill neighborhood along the Selby Avenue transit line passed through several generations of use. Upwardly mobile households of a century ago were replaced after World War I by St. Paul's Jewish community, who moved westward after World War II and were followed by African-American households moving up the socioeconomic ladder. Decrepit structures and marginal businesses were cleared by the city and replaced by an attractive array of low- and moderate-income housing opportunities. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
FIGURE 62. St. Paul
riverfront. View downstream past the High Bridge toward downtown. St. Paul's waterfront is a landscape of production with rail, river, and highway movement serving the manufacturing industries and bulk shipments of grain, coal, and other bulk products. PHOTO COURTESY OF NEIL KVEBERG, MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.
mixed-use industrial park inside the city, especially for energy-related businesses. All of the park's buildings were to employ the latest energy-saving technology and be hooked into a cost-saving, energy-efficient central heating and cooling system. City officials optimistically projected that the park would create hundreds of entrylevel jobs in high-technology machine assembly. Nearly a decade after its conception, the Energy Park project got a mixed report card. Few energy-related businesses were attracted to the site; by the early 1980s the energy scare had turned into an oil glut, and the once-anticipated boom in energy-saving technology faded away. The few high-technology firms that did come to the park offered jobs that required extensive training, and much of their assembly work was done with robotics. The St. Paul Port Authority financed the project and was left with more than $100 million in bonds to be paid off, but slow development of the site left the authority a heavy bond interest burden.
The mixed housing and the Bandana Square retailing complex on the site also met with mixed success. Plans for additional housing were revised to provide more moderate-income apartments and townhouses rather than more of the slow-moving condos, and Bandana Square's management took on a new public relations consultant to boost business. But Energy Park gets positive marks overall for its long-term outlook. It was a creative way to develop an underutilized parcel of city land; its central heating system is among the most sophisticated and potentially cost-effective in the country; it employed more than four thousand people in 1989, albeit only about one-fifth at entry level; and developers expect the space eventually to fill and become profitable, so that Port Authority bonds can be repaid. Energy Park turned out to be significantly different from its original concept, but the bold experiment should reap a long-term net benefit for the city nonetheless. A less glamorous but equally essential feature of urban redevelopment is the maintenance and upgrading of physical infrastructure, such as roads, tunnels, bridges, and public buildings. One of St. Paul's major concerns is sustaining traffic flow across the Mississippi River in and out of downtown, and over 1-94 and I-35E between the Capitol Mall area and downtown. Keeping up with increased traffic during the 1980s meant replacing five bridges over the freeways, lengthening a sixth, and replacing St. Paul's historic High Bridge over the Mississippi. The Downtown Council took the opportunity to enhance these entry points aesthetically as well, adding features such as nineteenth-century-style street lamps, brickwork, and railings to complement the city's historic flavor. When cities build highways or locate halfway houses and hazardous waste sites, the negative impacts are highly focused geographically, while the benefits are
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widely shared by the community. So pressures in favor of such projects often are muted, while opposition is vigorous. In the urban economic development business of the 1970s and 1980s, the reverse proved to be the case. Benefits were highly focused, while costs were imposed on people and interests at other places and other times. The losers are hard to find, partly because many of them do not know or understand the full extent to which their pockets were being picked. They include shopping centers and retailing establishments rendered prematurely obsolete because new construction received subsidies while older investments were left to fend for themselves. They include office buildings prematurely downgraded or replaced by attractive, new, subsidized spaces that the older spaces have trouble competing with. They include future pensioners who will receive lower pensions and holders of insurance policies who will pay higher premiums and receive lower benefits because excessive and unwise investments in commercial and office space have diluted the value of these investments in the real estate portion of their portfolios. And of course they include the American taxpayers who already are braced to absorb the half-trillion to trilliondollar savings and loan bailout, brought on largely by real estate overbuilding, real estate fraud, or investment in the wrong locations or in the wrong facilities. Stockholders of commercial banks already have lost part of their equity in the fallout from the real estate boom of the 1970s and 1980s, but the full force of the bill has still to be reckoned. In other words, if we look at the volume of spending on real estate development, the picture looks rosy. If we had a "balance sheet" for our metro area, however, it is hard to say what the bottom line would tell us. It is like evaluating a company by looking only at its sales figures, or judging the affluence of a family by tallying its spending for a year. If a company loses money on
every sale, or if a family maintains its spending by borrowing rather than by earnings, the bottom lines are negative indeed. Are Twin Cities real estate investments in better shape in the 1990s than they would have been without massive public support? Many of them, probably. Many others, probably not. Is the Twin Cities economy better able to confront its economic future given these incremental real estate investments than it would be had the money been invested differently, say in more effective schools and preschools, industrial research and development, production infrastructure, child development and protection services, public health, and so forth? Almost certainly not.
Designs for Urban Living In an expanding community like the Twin Cities, where suburbs offer almost every good, service, and leisure activity that anyone could want, the challenge for city planners is to make the downtowns unique places with their own special atmosphere. A key element in creating a lively, twenty-four-hour downtown is to have people live there as well as work and shop there. Minneapolis currently has 20,000 residents living in 15,000 downtown housing units, and expectations are that over the remainder of the century two-thirds of all new housing built in the city will be downtown. Downtown St. Paul has more than 3,000 housing units, and the total keeps expanding. Nightlife in both cities was sparked by the addition of Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis and the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul, and distinct entertainment districts should emerge over the next decade along Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis and in the Lowertown area of St. Paul. As downtown nightlife increases, better security will be required in the skyways and on the streets, a
FIGURE 63. Violin shop, Tenth Street, downtown Minneapolis. Small-scale, pedestrian-friendly buildings from an earlier time survive amidst large-scale redevelopment.
areas like Lowertown, where loft space has been subsidized so that practicing artists will be able to remain. Who are the downtown residents? Many are suburban empty-nesters who no longer need a big house and yard and enjoy living in the energetic atmosphere of the city. Others are professionals avoiding the inconvenience of daily commuting. Most cite proximity to work, shopping, and cultural activities and the alwaysinteresting downtown milieu as compelling reasons for living in the city.
PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
service that most likely will be provided jointly by the cities and by downtown businesses. These visions of the future suggest a starkly different social and economic mix from the downtown of the 1960s: low- and moderate-income people and bluecollar jobs are increasingly absent. Both cities do, however, incorporate some subsidized housing into their new developments, and they work with private foundations and corporations to minimize displacement in
Shaping the Skyline The visual excitement of the city often is the first hook that draws people to it, from the looming skyline viewed from miles away to the captivating interest of a storefront archway viewed by a pedestrian. Minneapolis and St. Paul differ in their architectural legacies, St. Paul being older than Minneapolis. Post-1980 core redevelopment in both cities reflects changing ideas about architecture and urban space, moving away from the sterile, aloof glass boxes of the international style toward designs that are more connected to and that reflect the place, its past, and the people and functions they will serve. The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger has termed this new aesthetic "Romantic Modernism," not a literal reversal to the old materials and styles but rather the latest materials and techniques used in ways that pay homage to a different era while embracing the new, with more attention to sculptural form, texture, and color.4 The same rekindled interest in the past that influenced architectural style also led city planners to think twice before allowing the old to be razed to make way for the new, so that new construction often has to be designed to blend comfortably with existing structures that are to be preserved (fig. 63). The pivot for the rejuvenation of downtown Minneapolis was the opening of the IDS Center in 1973.
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Designed by architect Philip Johnson, the IDS incorporates a nine-story glass-roofed courtyard, the Crystal Court, intended by Johnson to be a "town square" and central meeting place for the city (fig. 64). The space has served that function well as a site of charity balls, concerts, and shows and as a major intersection for shoppers and workers during the day. Since it was built, the IDS design has been roundly acclaimed as a bold innovation for urban skyscrapers, a "nervy, exciting place, ... the single finest enclosed space in any city in the U.S... ."5 Almost all of Minneapolis's large downtown buildings built since have incorporated an indoor-outdoor feeling, with multistory open foyers, atria, and skylights, and most also have followed the trend away from stark and square toward sculptured, textured, warmcolored forms. Notable examples are the Pillsbury Center, Radisson Plaza Hotel, Piper Tower, 701-Fourth Street building, Centre Village, Lincoln Centre, Lutheran Brotherhood, Norwest Center, and the Conservatory. The new building forms and colors make for an eclectic skyline, which also contains old landmarks like the thirty-nine-story Foshay Tower, built in 1929 to resemble the Washington Monument. The tower was carefully restored in the late 1980s right down to the brass window fittings and the painted clouds on the raised-plaster lobby ceiling. St. Paul's Galtier Plaza, Landmark Tower (formerly Amhoist Tower), and World Trade Center are noticeable additions to its skyline, formerly dominated by the large "1st" logo of the First Bank building, incorporating the same sort of sculptured forms and range of colors to provide a bridge between old and new (fig. 65). At the ground level, they too have opened up the lower floors to let in light and air and to connect with the street life of the city.
FIGURE 64. The Crystal Court of the IDS Center, downtown Minneapolis. Architect Philip Johnson's sixstory glass atrium provides the downtown with its main pedestrian crossroads and what has been fudged one of America's most successful spaces of its type. PHOTO BY B. J. VANDRASEK.
Outside the downtowns we find other examples of a newly sensitized architecture. The University of Minnesota's Law Building and the Hubert H. Humphrey Center reflect each other's color, texture, and low-slung design across a busy thoroughfare that might otherwise disrupt the unity of the campus. Both won architectural awards for Leonard Parker Associates. The university's award-winning Civil and Mineral Engineering Building, designed by architect David Bennett, is a comfortable, well-lit, and energy-efficient structure built entirely underground. The building's success led the state to
FIGURE 65. Galtier Plaza, downtown St. Paul. Tkis optimistic mixed-use downtown development effort, undertaken in the spirit of Chicago's Water Tower Place and the IDS Center and Crystal Court, offers splendid design for office and commercial activity but encountered difficulty attracting tenants in a soft downtown real estate market despite an attractive site facing Mears Park on the western edge of Lowertown. PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
look seriously at its underground development potential, especially for industry, for energy cost-efficiency as well as for space savings. The Romantic Modern style was expressed literally in an adaptive reuse project near Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. A cluster of grain silos no longer in use was retrofitted into condominiums, retaining the curving outer walls for a distinctive look (fig. 66). After the construction problems of rounded walls were overcome, the units sold well, probably due as much to their prime location between Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake as to their novel design. When Development Threatens Environment The Chain of Lakes in western Minneapolis forms something of a barrier between the metro center in downtown Minneapolis and the rapidly expanding western suburbs. Interaction between the western suburbs and downtown Minneapolis historically has followed two main paths. The first, carrying traffic from St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Edina, Excelsior, and the south shore of Lake Minnetonka, funneled into the city on Lake Street between Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake. For many years the highway department hoped to build a freeway between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, but the good sense and political clout of residents of the Lake District prevented the state from implementing this mindless and devastating plan. The other major channel carrying ever-increasing volumes of westside traffic came from Golden Valley, northern Minnetonka, Wayzata, and Plymouth, entered Minneapolis along Wayzata Boulevard, past Cedar Lake and the Basilica of St. Mary, and then squeezed into downtown via Hennepin Avenue. The Minnesota Department of Transportation, eager for years to expand the capacity of this route, fought a bitter battle with neighborhoods and businesses that opposed heav-
141 ier traffic, greater pollution, structural damage to landmark buildings due to traffic-produced ground vibrations, and prolonged disruption during construction. But eventually the road was upgraded to a high-capacity freeway when the 1-394 project was completed.
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In both instances, communities objected to disruptive change that would diminish the quality of their neighborhoods just so that highway users elsewhere could enjoy improved subsidized transportation. Residents asserted a claim on their environments and were unwilling to relinquish that claim without a struggle. In the case of the proposed highway between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, fortunately, they won. In the case of 1-394, they lost. The two struggles highlight the questions of who owns the quality environments in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and under what terms they should be diminished or destroyed on behalf of business interests, ephemeral political agendas, or groups living outside the central cities. The celebrated controversy of proposed high-rise apartments on the north shore of Lake Calhoun is a case in point. Early in the history of Minneapolis, the park board in Minneapolis and the city council in St. Paul acquired almost all the shoreline around the lakes and along the river and major creeks for public access and public use in perpetuity. Since so many people enjoy easy access to the water, residential property values within walking distance of lakes and streams remain to this day substantially higher than they would be without such access. This is a boon to the cities, not only in terms of tax capacity but also in terms of the community leadership that remains in the cities rather than departing for suburbs that often have much less to offer. These magnificent spaces, virtually without peer among the inner cities of the United States, maintain their value provided they are not overused. Thus, when developers proposed in 1985 that they be allowed to build new high-rise apartments and condos in the already congested Lake Street channel between Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake, lake lovers and local residents reacted with outrage. The Minneapolis city coun-
cil was familiar with real estate deal-making downtown and with developers' persuasive arguments that new high-rise buildings downtown bring more pluses than minuses. It took a mayoral veto to make the point that projects that might be sensible for the downtown can be utterly destructive when centered within some of the highest-quality urban residential environments in the United States. The civic-minded, long-range thinking of the patrician founders of our cities often seems lost when leaders must be reminded to restrain today's initiatives on behalf of tomorrow's citizens.
The Service Economy Transforms the Twin Cities Landscape One of the most powerful forces transforming the American metropolitan landscape since World War II has been the expansion of producer and consumer services in the national economy. The industrial landscapes of northeastern cities frequently are abandoned or razed
FIGURE 66. Grain elevators converted to housing along Milwaukee Road tracks between Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake, Minneapolis. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
to make way for office buildings. The cities of the Sunbelt that prospered during the 1960s and 1970s office boom have a markedly different land-use structure from those in other regions, with little of the legacy of heavy industry to cope with. And in large metro areas across the United States the patterns of land use, architectural form, commuting, and residences are being reorganized as the nation's urban landscapes adjust to the shift in the economy from a preponderance of manufacturing activity to a new hierarchy of services and information flows. The Services Controversy During the 1970s, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States remained stable at about 25 million, but service-sector jobs rose from 47 million to 65 million, so that by 1984 they constituted 70 percent of all jobs in the country and 67 percent of the nation's gross national product. This marked shift in economic activity, which gained widespread attention in the 1970s, set off a heated debate among economists, politicians, and concerned citizens. Critics of the shift to services argue that money is being accumulated by service producers without real material-based wealth being created. Such monetary gains are said to be illusory, and add nothing to the real productivity of the country. An economy based on such "paper wealth," say the critics, is a house built on sand, likely to wash away when the tide comes in. Proponents of service-sector growth, on the other hand, argue that such a shift is eminently natural in a maturing economy; that a preponderance of servicebased activity represents the final stage of advanced capitalism. The increasing division of labor—first among individuals, then among firms, regions, and eventually nations—represents progress toward the efficient production of material goods, while at the same time necessitating increased production in communica-
tions, transportation, information processing, and the like—all accounted as services in the calculation of the GNP. The crux of the debate seems to be the definition of "wealth" and of "wealth-producing activity." The critics may simply be locked into a pre-1950 mindset that says the only real wealth—the only product of real value—is what can be seen, felt, and transferred tangibly in exchange for money or other goods; in other words, material-based wealth. Service proponents counter that the important outcome of a worthwhile production activity is wealth production; that the activity, whether it produces a good or a service, meets a demand in the marketplace, for which others will exchange money or goods. Further, economic activity can be judged by whether it is growth-generating; whether its product will create a multiplier effect within the economy so that further economic activity is generated from it. Examples of such benefits from the service economy are easy to find. The communications industry, for example, generates demand for computer hardware and software, cable, power plants, and electronic equipment of all sorts. Higher education and research and development are other important examples. The expansion of consumer services can be traced in part to the increase in female participation in the labor force, which stirred during World War II and was unleashed by the great economic and social changes of the 1960s. Household and family services of all kinds— food preparation, child care, preschool education, transportation, maintenance—once in the private domain, entered the marketplace in the form of restaurants, convenience stores, day-care centers, entertainment, public transit, cleaning services, and an expanded health care sector. Corporate activity has been restructured as technological advances have allowed even the smallest busi-
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nesses or branches to link up electronically with any other business and to subscribe to needed services offered in the external market. Increased efficiency in goods manufacturing—through centralization and technological advances—has decreased demand for material and labor inputs but has increased demand for distribution and general business services, for scientific expertise, and for research and development. In agriculture, for example, production has steadily increased while the required labor force has decreased and the demand for services such as soil analysis, veterinary care, and hybrid research has increased. Other critics of service expansion lament the fate of the blue-collar worker in a new white-collar economy. The optimists respond by pointing out that the most menial service jobs are increasingly performed by manufactured goods—household appliances, executivefriendly word processors, inexpensive autos—so that even entry-level service jobs now can be offered at a dignified skill and salary level. Whatever the outcome of the services versus goods debate, one thing is clear: The physical form of revitalized central cities with their office towers and festival malls, the new mixing of corporate, retail, and residential functions in the central business districts, and the rearrangement of class patterns in the workplace and the home all reflect accommodations to the predominance of services in the urban economy. Whether for good or for ill—whether this new house stands on rock or on sand—remains to be seen. Service Industries and Landscape Changes If the communications industry is the fastestgrowing segment of the services sector, perhaps the most burgeoning part of it is face-to-face communications: the meetings industry, growing by 1990 to revenues of $55 billion per year. The growth of meetings—
convention and trade shows, business conferences, educational and training seminars—has had its impact on the urban landscape. City boosters, eager to draw the $150 to $200 per day that the average meeting-goer spends, plus the multiplier effects percolating through the metro economy, have campaigned to add new convention centers, hotels, and meeting spaces to downtown development plans and to provide more serviceable airports that can serve as meeting points for fly-in specialists and executives. Competition among cities for convention business escalated in the 1970s and 1980s, and northern-tier cities had to promote their attractions aggressively to downplay their occasionally inclement weather. The meeting business boomed in Minnesota, with local conference centers in constant use. Minneapolis and St. Paul compete with each other for national convention business, St. Paul promoting its renovated convention center and World Trade Center and Minneapolis promoting its new convention center complex, a remodeled Nicollet Mall, and abundant hotel space.
Consumer Services in the Twin Cities The Arts in the Twin Cities Since the 1960s or so, the Twin Cities have emerged as a major national center for the arts and as a community that is remarkably supportive of cultural activities. Arts of all forms and traditions have been enthusiastically promoted and patronized in the Twin Cities area throughout its history. In Minneapolis, that legacy can be traced to the city's founders, who in 1883 organized the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts (MSFA) and founded the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). Organized participation in the international arts scene became a reality in 1910 when half a million dollars was raised to build the
FIGURE 67. Walker AH Center, Guthrie Theater, and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. PHOTO COURTESY OF WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The Morrison family donated a ten-acre site for the building. The MSFA and the pursuit of high culture were certainly the domain of the city's wealthy families early on. Around the MIA site were clustered the great houses of the city's founders, industrialists, and their children—the Washburns, Crosbys, Pillsburys, and Van Derlips—who all took their turns serving on the MSFA board or as MIA director. The MIA became one of the top museums for fine arts in the country, hosting national and international exhibitions and shows from its own collections. In 1974, an energetic capital campaign provided funds for a new building for the Minneapolis College of Art and Design adjacent to the institute, a new theater, and expansion of the museum itself. (The college has since become autonomous.) That
same year the Children's Theatre Company made the new theater its permanent home. Complementing the more traditional MIA is a contemporary art museum, the Walker Art Center. The Walker stands out as a national leader in organizing traveling exhibitions and as a major national media center. Its well-known curatorial department is devoted exclusively to design, and it is known for offering the largest museum-related performance program in the United States. Adjacent to the Walker, on eleven acres of city parkland, sits a $14 million sculpture garden designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes (fig. 67). The garden features a conservatory and more than forty works by local and international artists, including Claes Oldenburg, Coosje Van Bruggen, and Siah Armajani. The public enjoys access to the park year-around. In addition to the strong reputation of its cultural institutions, Minneapolis supports and promotes its own local artists as much as any community in the country. Several local corporations have art collections focusing on the works of regional artists. The Twin Cities also are home to more than fifty small galleries that support painting, sculpture, folk art, photography, and prints. The styles and periods represented range from classical to contemporary, oriental to Native American, abstract to realist. Most galleries promote the work of local artists along with their international collections. St. Paul is home to the Minnesota Museum of Art and several educational museums, including the Children's Museum and the Science Museum of Minnesota. The city is the major repository for historical artifacts of the Twin Cities and Minnesota in the Minnesota Historical Society Collection and in several historic sites, such as the Sibley House Museum, the James J. Hill House, and the Alexander Ramsey House.
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Performing Arts Fine arts are well matched by performing arts in Minneapolis. The Minnesota Orchestra was organized in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony under the direction of Emil Oberhoffer and for many years performed at Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus. The orchestra has had a succession of prominent musical directors over the years: Henri Verbruggen (1923-31); Eugene Ormandy (1931-36), who directed here before moving to the Philadelphia Orchestra; Dimitri Mitropoulos (1937-49), who went from Minneapolis to the New York Philharmonic; Antal Dorati (1949-60), who built the international reputation of the orchestra by staging several world tours; and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, who became a local institution during his nineteen-year directorship. More recent musical directors have included Neville Marriner (1979-86) and Edo de Waart, who came to the Twin Cities by way of Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam and New York philharmonics, and the San Francisco Symphony. In 1968, the symphony adopted the name Minnesota Orchestra. From 1970 to 1984, it performed a regular concert series in St. Paul at O'Shaughnessy Auditorium on the College of St. Catherine campus. Perhaps the most significant change for the orchestra was its move in 1974 to its permanent home in Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall, on the site of its first home, the old Minneapolis Auditorium. Orchestra Hall is acoustically one of the best performance halls in the country and provides a great draw for guest artists. When the Ordway Music Theatre opened in St. Paul in 1985, the orchestra moved its O'Shaughnessy series there, so that both cities share its pleasures. Since the Minnesota Orchestra left Northrop Auditorium in 1974, the University of Minnesota's Department of Concerts and Lectures has concentrated on staging events best suited to the building's enormous
seating capacity and huge stage. In 1976, the department installed a copy of the stage floor from George Balanchine's New York State Theater and now annually hosts modern and classical dance troupes from around the world, as well as amplified shows and concerts, including touring Broadway productions. St. Paul generally has shared in the cultural milieu of Minneapolis's arts institutions and increasingly shares the national spotlight, especially with the opening of the Ordway in 1985. The Ordway has been heralded as something of a technical miracle, with a lighting control system and an ingenious screw-driven three-level platform that converts from orchestra pit to seating to floor to elevated thrust stage, the first of its kind in North America. In addition, acoustical flexibility has been incorporated into the design through movable textured wall panels, overhead shells, and a three-story, 84,000-pound movable orchestra shell. This technical complexity was necessary because the theater's permanent tenants—the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Schubert Club, and Minnesota Orchestra series—each have different and conflicting staging requirements. St. Paul architect and native Ben Thompson—who also designed Boston's Faneuil Hall, Manhattan's South Street Seaport, Baltimore's Harborplace, and Minneapolis's St. Anthony Main—worked with acoustic consultant R. Lawrence Kirkegaard and the prospective tenants of the theater to incorporate all of the needed features. The design works exceedingly well. The theater itself is a major departure from St. Paul's down-to-earth style, with its solid mahogany box office and Euro-style grand staircase. The theater's functionalism, however, is people-oriented, designed to provide the most comfortable, engaging, and pleasant cultural experience possible for every patron.10
One Ordway tenant, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (the only full-time chamber orchestra in the country), has enjoyed a recent rise to stardom. The SPCO has been developed under the guidance of Dennis Russell Davies, Pinchas Zukerman, and from 1987 to 1991, a three-person artistic commission consisting of Christopher Hogwood, John Adams, and Hugh Wolff. In 1992, Hugh Wolff was named the SPCO's musical director, and Christopher Hogwood became principal guest conductor. The Twin Cities' long-standing reputation in classical music has enabled the two orchestras to draw fine guest conductors and artists, and the classical audiences remain steadfast, loyal, learned, and astonishingly numerous. The Ordway was a longtime dream of the late Sally Ordway Irvine, an heir to the 3M fortune and lifelong patron of the arts, who seeded the project in 1981 with $15 million of her own money. Completion of the theater breathed new life into St. Paul's downtown revitalization efforts, especially its nightlife, which now centers on the Rice Park and Lowertown areas. Rice Park provides a visual focal point for the entertainment district, surrounded on three sides by the Ordway, the historic Landmark Center, and the refurbished St. Paul Hotel. Theater The Twin Cities offer more theater seats per capita than any other city in the world. The tradition of theater in the area is long-standing. The first recorded performance took place at Fort Snelling in the winter of 1821-22. Even through the Depression years the Twin Cities had a lively and active repertoire. Today the Twin Cities have two theaters that tower above the other local professional companies. The Guthrie Theater, with 1,400 seats and a $10 million annual budget, remains the nation's largest regional theater, while the Children's Theatre Company boasts
the seating capacity (700) and budget ($5 million) of most of the nation's regional theaters and is by far the largest children's theater in the country. Each theater has more than 25,000 season ticket subscribers. Minneapolis's reputation in the performing arts probably rests most firmly on its flagship, the Guthrie Theater. In 1959, Sir Tyrone Guthrie and two colleagues hatched a plot to relocate their theater from New York City, hoping to escape from the control of the profit motive and the boom-or-bust mentality of Broadway. They dreamed of creating a new theater that would have three main goals: to provide a stage for the classics in world literature; to create a laboratory for shared and cooperative work among artists; and to serve not only the local community but an entire region. Their vision was reported in The New York Times, and seven U.S. cities, including Minneapolis and St. Paul, expressed interest in becoming home to the new theater. By the time Guthrie looked toward the Midwest, live theater audiences here as elsewhere had been eroded by television and movies. On a hunch and not much more, Guthrie chose the Twin Cities. In 1963, his theater was built adjacent to the Walker Art Center on land donated by the T. B. Walker Foundation. Once the site was chosen, the consummate building design had to be created. Guthrie felt that Ralph Rapson, head of the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture for thirty years and later architect of the Cedar-Riverside New-Town-In-Town project, was equal to the task. A protracted design process led to a fusion of Guthrie's minimalist vision—the theater as backdrop—and Rapson's grander and more playful notion that part of the experience of theatergoers was to see and to be seen before the house lights dimmed, and that what went on inside was ephemeral and fantastic.
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Guthrie wrote of his vision for the new theater: "It is an attempt to relate a theater to its supporting community . . . to attract a creative audience" and to replicate conditions that had produced the great eras of theater in history: "an age and place where a highly intelligent, lively and demanding audience . . . helped to create a theater which was far more than a commercial vision of business and far more than a frivolous pastime." Guthrie wanted a supporting community whose tastes were developed by "contact with what the best minds of several generations have agreed to regard as important expressions of the human spirit."7 The theater opened with 23,000 subscribers in 1963, a bold experiment that met with instant, sensational success and that other large U.S. cities eagerly followed. The Guthrie was novel in its size, its rotating repertory that kept both audiences and actors excited, and its resident company of actors whom audiences could get to know—an additional bonus to the local pride of midwesterners. In addition to the Guthrie and the Children's Theatre, there are a dozen or more small theaters in Minneapolis presenting modern and experimental works, including Theatre De la Jeune Lune and Southern Theatre. The Cricket Theatre emphasizes the works of living American playwrights. The Illusion Theater offers sexual abuse educational performances in Twin Cities schools. The Mixed Blood Theater is among the country's top employers of minority actors. The dinner theater format is popular with many Twin Citians, and the Chanhassen and Old Log theaters enjoy strong support. The Old Log, founded in 1940, is the oldest continually producing theater in America and now draws an audience of 3,500 each week of operation. The Theatre In The Round Players (TRP) got its start in 1951 and continues as an enormously successful amateur theater, with only two paid staff positions. TRP depends on vol-
unteers to do everything from build sets to usher in the audience. St. Paul's cultural scene has been enhanced by the 7th Place Theatre and the renovated World Theater. The city's Great American History Theatre depicts Minnesota's history, and the Park Square Theatre stages classics in the Minnesota Museum of Art. The Penumbra Theatre Company is Minnesota's only professional black theater company. Dance The Twin Cities grew to prominence as an outstanding center for dance due in large part to two pioneer dancer-choreographers who based their companies here. Nancy Hauser founded the Nancy Hauser Dance Company in the 1950s and a studio in St. Paul in 1961. Loyce Houlton was a student of Hauser's as well as of Martha Graham's and George Balanchine's and for 25 years—until 1986—was artistic director of the Minnesota Dance Theater (MDT), which became the largest professional dance company in Minnesota. Houlton's works attempted to merge contemporary dance and classical ballet, and the results drew the largest dance audiences in the region. Both the Hauser studio and MDT trained new dancers. Houlton was removed as director of MDT in 1986, and in 1987 the company merged with Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet. In an interesting expression of localism, MDT patrons did not rally behind the company with one foot in another city, and the merger failed after a year. The newly autonomous local Northwest Ballet, after an agonizing reorganization and a new artistic director, finally closed in 1989. Eventually the MDT and the dance element of the New Dance Ensemble (NDE) merged to form Ballet of the Dolls. The other element of NDE is a choreographers' workshop. Houlton reclaimed the MDT name in 1991, and her new company continues to perform her work. Several small-
er dance groups also are based in the Twin Cities, including Zenon Dance Company, Ethnic Dance Theatre, and the Minnesota Ballet Theatre. Film and Video After 1970, commercial production of film, video, and music slowly developed in the Twin Cities. In the late 1980s, the industry grew by leaps and bounds. Growing in tandem has been a small but energetic community of film and video artists, supported by private funding agencies and the services of Film in the Cities, Inc. The common ground between industry and art may expand as Minnesota steps up efforts to draw feature film business to the state, and as the work of local artists gains wider recognition. In 1972, about ten commercial production houses in the Twin Cities served local corporate needs for commercials and for training and demonstration videos. Two decades later more than a hundred such facilities existed. The rise to national prominence of local ad agencies focused attention on local production talent, and now almost all local ad work is produced in-state. Local production houses also work for national firms. The need for cost containment, the discovery of local talent, and a natural maturing process have produced a $150 million per year industry of Minnesotabased productions, making the state the fourth largest market for commercial and industrial film production in the United States. The state's economy also takes in about $15 million per year from out-of-state companies (from Hollywood) shooting feature films in Minnesota. Out of this boom has come the creation of the Minnesota Film Board, the Minneapolis Office of Film, Video and Recording, and the Independent Feature Project (IFF), all devoted to promoting the industry within the state and to attracting outside business. The success of Minnesota recording artist Prince (Roger Nelson), along with his decision to build his $10 million, state-of-the-
art Paisley Park Studios in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen, focused attention on the Twin Cities and boosted the industry, making it the sixth largest in the nation and gaining. The hope of attracting feature films to Minnesota locations is hindered by Canada's favorable exchange rate and more predictably northern weather, but continuing efforts of local promoters and artists and the growing national reputation of the best production houses promise to keep the state on the list of prime locations. Popular Music While local governments and philanthropic foundations freely fund classical music and art, they remain to be convinced that the popular music industry needs the same kind of support to attract talent and venture capital, despite the growing number of successful musicians emerging from the Twin Cities. Musical audiences with modern tastes find music of all genres in the Twin Cities, including the "Minneapolis Sound" brought to the pop charts by Prince. Prince's music has since evolved to a more international flavor, but local bands continue to refine the "Minneapolis Sound." Prince's phenomenal success with the album and movie Purple Rain, and his enormous Paisley Park Studio, have helped dozens of other new artists gain national attention and recording contracts. The home base for Prince (before he opened his own Glam Slam club) and other aspiring rhythm and blues artists has been the First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry nightclub in downtown Minneapolis. But the preponderance of live music clubs in the Twin Cities has given local artists of all kinds much more exposure than would be expected in a metro area of this size. This is not the first place that leaps to mind as a likely incubator of pop music, but on closer scrutiny the emergence of a strong music industry makes sense.
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Retailing and wholesale distribution of music products have long been important activities in the Twin Cities, which at one time handled 30 percent of the nation's record sales. Now, Twin Cities involvement in sales and distribution of records, tapes, and discs equals 20 percent of the U.S. total.
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Arts Education Over the years, the presence of a strong arts community and a steadfast commitment to support for the arts have made them such a part of life here that even the youngest school children are introduced to classes, exhibitions, and performances at the MIA, Walker, Guthrie, Children's Theatre, and many other institutions. Along with support for performances and exhibitions, the Twin Cities' lively arts community is a natural setting for institutions that incubate and encourage new talent. The Minnesota Center for Arts Education was established as a state agency in 1985 and since 1989 has run the Minnesota Arts High School in Golden Valley. The school provides tuition-free arts and college-prep liberal education courses to 250 students from around the state. The Playwrights' Center houses a lab and workshop where new material is presented, critiqued, and performed. Literature also has a strong presence in the Twin Cities arts community, supported in part by a highly literate ethnic heritage. Public funding has supported writers and poets in public school programs for decades. Small presses, including Milkweed, Graywolf, Coffee House, and New Rivers, flourish here. The Loft literary center encourages new talent and sponsors frequent visits by nationally acclaimed writers. Since its founding in 1974, the Loft has become a vital center of literary activity in the Upper Midwest. The center offers workshops and classes that draw more than 2,700 people annually, and serves writers across the region. The
Loft's program of public readings draws about 8,000 people annually. Arts Funding The Twin Cities arts community burgeoned in the 1960s with the establishment of the Minnesota Dance Theater, Guthrie Theater, Children's Theatre Company, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Minnesota Opera. During the 1970s, several local institutions expanded and more new organizations appeared. For year-to-year funding, many arts organizations look to the Minnesota State Arts Board, which administers McKnight and other philanthropic funds for specific projects and for general operations. The board is assisted in decision making by advisory panels made up of private citizens, taking care to avoid consultation with anyone who might have a particular interest in the organization seeking funds. The foundations most prominent in supporting the arts—Dayton Hudson, McKnight, General Mills, Jerome—have stepped in with emergency funding for arts groups in crisis and stepped up creative efforts to maximize shrinking resources. Public-private partnerships, matching grants, cooperatives, and expanded marketing and fund-raising efforts have been used, thus reversing the tradition of public monies "priming the pump" for private donations. The prevailing attitude in the arts community today is that the longstanding, deep-rooted commitment in the Twin Cities to a healthy, vital, and growing cultural life will withstand whatever swings and slides the economy may have in store. The Twin Cities Health Care Industry Minnesota has long been one of the world's major hospital and medical centers, anchored by the University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinic and Rochester's Mayo Clinic. The University of Minnesota Heart and Lung Institute
has become a leader in heart transplantation, performing more than a hundred transplants since 1983, with a 94 percent survival rate after one year. The institute also recently has pioneered the simultaneous transplantation of heart and lungs. The university's principal competitor in cardiology and heart transplants in the Twin Cities is the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, formed in 1981 by former university heart surgeons. The $189 million, 725-bed Veterans Administration Medical Center at Fort Snelling is a major regional medical facility serving American veterans and providing heart transplants and other state-of-the-art services. The center also includes a 120-bed extended-care unit and a Brain Science Center run jointly with the University of Minnesota. Another specialized Twin Cities facility is the International Diabetes Center, run by the Park Nicollet Medical Foundation in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. Begun in 1967 with the help of a federal grant, the clinic emphasizes education as a primary weapon in the fight against diabetes, not only for patients and their families but for health professionals as well. Minnesota is a pioneer in the treatment of chemical dependency, and the "Minnesota Model" draws people seeking help from around the world. The state's leadership in the field has been attributed by some to its "progressive spirit"; as early as 1873 the state legislature was encouraged to treat alcoholics instead of jailing them, and the first public funds were devoted to developing treatment methods in 1912. Others credit the tendency in Scandinavian culture to accomplish social welfare goals through institutions. Minnesota has more than three hundred institutions of various design to help the chemically dependent. Among the state's best-known treatment centers is the private, nonprofit Hazelden Foundation in Center
City, about thirty miles north of St. Paul. The center was started in 1949 and modeled after Minnesota's first treatment facility, Pioneer House, a group home for recovering alcoholics following AA's twelve-step program. Hazelden maintains a staff of four hundred people to care for two hundred patients, and counts more than 20,000 alumni. In the Twin Cities area, about twelve treatment facilities have capacity for 1,200 patients—more than the rest of the country combined. Much of the expansion of hospital-based treatment programs took place in the early 1980s, as struggling hospitals searched for alternative sources of revenue. The broad range of nonprofit hospitals that operated in the Twin Cities into the mid-1980s was a legacy of the diversity of ethnic and religious groups that settled here, each of which established its own hospital to care for its members. The redundancy inherent in this situation, along with slowed population growth, shorter hospital stays, and improved preventive and clinical care, eventually yielded a large surplus of hospital beds. Economic and demographic changes, plus the New Deal legacy that put a major share of the health care cost burden on government and business, converged into a health care crisis in the 1970s. Technological advances and no-cap insurance programs had induced extravagance in health care delivery, perpetuating the "highest and best treatment" attitude among practitioners and "carte blanche" expectations among consumers. Pressure from business, government, and consumer groups led to new legislation aimed at rethinking and restructuring the industry and the traditional philosophy of American medicine. The Twin Cities have been a major national laboratory for these restructuring efforts. In response to federal legislation, the region's community-wide planning apparatus was deployed to create a long-range plan for health care delivery to the region. In 1978, the Metro-
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professionals in its own clinics, to provide health care directly to its clientele. Other HMOs act in the role of insurers who contract with care providers to serve their clientele as needed. The goal was to get better health and less health care by making it in the interest of the health care provider to keep people well and to make people responsible for their own health. The surplus facilities and the profit motive in medicine and hospital care were working in the other direction—financial incentives supported by conventional insurance, encouraging a vicious circle of more money, more care, but not better health.8 First popular with large corporations, the HMO idea gradually was adopted by smaller firms and public institutions, so that by 1988 one in four Minnesotans and one of every two Twin Citians were HMO members. The typical HMO uses a clinic-based approach, but new forms of health care delivery have appeared as the HMO clinic proved unsatisfactory to clients who prefer a long-term relationship with their own personal physician. From the consumer's viewpoint, the growth of HMOs has meant lower overall health care costs and better services, defined as more "wellness," prevention, and early detection. The unforeseen inflation of health care costs to providers, however, is increasingly being passed on to HMO members, along with retrenchment of some services. As medical technology offers solutions to more and more heretofore intractable health probThe HMO Approach Minnesota was an early leader lems—for a price—practitioners and public officials in the creation of the health maintenance organization must struggle with a new ethical question: Once it concept, due in large part to the initiatives of Minneapo- becomes technologically possible to cure a life-threatening ailment, how can the availability of life-saving mealis physician Paul Ellwood, Jr., who in 1970 coined the term "HMO." Although Minnesota's oldest HMO, Group sures be regulated solely by financial criteria? Thus the Health, Inc., has existed since 1957, the proliferation of elusive solution to affordable health care remains to be competing HMOs began in the early 1970s, with Ellfound, and the political pressure for nationalized health wood's urging. Group Health employs its own medical services undoubtedly will increase.
politan Council was designated the federal Health Systems Agency for the region. The council created the Metropolitan Health Board as its health planning arm and chief adviser on health matters. An ongoing planning process through the early 1980s involving government, business, labor, consumers, and health care providers yielded a set of goals, strategies, and guidelines. Top priority goals at the board's inception were the reduction of heart disease and perinatal and neonatal mortality in the region. Cost containment was to be achieved through closure of some hospitals, consolidation of others, and the encouragement of private health care competition by health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Centralization of hospital management, the shift of routine patient care from hospital to clinic, and new emphases on preventive care and "wellness" all have contributed to the rationalization of the industry, both locally and nationally. Despite these efforts, however, it could still be said in 1988 that 70 percent of health care expenditures was being spent on 10 percent of patients, and 1 percent of all patients accounted for 28 percent of health care costs in the United States. In 1992, the Health Planning Board was eliminated from the Metropolitan Council due to federal funding cutbacks, pressure from the medical profession, and Governor Carlson's assertion that health should not be a focus of the council's activities.
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Meanwhile, Paul Ellwood and his InterStudy think tank once again moved into the lead in health care innovation, promoting a concept called Outcomes Management. The system would employ a national computer base of survey data, analyzing millions of cases of illnesses, treatments, their effectiveness, and their cost. Physicians and insurers would use the information to decide on the most appropriate and cost-effective treatment for each patient.9 While the Twin Cities metro area has reaped the benefits of its progressive, community-based planning structure in responding to the health care crisis, the rest of the state has not fared as well. Duluth's three hospitals have shifted their emphasis from general care to specialized services in order to broaden their market and combat the effects of declining population and increasing competition from Twin Cities institutions. For many smaller cities and towns, the 1970s shortage of doctors has improved somewhat. But as medical students choose increasingly to specialize in lucrative subfields and to consolidate their practices in the Twin Cities and other major centers, some rural areas, especially in northern Minnesota, still cannot attract enough general practitioners to serve their populations. Finance and Banking The Twin Cities are one of the significant centers of banking and finance in the United States, the major service center for the Upper Midwest, and the largest banking center between Chicago and the West Coast. Twin Cities financial institutions experienced hard times along with the rest of the country during the 1980s, but with reorganization and rationalization they managed to weather the economic storms intact. During the first half of the 1980s, Minnesota's savings and loan associations may have fared worst of all, given the close association of their fortunes with the
housing market and their later plunge into speculative commercial real estate. In previous decades, thirty-year mortgages were not written with long-term interest fluctuations in mind, and many S&Ls in the early 1980s found themselves purchasing funds at higher rates than the yields on the mortgages they held. In 1980, Minnesota had sixty-six S&Ls; by 1983, the number had dropped to thirty-eight. Minnesota's banks seemed, on paper, not to be faring much better in the early 1980s when interest fluctuations were destabilizing the finances of many family farms. By 1985, thirty-one of the nation's 309 banks with problem loans exceeding loan-loss equity and other reserves were in Minnesota, making it the leading U.S. state for such troubled banks at that time. The statistics are misleading, however, in assessing the overall health of the state's financial industry. A large percentage of Minnesota's banks are dependent on agriculture, as were all five of the banks that failed in the state in 1985. In addition, Minnesota has a high ratio of banks per capita—more than twice the U.S. average. State laws long restricted the establishment of branch banks, and so encouraged formation of many independent banks in every community, especially in rural areas. In 1986, Minnesota had 740 banks, 5 percent of the U.S. total. Small banks often incur higher per-unit operating costs and are usually more vulnerable than large banks to perturbations in financial flows, such as large withdrawals, loan defaults, interest peaks, and the seasonal fortunes of their nearby farm economy. Bank size in Minnesota also reflects the dichotomy between the Twin Cities metro area and Greater Minnesota: of the state's one hundred largest banks, fiftyseven are in the Twin Cities. The six banks that lost money in 1986 all were nonmetro, and only three of the twenty-one whose earnings rates declined in 1986 were metro banks. Some small rural banks could fold
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because of poor management or imprudent loan decisions, but whatever the cause, the loss of its only local bank leaves a community without needed credit services and can plunge a town into a dispiriting downward spiral of financial woes. Large Twin Cities-based banks focused on reorganizing after the state in 1987 rolled back restrictions on branch banking. Under the new laws, banks and bank holding companies can own and operate more freely in neighboring states, while states that let in Minnesota bank branches now can acquire banks and operate branches in Minnesota. Out-of-state banks, such as Wisconsin's Firstar Corporation, entered Minnesota and acquired local banks for expansion. Meanwhile, under the new legislation, the region's two largest banking systems—Norwest Corporation and First Bank System, Inc.—both consolidated their metro area banks and branches into unitary systems. Subsequent acquisitions gave assets of $36.1 billion to Norwest and $18.3 billion to FBS, Inc., in 1991. TCF Financial Corporation and Bank Shares, Inc. (the parent company of Marquette Bank) ranked a distant third and fourth with assets of $4.0 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively.
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Primary and Secondary Public Education The 1970s were an exciting time for education in Minnesota. The 1971 state legislature enacted a plan that reduced financial disparities among local school districts. It was part of what became known nationally as the "Minnesota Miracle." By the late 1970s, however, inequalities resurfaced and new reform strategies were sought to maintain the state's long reputation as a leader in education. The whole nation was caught up in a reform movement in the early 1980s, and Minnesota introduced three innovations: professional development opportunities for teachers, more performance awards for students, and formalized school discipline policies.
Through the mid-1980s, new initiatives continued largely under the prodding of then-governor Rudy Perpich, all involving incentives for constructive change rather than intervention and penalties for problem districts. Among these initiatives were "programs of excellence" permitting students with special interests to cross district lines; "high school graduation incentives" to give dropouts and at-risk students access to alternative programs; and "postsecondary enrollment options" offering free college classes to high school students at any achievement level. Since 1985, these classes have been offered both on college campuses and in the high schools. In 1991, about three thousand students exercised this option through the University of Minnesota. In 1987, Minnesota introduced an "open enrollment" plan, and by 1990 all state school districts were required to participate. The plan allows students to enroll in any district as long as there is space and racial guidelines are not violated. State aid is paid to the district of attendance, giving the system something of a market orientation. Participation has grown to more .than six thousand students statewide since 1987, but the anticipated rush of Twin Cities students to affluent suburban schools has not occurred, largely because city districts have offered attractive special programs of their own. As a result, few students have opted out of central districts, but 25 percent have enrolled in schools outside of their own neighborhoods in order to take advantage of magnet and other special programs. These initiatives were in part responses to social changes that have produced a more heterogeneous student population over the past few decades. Twin Cities enrollment in K-12 public schools was 351,369 in fall 1989 (table 10). More than half of the annual increase over 1988 was from minority enrollments, and in Minneapolis and St. Paul white enrollment declined, so that minority pupils accounted for all growth. In 1990,
minority students became the majority in Minneapolis schools for the first time (52 percent) and comprised 43 percent of St. Paul's enrollment. Traditional notions of what and how public education should deliver increasingly were questioned as greater numbers of students left the K-12 system underprepared for college or simply for a productive life. In Minnesota and particularly in the Twin Cities, the debate became more heated throughout the 1980s as nontraditional players entered the field. The business community voiced increasing concern over the quality of the work force being trained in Minnesota's schools, especially in light of greater competition and economic pressures in recent times. The expanded debate has led to a growing sentiment that the traditional public school model is shortchanging the needs of a significant number of students, parents, and the larger community as well. Public schools face special challenges in meeting the needs of Native American children, for example, whether new to the Twin Cities or longer-term resiTABLE 10
Change in K-12 enrollment in Twin Cities public schools, 1971, 198O, 1989° PERCENT OF TOTAL
PERCENT OF TOTAL
PERCENT OF PERCENT TOTAL PERCENT 1971 ENROLLMENT CHANGE, ENROLLMENT CHANGE, ENROLLMENT 1989 1980 1971 ENROLLMENT ENROLLMENT 1971-80 1989 ENROLLMENT 1980-89 1980
Total American Indian Black Asian Hispanic Total minority White
418,748 3,128 9,098 1,195 2,740 16,161 402,587
100.0
.8
2.2
.3 .7 4.0
96.0
355,053 4,398 13,586 5,125 3,724 26,833 328,220
100.0
1.2
-15
41
3.8
49
1.4
329
1.1
36
7.6
66
92.4
-18
351,369 5,160 22,946 18,177 5,288 51,571 299,798
100.0
-1.0
1.5
17.3
6.5
68.9 254.7 42.0 92.2 -8.7
5.2 1.5
14.7 85.3
SOURCE: Metropolitan Council, "Minority Enrollment Trends in Twin Cities Area Schools, School Year 1989-90," Social and Demographic Report, Publication no. 620-90-164, November 1990. "Percentages may not total 100, due to rounding.
dents. The mass-production mentality of public schools does not differentiate culturally among pupils, and until recently no acceptable alternatives existed. High school achievement levels of Native American students have been chronically below other groups, and in 1987 almost half of Minnesota's Native American high school students dropped out before finishing. Race desegregation strategies dispersed and isolated many students, leaving them without the support of cultural peers. In the late 1980s, a demand arose for resegregation of Indian students into a critical mass that could support special curricula, challenging the decades-old notion that separate is inherently unequal. Magnet programs with special programs for Indian students were introduced in several schools to meet this need at both primary and secondary levels. Among educational services most needed are special school programs for the large influx of immigrant children to the area—especially for refugee families— most of whom speak no English and some of whom have no previous formal education. Many large families fled together, and birth rates have been high during the two decades since the first few arrived. More than 100,000 Asian refugee children have gone through Minnesota's public school systems since 1975, with about 6,000 enrolled in special classes each year. St. Paul has been hit hardest by this demand, with Asians comprising about one in five of its public school pupils. As the proportion of Asian and Hispanic pupils has risen in Twin Cities schools, efforts to integrate their cultures have included teaching these children each other's languages, as well as English. Minneapolis schools developed a Limited English Proficiency (LEP) program, providing English language teachers and bilingual tutors for academic subjects. Now Twin Cities children can enter specialized programs as preschoolers in traditional or open settings
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and continue through primary school in a magnet program with a special curriculum theme (for example, math/science/technology, American Indian, fine arts) or with small class sizes and high parental involvement. At sixth grade they move on to middle school where the same selection of magnet programs is available. High school, grades 9 through 12, offers magnet programs for special topical interests, and post-high school preparation options including advanced placement courses and professional training in business, health service, automotive, aviation and aerospace, and finance. Options are available for virtually all children with special needs. Even the flexibility and variety of these new programs have not satisfied those who believe that on-site control is the best way to achieve quality schools. In May 1991, Minnesota passed the first legislation in the nation authorizing charter schools, which are governed by a board whose majority is teachers. Charters must be approved by both the state and the local district, and funding follows students to the school, just as in open enrollment. In addition, in 1992 the Minnesota Board of Education approved new performance standards for high school seniors graduating after the year 2000. Despite all of this effort, Minnesota like the rest of the nation faces enormous challenges if it is to maintain excellence in education in the face of social and economic changes in society. Fortunately, this is one topic about which no one in the state is complacent. Higher Education in Minnesota Postsecondary and higher education in Minnesota is provided by six different groups of institutions. Every region is served by vocational and technical schools, some of them statesupported and some run as private nonprofit or proprietary businesses. The many private colleges receive no direct state funding. Publicly supported collegiate insti-
tutions belong to either the state university system, the University of Minnesota, or the community college system. Competition among the public collegiate systems for students and state funds has heightened since the 1970s, as the job market has demanded a college education from more of its entrants and as job competition has made an applicant's alma mater a more significant issue in hiring. Like two sparring siblings held at arm's length by a patient parent, the state universities and the University of Minnesota historically have been treated as separate, equally important, but not comparable elements in the state's delivery of higher education. The University of Minnesota was created by a land grant from the territorial legislature in 1851, before the first railroad reached its site. Seven years later, Minnesota achieved statehood, and in the same year the university first allowed women to enroll. The university is unique among the publicly supported systems of higher education in Minnesota in that it has autonomy from state government and from other state schools because it was created before statehood. When land grants for agricultural and teacher training colleges were distributed in 1862, Minnesota combined those functions within the university, making the institution stronger still. The university's mission from the outset emphasized research, graduate education, and professional training to serve agriculture, the mechanic arts, and the industries of Minnesota. In 1982, the "U" tied for sixth place among public institutions in the United States, and sixteenth among all public and private institutions, in graduate education in the arts, sciences, and engineering (excluding professional and agriculture-related programs).10 In 1987, it was the highest-ranking school in producing U.S. patents. In 1989, the National Academy of Sciences rated the excellence of the university's
programs seventh among public universities and nineteenth among all colleges and universities in the nation. The institution has been especially prolific in agricultural research and development, medicine, and science and technology, producing half of Minnesota's doctors and most of its engineers and scientists among its 400,000 awarded degrees. Almost 100,000 people come to school or work at the University of Minnesota each day. The university's presence in the state includes 54,000 students and 18,000 extension students on four campuses (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Duluth, Morris, and Crookston), more than 3,000 faculty members, and 33,000 full-time and parttime employees, including students. The total is larger than most of Minnesota's cities. The state university system, in contrast, evolved from the several "normal schools" established around the state to train primary and secondary school teachers, beginning with Winona in 1860 and including Mankato, Moorhead, St. Cloud, Bemidji, and Duluth by the end of World War I. In 1947, Duluth's college became part of the University of Minnesota. The "normal schools" had become state teachers' colleges and by the 1940s had assumed a general postsecondary educational and training role. The postwar enrollment boom swelled student ranks, bringing state teachers' college enrollments by the 1970s to 40,000 and enrollments at the University of Minnesota to 50,000. A new state college was organized in Marshall in 1967 to serve the state's southwestern agricultural community. By 1972, demand for alternative educational forms led to the creation of Metropolitan State University, a "college without walls" within the state university system, aimed primarily at mid-career adults. Metro State now operates campuses in both downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul.
The increasing importance of the state colleges led to legislation in 1975 to rename them "universities," although their primary mission remains undergraduate education and professional training. The state university system is overseen by a chancellor and a state university board, which functions much like a state agency. Legislators are closely involved with and are advocates for the regional campuses serving their local constituencies, while the university is seen as a resource of crucial value to everyone in the state. The importance of having a system of higher education with campuses throughout the state is growing, as the system's clientele shifts from students seeking four-year degrees to an increasing proportion of working adults seeking lifelong continuing education. While support for the University of Minnesota must remain strong in the future, the state university system shares equal footing as the embodiment of Minnesota's commitment to equal educational opportunity for all of its citizens. This commitment was expressed with growing frequency during the late 1980s as "mission differentiation," the recognition that, particularly in difficult economic times, no institution can be all things to all people. Thus the University of Minnesota moved toward its program of "Access to Excellence," focusing on its strengths and trimming some of its weaker programs, while the state university system strengthened its regional focus. Minnesota's eighteen community colleges constitute an increasingly essential element of higher education in the state, especially as the four-year public universities are forced to tighten their belts by raising preparation requirements and tightening enrollments. Six community colleges are located in the Twin Cities metropolitan area: Anoka-Ramsey (Coon Rapids), Inver Hills (Inver Grove Heights), Lakewood (White Bear Lake), Minneapolis (downtown), Normandale (Bloom-
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ington), and North Hennepin (Brooklyn Park). They provide a welcome two-year alternative for students who are seeking higher education but perhaps are unable to afford or qualify for a four-year college or who simply prefer a two-year format. There are also thirty-four state technical colleges in Minnesota, six of these in the Twin Cities metropolitan area: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Northeast Metro in White Bear Lake, Dakota County in Rosemount, Anoka, and Hennepin with campuses in Eden Prairie and Brooklyn Park. All but Rosemount have facilities adjoining the community colleges, so students can combine technical training with general, collegiate education courses. The community and technical colleges are especially important to nontraditional students seeking flexibility in schedules and programs, or who seek a transitional path into a four-year institution. Downtown workers and inner-city students are well served by both types of schools in downtown Minneapolis, by the St. Paul Technical Institute at the edge of downtown St. Paul, and by the office-building campuses of Metro State University. Minnesota's private colleges share a different legacy, reflecting the religious and ethnic pluralism of the state's earliest residents. Two St. Paul colleges exemplify the diversity that still exists today. Macalester College, founded with sponsorship of the Presbyterian church, soon became an independent, secular liberal arts college that concentrates on maintaining high academic ideals and on building an international clientele. Today its student body of 1,850 comes from forty-nine states and sixty-three countries, and nearly 10 percent are international students. Nearby, on the other hand, the University of St. Thomas is Minnesota's largest private postsecondary institution, with a major commitment to undergraduate
liberal education as well as postbaccalaureate professional training that strives to meet high ideals of service to the local community within a tradition of Catholic social teaching. Three out of four of its nine thousand students are from the seven-county metro area, and 86 percent are from Minnesota. In contrast to the international focus of Macalester, St. Thomas has striven to build links with Twin Cities businesses and government and to connect its students with the "real world" through internship programs and the use of community professionals as teachers. The school's new downtown Minneapolis campus houses St. Thomas's Graduate School of Business and a center for continuing business education, in recognition of the growing demand for mid-career education. Minneapolis lent to St. Thomas the money to acquire the land for the campus, and repayment will be made with annual scholarships to Minneapolis students and with a creative arrangement for an up-front cash payment, part of which will be used to fund housing for local residents displaced by the construction of the college's new campus. The difference between the two institutions may well reflect each school's denominational heritage. Macalester and St. Thomas, along with the College of St. Catherine (Catholic), Hamline University (Methodist), and Augsburg College (Lutheran), form the Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities (ACTC). These schools plan programs together to avoid unnecessary duplication and allow students matriculated in any of the colleges to enroll for classes on any of the ACTC campuses. Outside of the Twin Cities, the undisputed center of higher learning is Northfield, home to both the Lutheran-based St. Olaf College and Carleton College, which was founded in 1866 by the Minnesota Conference of the Congregational Church of America but has
been independent since 1871. Carleton has focused for more than a century on academic excellence, and since the 1950s it has been judged the best private liberal arts college in Minnesota, drawing students from all over the United States and the globe. The other prominent private colleges in Minnesota include St. John's University in Collegeville and the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, both founded and operated under Benedictine auspices; Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter (Lutheran); Concordia College in Moorhead (Lutheran); St. Mary's College in Winona (Catholic); and the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth (Catholic). Alumni of these schools plus the private colleges in the Twin Cities provide a disproportionately large majority of Minnesota's college graduates who eventually achieve doctoral degrees, and a large share of these remain in Minnesota. Minnesota's private colleges thus contribute immeasurably to the long-term intellectual, scientific, and technical strength and vitality of the Twin Cities. Sport of Kings As Minnesota's population becomes more educated, white-collar, and cultured, its tastes in entertainment and leisure activity change. The recent fortunes of professional sports in the state may provide an object lesson in planning for this changing market. In 1982, a constitutional amendment repealed the prohibition against horse racing in Minnesota, and 1983 legislation on pari-mutuel betting cleared the way for construction of the state's first racetrack. The $80 million facility, named Canterbury Downs in a public competition that revealed the lingering Anglophilism of Minnesotans, opened to great hooplah in 1985. The track was overbuilt on early projections of attendance and revenues, projections that failed to consider the financial conservatism of Minnesotans, their lack of experience as racing fans, the
distance of the site from the metro market, and the enormous competition for leisure-time dollars presented by other sports and cultural activities. The 1983 parimutuel law mandated a distribution of betting proceeds that led to an ironic outcome, where the state recouped $13 million, or about 21 percent of total operating revenues over the first three years, while the track lost $15 million in its first three seasons of operation, the middle of the 1980s economic boom, due to lower-than-projected betting and management inexperience, requiring a new infusion of capital by track owners to meet debt-toequity requirements.11 By fiscal-year-end 1988, the track had lost a total of $30 million. The share of betting proceeds claimed by the state and the strong competition for gambling dollars posed by Native American-run casinos that opened in the region after 1988 contributed to the 1992 bankruptcy of Canterbury Downs. With the opening of Canterbury Downs and the 1989 arrival of its new NBA expansion team, the Timberwolves, the Twin Cities joined New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago as the only cities in America with franchises in every major professional sport. Local boosters add that Minnesota is the only market with all of these sports plus ten thousand lakes. As for the other sports, hockey and football are holding their own, and the Twins rejoined the ranks of winners twenty-five years after their last American League pennant by winning the World Series in 1987 and 1991. Government Services Minnesota has long been considered a "good" state for public service provision; the local culture is imbued with an ethic that says the community is responsible for looking after the needs of its citizens. The traditional model for public service provision, through the 1960s or so, was of elected governments that respond to community needs, decide to pro-
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vide a service, and then undertake to produce that service itself, thus shouldering the concomitant load of administrative and managerial duties. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, state leadership started to rethink the notion that government should not only determine and pay for needed services but also produce those services itself. The major portion of service-sector expansion over the past two decades has been in the private sector, so that often more efficient, flexible, and effective private production is available, and part of that growth has been fed by public-private partnerships for public service provision. Minnesota's broad-based governance has allowed academics and professionals to inject this recast philosophy into the planning process and to redefine public services as not necessarily publicly owned and managed but publicly available, accessible, and used. Recent economic change has also sparked rethinking of which services ought to be collectively financed by the public and which should be supported mainly by users. That debate likely will continue to hinge on the tug-of-war between scarce public resources and increasing demand.
Can Vitality Be Sustained?
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Like most American cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul came out of World War II with cluttered downtown centers, ragged legacies from the 1920s. Suburbs were booming and downtown abandonment seemed imminent. From today's vantage point we see that reports of the death of the downtowns were greatly exaggerated. Across the country, downtowns were redesigned and rebuilt, some quickly and some after long delays. Minneapolis began a steady remodeling of its downtown with the Gateway redevelopment in the early 1950s. The rest of the retail and commercial por-
tion of downtown has been confidently rebuilding ever since. The St. Paul redevelopment effort started later, but once begun with the Capitol Approach, Eastern, and Western redevelopments, it spilled into the center of downtown and continues briskly today. What Does Genuine, Long-term Vitality Mean? After a decade of frenetic real estate redevelopment, the late 1980s economic downturn led civic leadership to pause and take stock of their efforts. One of the primary goals of Minneapolis's redevelopment efforts was to improve citizen perception of downtown as a place to work, shop, play, and even live. Now some residents call the downtown skyway system confusing and inaccessible; developers lament the need to plan around it, and retailers say it takes away street-level business. Intensifying class differentiation and fear of crime have dampened the spirit of downtown street life, so that now downtown retains only a slight edge over identical suburban commercial activities, because of its cultural opportunities. Surplus office space continues to be a problem in both the downtowns and the suburbs; overall 1991 vacancy rates stood at 17 percent (Minneapolis) and 21 percent (St. Paul and metro suburbs). St. Paul's development efforts turned in mixed results. Its novel Bandana Square complex in Energy Park has continually failed to attract the kind of business needed to keep it afloat. High retail vacancies have plagued the project, despite the support of restaurants and a recreational area and museum for children. After $9 million in losses and a pessimistic financial forecast, the nonprofit Wilder Foundation, which managed the complex through 1989, withdrew from its involvement in the project. Back in the hands of the Port Authority, Bandana Square was costing the agency $400,000 per year to keep open, and leased space had fallen to below 35 percent. In December 1991, an investment group
finally bought the complex for $3 million, with plans to refocus its tenant mix toward neighborhood services and regional retailing and entertainment.12 In the same month, First Bank Systems agreed to move eight hundred data processing jobs into Energy Park, injecting some optimism into the outlook for St. Paul's most innovative development. Other specialty retail complexes in both cities met with similar troubles, most of which are explained by locational mistakes or overbuilding given prevailing general economic conditions. By the end of the 1980s, it was easy to wander into a mall and find rows of empty storefronts, with only a scattering of retailers holding out hope or closing out their inventory. In some cases, only a restaurant or anchor department store kept the place alive. Such images describe the dying days of St. Anthony Main in Southeast Minneapolis, and to a greater or lesser extent several other complexes. The Riverplace complex, also in Southeast Minneapolis, was able to fill its office, condo, and apartment spaces to about 90 percent occupancy, but its retailing struggled through the late 1980s, hungry for shoppers. In 1992, about half of the retail space was converted to an entertainment complex of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants, in hopes of revitalizing business. Butler Square in Minneapolis's downtown warehouse district, St. Paul's Galtier Plaza, Pavilion Place in Roseville, and Bonaventure in Minnetonka all suffered financial troubles and high turnover, and developers were forced to rethink original expectations and projections. Some reasons these projects faltered can be found in the specialty retail successes in the area. Calhoun Square in Minneapolis's Uptown district and Victoria Crossing on St. Paul's Grand Avenue enjoy support from neighborhoods with above-average disposable incomes and education, upscale tastes, and the local ori-
entation often found in central city residents (fig. 68). Highland Park Shopping Center in southwestern St. Paul, and Fiftieth and France in Southwest Minneapolis (Edina) are similarly situated. In the southwest suburb of Edina, retailing around the original Southdale complex seems unable to fail. Savvy planning and management are largely credited, but in addition the area is directly in the path of above-average incomes and is easily accessible by several of the most important transport routes in the metro area. At the start of the 1990s, the jury was still out on Minneapolis's gamble in high-ticket downtown retailing. The Conservatory collection of shops on Nicollet Mall was to be the flagship of the south mall's upscale offerings, but then its anchor, Harold's women's clothing store, closed leaving only smaller, pricier demandlabel shops to stabilize business. The Nicollet Mall renovation construction disrupted Conservatory business for several months, dealing an additional blow to sales. On the north end of the mall, Gaviidae Common (named for Minnesota's state bird, the Common Loon), anchored by Saks and Neiman Marcus, draws window-shoppers, but early sales were not encouraging to investors. In 1990, Gaviidae sales equaled about $265 per square foot of retail space, which is considered good by industry standards for downtown. Faithful investors in many of these projects see timing as the crucial factor that will save them, as surrounding construction projects are completed and as economic conditions and consumer tastes change. The question of whether these developments will turn around is especially crucial downtown, where the survival of a vigorous core depends upon it. Minneapolis is pursuing additional upscale retailing to occupy the renovated south mall. The long-term impact on metro retailing of four hundred new stores in Bloomington's
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Mall of America, the largest-ever American megamall, is impossible to predict. While many city leaders concern themselves with real estate projects under the guise of promoting economic development, others find too little attention being paid to investing in people and to maintaining and improving neighborhoods. Crime is an increasing concern of central-city residents, and a declining housing stock is seen as both cause and consequence of middleclass homeowners leaving the cities. Many newcomers and poorly educated and trained young people fail to compete successfully in a fast-paced, competitive economy and therefore cannot take the places of those who leave. In the mid-1980s, public spending on neighborhoods fell to less than one-half of total redevelopment expenditures. City leadership has been criticized for using financing tools meant to rescue blighted areas on projects in unblighted areas, where other financing was available, and that create few if any jobs. Minneapolis officials justified some of this redirection of resources by pointing out that downtown redevelopment has added to the city's total property tax base, thus keeping residential property taxes affordable for city residents. The share of commercial and industrial property in paying for property-tax-based municipal services increased from 35 percent to 50 percent in the 1980s. The 1989 tax bill to the owner-occupant of a $60,000 Minneapolis home—$589—would have been $732 without the tax base growth of downtown. A $100,000 home would have been charged an additional $543. The overbuilt office space in the Minneapolis central business district had changed that picture by 1991, however, as vacancies reached 25 percent. Many building owners petitioned to have their tax-assessed valuations lowered, resulting in a net loss in value of downtown commercial real estate of $250 million. Several
more years of similar devaluation are expected before occupancy rates rise and tax valuations stabilize. Meanwhile, residential property gained in value over the 1980s. For the first time in nearly twenty years, residential property comprised a greater share of the city's property tax base than did commercial real estate, so homeowners' tax bills for 1991 went up by about $67 on a $110,000 house.13 In any case, the strategy of keeping property taxes low is not alone sufficient to maintain neighborhood vitality. The Minneapolis city council debated throughout the 1980s about competition for redevelopment dollars between downtown and the city's neighborhoods. Council members often have argued that too much downtown redevelopment focuses merely on style and on keeping the city's downtown a showplace for visitors, and that those resources are sorely needed for housing and human services. But there are larger and more profound questions being raised about local government involvement in real estate development, which by the mid-1980s had become the Twin Cities' leading strategy for what local governmental leaders termed "economic development." They held that, in the past, as local economies grew briskly and employment and tax bases expanded, real estate prices rose and new construction
FIGURE 68. Victoria Crossing, St. Paul. South of Grand Avenue, the Crocus Hill and Linwood neighborhoods contain attractive large old houses much favored by uppermiddle-class and professional families. Their substantial purchasing power helps support commercial activity at the intersection of Grand and Victoria, which is frequented by clientele from throughout western St. Paul as well. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
proceeded apace. Thus, they concluded, in an odd reversal of logic, that if construction could be stimulated, tax bases and employment levels could be enhanced. Promoters of this line of reasoning form a clearly delineated group: (1) downtown property owners whose investments are protected by any action that expands downtown employment and shopping volumes; (2) municipal bond underwriters who collect a substantial commission on bond sales, then use part of their profits to promote additional real estate development; (3) building trade unions and their leadership who need steady work; (4) developers and their lawyers; (5) construction companies, including general contractors and subcontractors; (6) mortgage bankers; (7) elected officials who point to expanded real estate tax bases rather than to higher mill levies as the costs of running the central cities rise faster than the cities' revenue-raising capabilities; (8) local boosters who value the symbolism of a vivid downtown profile and hope to perpetuate the central cities as the capitals of a sprawling metro area of almost two hundred municipalities; (9) the media, who in the television era find it easier to notice a new $100 million building designed by an internationally renowned architect than a hundred different unglamorous million-dollar projects throughout the city; and, of course, (10) the cities' professional planning and development staffs, which coordinate efforts on behalf of the cities' governments. The need for continuous neighborhood renewal presents challenging political problems. Times change and infrastructure decays, but residents expect their local governments to respond to their needs, to do something for their neighborhoods. Among the myriad obligations of city government, perhaps the most essential are building and maintaining the streets, sewers and waste management, parks, schools, libraries, public safety, and housing quality—the services that allow the
city to operate. The list of concerns under the heading "infrastructure" reaches into every corner of the city, every neighborhood, every household. Thus citizens demand a voice (and city governments usually listen) in how these concerns are addressed. St. Paul and Minneapolis go about the task of involving citizens in different ways, each echoing their separate traditions. St. Paul in 1975 developed a formal structure of neighborhood councils that send representatives to the city's Capital Improvement Budget Committee (fig. 69). This structured interaction, the Citizen Participation Process, also is employed by city officials who use the neighborhood representatives to discharge their obligation to solicit neighborhood input on proposed initiatives. The local councils are fully entrenched within the system; they trade off some autonomy for their regular and ensured access. The result is fewer surprises and confrontations, but probably less influence in situations calling for radical action. By contrast, Minneapolis has many strong neighborhood organizations, but they exist outside the formal structures of city government. Local groups work with (or on) their council members to voice their concerns, and wise council members consult with their neighborhoods before acting on matters of local impact. The outcome of this ad hoc system is a more politicized, predictable process, with occasional flare-ups over controversial issues. On the other hand, local groups are free to act independently of government when required. The differences between the two cities may be an artifact of the historical differences in their respective cultures. St. Paul is a land of ethnic diversity, with solid community bonds and a grass-roots political tradition paralleling that of Chicago. The political heritage of Minneapolis is a mix of the New Englander's expectation to have a direct role in governance and the Scandi-
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navian's demand for accountability of politicians. There has been less perceived distance between the individual and the center in Minneapolis and thus less need to organize on an intermediate level. In St. Paul, ordinary citizens' feeling of disenfranchisement from the lumber and rail barons who ran the city created a "we/they" atmosphere, which local organization could redress. Minneapolis residents suffered from some of the same feelings, but they soon got over them.14 In Minneapolis, the recently established Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) promises to do much to bring citizens into the governmental process at the local level. To complement the top-down approach of central business district redevelopment, the city of Minneapolis in 1991 launched a twenty-year, $400 million neighborhood revitalization effort that, if successful, could become a model for the nation's cities. The NRP will provide a $20 million budget annually for twenty years, to be allotted to the city's neighborhoods on the basis of Action Plans that residents themselves develop (fig. 70). The city council, school board, library board, Hennepin county commission, and state legislators from city districts all are committed to working with neighborhoods to implement NRP goals. These agencies will rearrange priorities and undertake new projects proposed by the neighborhoods. Part of the NRP budget will come from downtown tax increment finance districts, which will be extended to provide additional revenues before the properties return to the general tax rolls. Equally important, however, will be the redirection of existing agency budgets to fund Neighborhood Action Plan (NAP) elements. Each of the city's eighty-one neighborhoods will be chosen for participation through a lottery over the first several years of the program. Once chosen, residents begin a planning process through their neighborhood organization (existing or newly created) aimed at identi-
fying problems, early signs of trouble, and needs of the area through a series of workshops. Great effort is made to involve all residents, not just the politically active, through surveys and various forms of publicity. The city's hopes are pinned on the NRP as the foundation for long-term vitality in Minneapolis's neighborhoods. New strategies will be undertaken and new projects and improvements funded to promote their stability and to strengthen their residential and commercial base. Equally important, the citizen involvement mandated by the NRP should be a sustained feature of the city's neighborhoods and will put them in a better position to anticipate and deter future problems.15 The struggle to keep the city vital is a perpetual process, however, and not a goal that can be reached and then taken for granted. Assaults on decline and decay must continue on all scales and at all levels of
FIGURE 69. St. Pawl
planning districts. The Department of Planning and Economic Development organizes community development activity and interaction with residents through the planning districts. MAP COURTESY OF CITY OF ST. PAUL, DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
FIGURE 70. Minneapolis communities and neighborhoods. The Minneapolis Planning Department and the Minneapolis Community Development Agency (the city's project development action arm) organize the city's planning and development activity, such as the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, within this framework of communities and neighborhoods. SOURCE: MINNEAPOLIS PLANNING DEPARTMENT.
governance. Forward-looking leadership must stay ahead of events. The Twin Cities area has had more than its share of wise and dynamic leadership, but the cities cannot afford to turn their sights away from the road ahead in order to look back at past accomplishments with pride. The Fiscal Disparities Law When suburbs put walls around their borders and keep out the poor, the aged, and many minorities, they also reduce the bite of the tax collector. In the plushest suburbs a person can build a $200,000 house and have one of the lowest tax bills in the metropolitan area, since these suburbs frequently have a substantial commercial and industrial tax base to share the tax load. Tax-exempt properties of schools, colleges, churches, and government agencies occupy as much as half of the land of some municipalities such as Falcon Heights, site of the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus and golf course, the state fairgrounds, and a Historical Society museum. Statewide, hospitals hold $2 billion in exempt property, and nonprofit institutions claim even more. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that property tax laws are not enforced uniformly among the state's counties. Fiscal disparity becomes a serious issue because the fiscal system that cultivates the disparity is inequitable and unfair—persons and families with the same ability to pay are taxed at different rates for the same services just because they live within one set of boundaries with high industrial and commercial development instead of another that lacks development. The system that creates fiscal disparities is wasteful because it encourages families and businesses to select locations for individual fiscal advantages (lower tax rates, better services) while ignoring community-wide waste of resources.
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In responding to these problems, the Minnesota state legislature in 1971 passed three laws—the Fiscal Disparities Act, a substantially changed school aid law, and a municipal state aid law—soon dubbed by the national media as the "Minnesota Miracle." The effect of these laws was to give taxpayers in communities with little or no new tax base from commercial and industrial development a share of the metropolitan-wide increment, and to provide a lessening of gross differences in municipal and school finance so that places with low returns per mill of tax effort would get more state aid than those with high returns. The Fiscal Disparities Act was written with express goals, namely, (1) to allow all communities to share in the fortunes of the region—without taking resources away from any community—by taxing only growth; (2) to encourage orderly urban development by reducing fiscal incentives for siting homes, businesses, and public facilities; (3) to give all communities in the metro area an incentive to work toward growth of the entire regional economy; (4) to allow resources to be shared through an existing administrative structure (the municipalities); (5) to give the most aid to communities when it is most needed: in the earliest stages of development; and (6) to encourage protection of the natural environment by reducing development pressure on sensitive areas (floodplains, parkland, open spaces).16 The act mandates that each of the metro area's almost two hundred communities contribute 40 percent of the annual growth of their assessed commercialindustrial (C-I) tax base, using 1971 as a baseline to measure growth, into a common equity pool, which is then redistributed to municipalities and school districts based on their population and tax base. The formula means that the equity pool grows each year as a proportion of the area's total tax base, from 6.7 percent or $137 million in 1975 to 31.8 percent or $305.1 million of
the area's $959.3 million base in 1992.17 The law also evens out the tax rate paid by comparable developments in different communities, because a proportion of all commercial-industrial property is taxed at a uniform, regionwide rate. In effect, this provision lessens tax differentials as an incentive to developers by reducing the highest and increasing the lowest area tax rates slightly. When the law first was enacted, opponents saw it as a way for the ailing central cities to exploit the good fortunes of the booming suburbs. After some years, however, the slowest-growing suburbs emerged as the biggest beneficiaries of the act. Of the 187 metro communities with populations over 9,000 participating in the program in 1992, 37 were net contributors to the pool, led by Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Arden Hills, Golden Valley, Plymouth, and Bloomington. Five of these six had the highest 1991 C-I tax base in the metro area before tax sharing, and along with Roseville are the six wealthiest communities after their contributions as well. Communities numbering over 9,000 with the smallest 1991 C-I tax base both before and after tax sharing were Champlin, White Bear Township, Prior Lake, Andover, and Robbinsdale. The cities receiving the largest net benefits in 1991 were South St. Paul, Champlin, Columbia Heights, North St. Paul, and Ramsey. Among all 188 metro communities, the disparity in commercial-industrial tax base is 33 to 1; without the fiscal disparities law the ratio would be 189 to I.18 The prevailing community attitude that makes the law work is that ostensible losers (net contributors to the pool) are actually winners, because their development growth is outpacing the regional average. The collective fortunes of the metro area's communities are viewed as a single, regional economy in which growth of the whole benefits all of the parts. The Fiscal Disparities Act does not interfere directly with the private, sub-
urban preserves of the wealthy, nor does it speed up the production or scattering of low- and moderate-income housing. What it does do is eliminate some of the unfairness that normally accompanies uneven development among municipalities. The Expanding Role of Philanthropy In addition to publicly mandated sharing of property-tax wealth in the Twin Cities, private foundations and corporate giving play an increasingly important role in redistributing the fortunes that have been made in Minnesota. The Twin Cities metro area is the nation's leader in per capita charitable giving and in support of colleges, theaters, and nonprofit organizations. The giving is not a conservative, sure-return-on-the-dollar kind of investing. Experimental pilot programs find support here as readily as long-established ventures. Support of nonprofit activities is seen not as charity, but as a selfinterested investment in the community that will multiply and benefit the givers in the long run. The state has long been a national center of philanthropy, reflecting a heritage of civic involvement and corporate responsibility that dates to the area's earliest leaders. Beginning with an informal network of support for the arts and humanities among the Twin Cities elite, charitable giving has become increasingly institutionalized over the decades. At the turn of the century, wealthy civic leaders made individual donations of land and seed money for pet projects, as when the Morrison family donated land for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Corporate founding families like the Pillsburys, Crosbys, and Daytons of Minneapolis and the Hills, Ordways, and McKnights of St. Paul all were active in funding the civic and cultural projects that helped build their respective cities. As the founders passed on, their estates formed the bases of several foundations, which continue today in the same spirit.
Community service organizations find no shortage of volunteers, many drawn from the same corporate families that contribute money to these causes. The Minneapolis Junior League, for example, has been responsible for several important initiatives throughout its history, including the Children's Theatre (1925); Opportunity Workshop (1953), providing classes and work projects for mentally handicapped young people; Omnibus (1978), an educational program in Minneapolis area schools for gifted children; and the Bucket Brigade (1974), an educational program for children who have fallen behind in school. Minnesota's foundation grants set a record of $312 million in 1990; most were given to educational institutions. Private foundations account for the majority of grant dollars. The Northwest Area Foundation, with 1990 assets of close to $250 million, was built from a bequest from the estate of James J. Hill, St. Paul's nineteenth-century railroad magnate. NAF gave 1991 grants worth $11 million. Two other major foundations, McKnight and Bush, were endowed by 3M founders William McKnight (1953) and Archibald G. Bush (1966). In 1991, the McKnight fund had assets of more than $900 million and awarded $46.6 million in grants; the Bush fund had assets of $400 million and gave grants totaling $17.7 million. McKnight expanded its activities in 1988 to improve contributions in Greater Minnesota, creating six regional foundations with local boards around the state. Corporate giving provides a comparable resource for the state. Since 1946 the Dayton Hudson Corporation—parent of the Dayton Company, one of Minneapolis's oldest retailers—gives 5 percent of its annual pretax earnings to the local communities in which it operates. The corporation's 1990 contributions totaled $30.7 million, more than $10 million of that awarded in Minnesota. Dayton Hudson is one of only three New
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York Stock Exchange firms in the state that do so, along with First Bank Systems, Inc., and Graco, Inc. The 3M Foundation and the General Mills Foundation awarded total grants in 1991 of $20.3 million and $15.5 million, respectively.19 Most of Minnesota's other large companies have followed suit over the years, so that in 1991 the state's "Keystone Program" listed ninety-nine firms giving 5 percent and fifty-three firms giving 2 percent of their pretax earnings to charity each year. The Keystone Program is named for "the stone in the center of an archway that holds the other pieces in place,... a symbol of bridging and strength—something on which associated things depend for support. In Minnesota, the keystone symbol represents the strong partnership between community needs and business resources."20 Analysts of corporate culture often ask, "Why Minnesota?" Most agree on certain formative elements: Most of the individual fortunes in Minnesota were made by people who came here to stay, who were not wealthy when they arrived, and who made their money from the region's vast physical and human resources as well as from their own ingenuity. Most of the firms started out family owned and were kept in the families for succeeding generations. The deep sense of indebtedness to the region, plus the immediate and enduring involvement in the community on all levels, imbued such a sense of rootedness and "social memory" that the ethic of giving back to the community was only natural. The founders came to Minnesota not only to earn a living but to create a vital, interesting, and cosmopolitan community for themselves and the rest of the population. An ethic of social responsibility was handed down in families and corporate management until it became so embedded in the community's structure that it was expected, and to fail to share wealth is now a cause of public criticism.
This ethic of social responsibility left by Yankee founders was not a detached, abstract obligation to write the occasional charitable check but a personal obligation to return to the community not only money, but time and energy as well. The institutionalized form of that ethic now means that some local corporations grant employees up to one year's paid leave for community service, and many others sponsor employee volunteerism through compensated release-time and other incentives. The Minnesota Project on Corporate Responsibility is an important example of the attitude of the Minnesota business community toward public involvement. Formed by local business leaders in 1977, the project adopted a guiding philosophy that redefined the primary constituency of corporations from stockholders to "stakeholders": employees, customers, suppliers, and communities. Since its birth the project has sponsored seminars on such diverse topics as corporate responsibility, employee rights, sex discrimination, the role of the family as stakeholder, corporate involvement in the community, and business ethics. Through these educational activities the message of corporate responsibility has been perpetuated through new generations of managers. In 1987, the organization became the Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility, affiliated with the University of St. Thomas; it will be housed in the school's downtown Minneapolis campus. The center's current mission statement cites these goals: "to raise the awareness and stimulate the interest of business leaders in the issues and challenges of corporate responsibility and to increase their understanding of and commitment to the goals of good corporate citizenship."21 Even Minnesota's active philanthropy has been unable to compensate for the massive cutbacks made during the 1980s in federal funding for human and social services. The foundations have tried to mitigate
the impact of the cuts, however, by soliciting even more time and money from contributors, and by shifting a larger share of their giving from arts and humanities into jobs, housing, food shelves, day care, and other needed programs. Moreover, they try to stretch scarce resources by providing seed money, matching funds, and challenge grants aimed at attracting other monies. There is concern these days that the problems inherent in charitable giving will lead to its decline. As local companies "go public" to raise the additional money they want to finance expansion, they necessarily incur an increased measure of control by outside interests and exposure to the threat of takeover and removal from the state. Since capital seems to seek the highest short-term return in world money markets, the longterm interests of Minnesota are not always looked after. They could be. Pension funds and wealth owners could invest more in Minnesota than they do, thereby maintaining a strong voice in company affairs on matters affecting the area's long-term interests. But the rationales for doing so need further debate and refinement. The foundations themselves could invest part or most of their considerable assets in Minnesota companies in ways that would earn perhaps slightly lower current returns in exchange for a greater measure of control over events that influence the future of the state and its stakeholders. The "takeover mania" that swept the country in the 1980s undermined some locally held corporate citizens, adding nonlocal management with neither knowledge of nor long-term concern for the local community. But takeovers work both ways. Some large local companies acquired large properties elsewhere and emerged from the 1980s stronger than ever. The professionalization of local corporate management is increasing as the last descendants of the founders reach retirement age, and as executives from outside the community are recruited. Some fear that
the locally bred "social memory" of the community eventually will be lost, in the foundations as well as in business. It is not only new management practices, however, but the ethic of corporate responsibility itself that is being institutionalized in these new professionals. The Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility reports a decline in attendance of top executives at its seminars in recent years, with an increased presence of human resources and personnel professionals sent in their place. The role of corporate citizenship in the state, it is hoped, can be perpetuated through this new generation of professionals, without reliance on local roots. The H. B. Fuller Company endowed a $1 million chair in corporate responsibility at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, to further ensure that generations to come will share in the spirit of community.
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SURROUNDING THE REDEVELOPING cores and distinctive neighborhoods of the central cities, the ring of suburban development thins outward and merges into the open countryside ten to twenty miles from either the St. Paul or Minneapolis central business district. Beyond that, for another thirty to eighty miles, branch plants and corporate administrative offices, part-time farmers and long-distance commuters subtly tie the small towns and countryside into the circulation network of the metropolis—our daily urban system.
Evolution of a Postwar Metropolis
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The patterns on today's landscape record more than a century of economic processes and social forces playing themselves out over a natural terrain. The patterns appear random, but actually they exhibit a rational spatial progression of entrepreneurial and civic initiatives, along with responses to population change and economic growth. Certain areas attracted urban development over the years depending on their accessibility to downtowns, services, and other development; their natural amenities of high terrain and water; and their proximity to important and persistent institutions such as universities, hospitals, or airports. The low density of real estate development in the Twin Cities area resulted from the optimism of early transportation planners who extended streetcar lines farther out than population growth eventually required, and to the easily developed open farmland surrounding both cities. Areas served by rail transit soon filled in, driven by speculative house builders and commercial developers and by a middle-
class wish to trade up and move outward to new housing. The siting of important facilities such as the airport, a shopping "dale," or the routing of a major interstate transportation artery occasionally distorted the general outward spread of successive bands of new growth. The path of development perpetuated a chicken and egg process—commerce, transport lines, and housing tumbling headlong over each other into suburban open spaces, first one and then another leading in an ongoing process of both planned and spontaneous growth. Then, as growth led to congestion, further development broke away to new sites, creating a need for additional roads and transit lines linking the old with the new. Development sprang up along the new lines and the process continued in new directions. Suburban development in the Twin Cities metro area has been more orderly than in most other U.S. metro areas because a metrowide planning and review authority existed relatively early in the postwar suburbanization process. After an adolescent sibling rivalry that lasted some eighty years, Minneapolis and St. Paul finally matured in the 1950s to the point that cooperation became an obvious need. Separately, the two cities occupied lower ranks among members of the American urban system, but working together as one metro area they gained the critical mass needed to become a major player. In one of their first cooperative efforts, the Twin Cities secured a major league baseball franchise in the late 1950s, which brought Calvin Griffith's Washington Senators to Minnesota in 1961. Since that time major promotional efforts are seldom undertaken by one part-
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The Suburbs and Beyond: Living, Working, and Planning for the Future
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ner without the other, although the early rivalry lingers in folklore and humor. The new cooperative spirit allowed the Twin Cities to act together on a recommendation of the Citizens League in 1958 to create the Metropolitan Planning Commission, which in 1967 became the Metropolitan Council (fig. 71). The Minnesota legislature gave the council limited but sufficient tax authority and governmental power to guide the growth of the whole metro area. Since its creation, the council has overseen planning and development of metropolitan systems of parks, transit, highways, waste disposal, and a host of other concerns.
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The Metropolitan Pevelopment and Investment Framework1 The Metropolitan Council's Metropolitan Development and Investment Framework is a plan that sets a general direction for future development patterns in the metropolitan area and establishes guidelines for making decisions about major regional facilities, such as sewers and highways, that are needed to support the commercial, industrial, and residential development of the area. The plan divides the region into a metropolitan "urban service area" and a "rural service area" (fig. 72). The focus of the council's strategy on managing growth in the region is to encourage development and redevelopment to occur within the urban service area. Improvements in the regional systems for sewers, transportation, parks, and airports will be made to meet the needs of people living in the urban service area. For example, central sewers will not be extended into the rural service area, and highway projects will not open new land to development. Preserving agriculture is a major goal for the rural service area. The council is committed to the policy that
FIGURE 71. Metropolitan council districts. The seven-county Metro Council area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington) covers about 3,OOO square miles and contains almost two hundred separate municipalities. There are sixteen districts, each represented by
a council member appointed by the governor, who also appoints the council chair. SOURCE: METROPOLITAN COUNCIL
SOURCE: METROPOLITAN COUNCIL.
FIGURE 72. Metropolitan urban service area (MUSA) and rural service area, 2OOO. Within the MUSA line, urban services such as storm and sanitary sewers will be extended according to comprehensive areawide plans as spelled out in the Metropolitan Council's development
guide. Each unit off local government is obliged to develop its detailed land-use plans consistent with the metropolitan framework. Many parts of the metropolitan area are scheduled to remain within the rural service area into the indefinite future.
the best long-term use for much of the region's land is agriculture. This planning framework reflects the boundaries for the urban service area that developing communities designated in their comprehensive plans prepared under Minnesota's 1976 Metropolitan Land Use Planning Act. Because the metropolitan area's growth is expected to slow, however, the framework designates the 1990 urban service lines of a majority of the communities as their boundaries for the year 2000. Under the framework, the council uses its forecasts of population, households, and employment as an indication of where growth will occur in the region and as a guide in planning for growth and subsequent investment decisions within the urban service area. The council is committed to meeting growth needs throughout the urban service area based on these forecasts, on the council's system plans for regional facilities, and on comprehensive development plans prepared by local communities. The council's first priority is to maintain and upgrade existing regional systems throughout the urban service area. The council also assigns a high priority to maintenance projects that support planned economic development. Development not forecast by the council generally is given a lower priority for investment in regional facilities. The framework calls for the council, local governments, and metropolitan agencies to act jointly to protect the capacity of regional facilities by protecting them from premature overuse. At the same time, some parts of the region have excess capacity in their regional systems. The council wants development to occur first in areas provided with the greatest complement of metropolitan and local public facilities and services. By the end of the 1980s, in the aftermath of initiatives such as the Mall of America, the Target Center
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basketball arena, and the World Trade Center, the council asserted a need to expand its role significantly in reviewing and commenting on proposed facilities that carry a potential for major impact on the metropolitan area. These special facilities are large, often one-of-akind projects with a specific function or focus.
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The Metropolitan Urban Service Area The framework also includes development policies for specific classes of geographic areas within the metropolitan area. The metropolitan urban service area contains the following "geographic policy areas" (fig. 73). The metro centers are the Minneapolis and St. Paul downtown areas. The framework supports maintaining the metro centers as vital centers of economic activity and housing. It supports new development in the metro centers that requires high density, good accessibility via major highways, and good levels of public services. Maintaining regional facilities serving the metro centers is the framework's highest priority for public dollars. The regional business concentrations are areas that have a large employment base, such as office complexes, or that produce a large sales volume, such as regional shopping centers. They are clusters of economic activity, for example, those around major shopping malls and along major highways. The framework supports the continued growth of these concentrations, including increased development densities in these areas. The fully developed area is the built-up, centrally located portion of the region, including Minneapolis and St. Paul and many adjacent suburbs, such as Bloomington, Hopkins, Columbia Heights, Roseville, and South St. Paul. The framework calls for maintaining and upgrading development in the fully developed area and the regional facilities serving it.
FIGURE 73. Generalized geographic policy areas defined by the Metropolitan Council. A separate set of development policies applies within each type of policy. In some, development is encouraged and facil-
itated. In others, urban-type development is restricted or prohibited altogether. Another type of policy area—regional business concentrations—is shown in figure 77. SOURCE: METROPOLITAN COUNCIL.
The developing area is that part of the region lying within the metropolitan urban service area that will receive the most new development to the year 2000. Examples of communities in this category are Eagan, Burnsville, Minnetonka, Brooklyn Park, Coon Rapids, Shoreview, Maplewood, and Oakdale. The framework says that new development in this area will be supported with regional facilities in line with the council's forecasts. The freestanding growth centers are eleven cities in the rural portion of the region, outside the urban service boundary. Each is a microcosm of the urban area, with its own economic base, housing, and range of public services. Examples include Hastings, Prior Lake, Chaska, and Forest Lake. The council is committed to providing regional facilities to strengthen the older parts of the freestanding growth centers and services to new development that occurs outward from existing development. The Rural Service Area The rural service area contains three policy areas. The commercial agricultural area consists of land that is covenanted or certified eligible to be "agricultural preserves" by local governments under the Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves or "Green Acres" Act. The council supports agriculture as a long-term land use in the rural service area. The general rural use area is the area outside the urban service area that contains a wide variety of land uses, including farms, residential development, and facilities that mainly serve urban residents, such as regional parks. The council supports agriculture and low-density residential development in the general rural use area but not the extension of regional facilities to serve development at densities like those found in the urban service area.
The rural centers are thirty-five small cities that once served primarily as retail and transportation centers for surrounding agricultural area but now are home to people who work in the urban area and to industries with few ties to agriculture. Examples include Young America, New Market, and St. Francis. The framework says that these cities should pace development with their ability to provide their own urban services, without regional facilities. The framework includes procedures for guiding the council's decisions about investing in regional facilities and for review of development proposals. The framework establishes guidelines that provide direction to the council's detailed policies and programs contained in its individual system plans for sewers, highways, parks, and airports. It describes a "metropolitan governance" process that spells out the relationship of the council to metropolitan agencies responsible for these regional systems and the role these agencies play in carrying out the council's plans for those systems. A third set of procedures addresses the council's relationship with local governments. These procedures focus on how to resolve issues that result from changes in a local government's expectations about its own growth. Several major trends will affect the metropolitan area in the 1990s and beyond. The primary one is an expected slowdown in the area's growth compared with the population "baby boom" of the 1950s and 1960s. That baby boom triggered a large demand for jobs, housing, goods, and services. But the council estimates that the area's population will grow much more slowly in the future—only 5 percent in the 1990s, compared with 10 percent in the 1980s. The result will be smaller annual additions to regional facilities than previously envisioned. At the same time, maintenance and reconstruction of existing regional facilities will become more
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important because many are reaching the end of their useful life.2 Those who speculate on the reasons for Twin Cities success in metropolitan planning as a cooperative community offer a range of opinions. The culture of the Yankee descendants who founded Minneapolis was steeped in an ethic of civic participation and responsibility, supported by excellent public education for all citizens. The Twin Cities, and especially Minneapolis, have had relatively homogeneous and compatible ethnic and religious populations throughout their histories, so that a wide cultural hegemony became possible. Moreover, geographical isolation from other large urban areas encouraged the Twin Cities to become independent and self-sufficient from their earliest days. Like farm families whose nearest neighbor is ten miles down the road, they looked within their own households for partners in work and play and built needed institutions themselves. These innate qualities and unique circumstances make transferring the "Minnesota Model" difficult at best, but many of Minnesota's innovations provide important examples that are instructive, even if they cannot be followed, in addressing problems shared by other U.S. metro regions.
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A residential landscape forms most of the legacy from the first fifteen years of postwar development in the Twin Cities. It reflects capital poured into meeting the most obvious and urgent need after the war—housing. The demand was spurred by four years of soldiers' dreams, the end of wartime restrictions, and the need to compensate for sluggish housing construction during the preceding decade of economic depression. As late as 1955, residential construction accounted for 80 percent
of the value of all building permits in the principal developing suburbs of the Twin Cities. Minimal neighborhood commercial services had to be provided, and classrooms had to be built as an avalanche of youngsters reached school age. Those developments accounted for the scant 20 percent of nonresidential suburban building permit value in 1955. Single-family dwellings comprised virtually all of the new residential units until the late 1950s. It is well understood that the low mortgage interest rates, mortgage insurance, and loan guarantees provided under federal mortgage insurance and veterans benefits programs, as well as deductions of property tax and mortgage interest from taxable income, were major factors underlying the overwhelming preference for single-family houses. But there was reinforcement from other
FIGURE 74. Inexpensive suburban pest-World War II housing. Although small houses on large lots provide low- and moderately priced housing opportunities in certain suburbs, local governments often would prefer to see a higher residential investment per acre. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
directions as well. Soldiers during the war dreamed of home, and for 75 percent of those from the Twin Cities and the Upper Midwest, home had been an owner-occupied single-family house. Furthermore, on PX juke boxes and barracks radios the popular singers of the time had repeatedly crooned their romantic intentions to settle down at the war's end in some little palace in Dallas or in the San Fernando Valley—easily translated to St. Louis Park, Richfield, or Roseville. So early postwar suburbia emerged (fig. 74). Embryonic commercial clusters and explosive expansions of former country schoolhouses appeared at intersections on the skeleton of paved highways beyond the cities' edges. Meanwhile, building on that skeleton, landowners and small developers collectively laid nearly two thousand miles of new streets—usually dirt or gravel, sometimes paved. Over the pastures and fields and through the woodland went the roads, dividing the open areas into nearly 200,000 new lots by 1956. Meanwhile, hundreds of small builders erected new houses. Most of the builders had only one, two, or three crews and built perhaps a half dozen to twenty houses in a year. Living space in the average house was less than 1,000 square feet at first, gradually rising to about 1,200 by the mid-1950s. The homes were soon occupied, some of them well before they were finished. Swarms of little children played in the raw streets, on the patches of yet undeveloped but abandoned farmland, and around the edges of the ponds and marshes that were never far away. On a quiet summer evening, tricycles and toys lay helter-skelter, abandoned for the night on raw dirt yards. Inside, lights burned late while young couples taped drywalls, installed cupboards, and painted rooms. Homemade street signs nailed up here and there by neighborhood residents substituted for permanent markers, which village councils—often rural-ori-
ented and overwhelmed by new issues—were slow to install.
Locations of New Homes That was the postwar metropolitan frontier. It advanced relentlessly through those years of residential explosion to enclose one hundred square miles of new low-density subdivisions and another eighty-five square miles of medium- and high-density subdivisions by 1956. Behind the advancing residential frontier, lawns, shrubs, completed houses, and pavement gradually softened and ordered the raw landscape. Three factors constrained the location of new development during this period of residential explosion. The most important factor was the existing development pattern and circulation network. Others were the organization of the building industry and housing site preferences based on past experience. Five Historic Spokes of Growth At the outset of the postwar boom, the central cities contained virtually all jobs in the metropolitan area. At the same time, most of the land available for expansion of the housing stock lay outside. There was no new and different plan for the orderly extension of transportation and utility systems. Hence the pattern of residential expansion followed the existing circulation network that connected potential suburban neighborhoods with the central cities. But those facilities were limited. The road grid was only as dense as it is in the midwestern countryside, mainly section-line roads with occasional additions on the half-section. Most were gravel or graded dirt, as they had been since the 1920s and earlier pioneer days of the automobile. There had been little improvement of rural feeder roads during the Depression and the war
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years. The web of paved roads in the rural periphery of the Twin Cities was thin (fig. 75). Hence the total network, although dense, was low capacity and low quality, and permitted only comparatively slow movement. The highest development of paved roads followed five historic spokes of scattered suburban growth. The largest and most important spoke pointed westward from Minneapolis toward the hilly, wooded, and deeply indented shores of Lake Minnetonka. Another pointed northeastward from St. Paul toward the historic attraction of White Bear Lake. A third extended southeast from St. Paul through the long-established railroadindustrial belt along the polluted reach of the Mississippi River downstream from the central cities. Another followed flat land southward from Minneapolis through an area of truck farms to the bluffs overlooking the deeply entrenched valley of the Minnesota River. The fifth and least developed followed the rail-industrial zone along the Mississippi River upstream from Minneapolis—the route followed by three of the five major railroads to the northwest. The spokes along the upper and lower river followed routes of interurban streetcar lines. The Minnetonka and White Bear spokes had been served and reinforced by both suburban rail and interurban trolley lines. A few brittle remnants of the rail era system were still operating at the time the post-World War II boom began—streetcar lines as far west as Hopkins on the old route to Lake Minnetonka, to White Bear Lake, and along the lower river-industrial belt beyond the stockyards and packing plants at South St. Paul. Although these lines were still considered important by some, they were ignored by the new suburbanites. Public sewer or water systems—seldom both in one community—were confined to a handful of small streetcar suburbs—Robbinsdale in the northwest, St. Louis Park and Edina in the west, and South St. Paul
FIGURE 75. Pest-World War II system ef major radial highways serving Minneapolis and St. Paul, and routes of suburban expansion. MAP COMPILED FROM U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS.
and North St. Paul on the southeast and northeast. So high-density development, which required central sewer and water, was attracted first to the periphery of those suburbs or to the edges of the central cities with their high-capacity water and sewer systems. Wherever houses were built at high density with dependence on individual wells and cesspools, serious problems of sewage accumulation and polluted wells followed within a few years. Notable cases occurred in Richfield and eastern Bloomington. Small Builders and Varied Consumer Tastes The tendency to stick close to existing developments and transportation lines was reinforced by the character of the Twin Cities building industry. Hundreds of small builders built most of the new units, and at first there were no really large developers by national standards. No comprehensively planned new towns emerged, such as Park Forest, Illinois, or anything comparable to the Levittowns—that is, significantly isolated from the main urban mass and beyond the advancing urban frontier. A few individual "frontier families" and some builders erected single houses or small clusters on widely scattered, isolated sites in the outer part of the low-density zone. That kind of settler has historically constituted about 10 percent of the Twin Cities population and probably also reflects the long-standing decentralization of the building industry and its financing. Traditional housing site preferences also played an important role in setting the pattern of the postwar residential explosion. In some ways, they influenced the pattern at the broad metropolitan scale. The few large developers of tract housing stayed strictly with the flat glacial outwash plains. There, even in the era of the bulldozer and cheap portable drilling rig, the level surface and sandy soil enabled them to shave a little from
the cost of land preparation and utilities. Hence, in the landscape created during that period, as in the older landscapes within Minneapolis, there is a vivid regionalism of more modest and homogeneous housing on the outwash plains and more expensive housing on the rolling morainic uplands. Perhaps even more interesting is the detail of local differentiation of housing quality and price—often from block to block or within blocks—that is associated with details of the glacial terrain. Most Twin Cities households maintain a strong preference for living at or near the shores of lakes and ponds; the sides and tops of knobs on the morainic ridges; distinctive groves of birches, conifers, maples, or oaks; and creeksides. And in the intricate, disorderly landscape of glacial deposition, these preferences have produced a mixture of housing types and their related socioeconomic characteristics whose detail and seeming randomness puzzle visitors from other large American cities. This feature of residential development occurred more conspicuously in the early postwar suburbs than it had in the central cities because even early postwar suburb development already reflected the new freedom of the automobile era. New housing now could escape the flat outwash plains and venture more readily into the hummocky disordered moraine lands. The impact of this new freedom and these individual preferences became much more pronounced in the 1960s. In short, the early postwar residential boom extended and widened the five historic spokes of growth inherited from the nineteenth century. High- and medium-density subdivisions expanded mainly north, south, and southwest from Minneapolis on flat, sandy outwash plains, into Brooklyn Center, Crystal, Richfield, eastern Bloomington, St. Louis Park, and Hopkins. Development in those areas produced modest housing for middle-income families.
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The principal expansion of medium-density subdivision on the rougher glacial moraine land occurred between the spokes, mainly to the southwest of Minneapolis and Edina, with smaller increments west of Golden Valley and north of the St. Paul Midway in Roseville. Advance of the medium-density frontier was slower on the rolling moraine than on the flat outwash plains. The pioneers on the moraine were more likely to be upper-middle-income families and to build larger than average houses on lots ranging in size from onethird to one-half acre. The low-density frontier advanced much more rapidly than the medium- and high-density frontiers. Overall, Twin Cities housing construction has been strong among U.S. metro areas; it even rivaled Sunbelt cities like Phoenix in the late 1980s. The Twin Cities housing industry also has been more stable than in other areas, showing less response to national economic swings than places like Atlanta and Seattle. More recently, suburbs have asserted their individual characters in the face of development pressures. Municipalities that find themselves with new freeway frontage, for example, must decide whether to exploit the new exposure to its full commercial value or to resist and restrain the pace of development through zoning. As 1-394 has been extended, Orono to the west has zoned adjacent land for possible commercial use. In contrast, Lake Elmo on the eastern side of the metro area has zoned 2.5-acre residential "estates" along its I94 frontage, to deter commercial development. Development Imbalances The development imbalance between north and south suburbs is long-standing, with population density higher in the cheaper housing to the north, but with power, influence, and economic activity more concentrated in the south and southwest. Commercial and industrial property comprises one-
third of total assessed valuation in many northern suburbs, but 60 to 70 percent in the south metro area. The international airport, the 1-494 corridor with its 100,000 jobs and more hotel rooms than downtown Minneapolis, and the rolling, wooded terrain give the south-southwest side an edge in attracting professional and executive residents and businesses. During the late 1980s, the northern suburbs began trying to correct this imbalance. Brooklyn Park, expanding northward from Brooklyn Center into undeveloped farmland, became the Twin Cities largest suburb after Bloomington was defined as the third central city in the state following the 1980 census. The extension of 1-94 through North Minneapolis provided the essential lifeline to the interstate system, and now Brooklyn Park stands in good position to become the state's third-largest city. The flat terrain allows for easy residential development. It also facilitated construction of a championship eighteen-hole golf course, surrounded by upper-bracket homes. Half of the city's land remained undeveloped at the end of the 1980s, a consequence of earlier adopting a nationally recognized growth management plan to help it meet its planning goals without sacrificing quality of life. In the last years of the 1980s, the ten Minnesota counties in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area (the MSA was later expanded to include St. Croix County, Wisconsin) were the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in Minnesota, driven mostly by suburban growth, while most of Minnesota's rural communities stabilized or declined in population. The growth spreads into a metropolitan corridor stretching from St. Cloud to the northwest to Rochester to the southeast. The ten Twin Cities counties, plus St. Cloud's three (Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne) and Rochester's Olmsted County, gained more than twice the rest of the state in population, employment, and retail sales
FIGURE 76. Commuting to the Twin Cities area from Greater Minnesota and Wisconsin. Notable increases during the decade come from Wright, Sherburne, Isanti, Chisago, and St. Croix counties. Decreases from some peripheral counties probably reflect enhanced employment opportunities nearby or travel to job centers outside the sevencounty area. DATA SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, 1970 AND 1980 CENSUSES OF POPULATION AND HOUSING.
between 1983 and 1990, but lagged behind in per capita income gains (fig. 76). The route between Rochester and St. Cloud has been well traveled throughout Minnesota's history, even before statehood, beginning with trails and a road that followed the Mississippi River, then became one of the state's first paved highways. Today, 1-94 and State Highway 10 have cut the Twin Cities-St. Cloud commute down to an hour, and on Highway 52 a Twin Citian can reach Rochester in under ninety minutes. It is reasonable to expect that the Twin Cities and St. Cloud metropolitan statistical areas eventually might be consolidated to reflect their growing connectedness and overlapping daily urban systems. The growth of St. Cloud and Rochester during the 1980s has come from different impetuses. In-migrants to St. Cloud have been drawn by St. Cloud State University and by commercial and industrial development; most new residents come from the surrounding area. Rochester, in contrast, has drawn international
migrants with the Mayo Clinic and associated facilities, and with industrial plants like that of IBM. The eleven-county Twin Cities metro area also is registering impressive growth rates within the region and the nation, passing the 2.5 million mark in 1990 and gaining more than 15 percent in population in the 1980s. Suburban expansion, led by Eagan, Plymouth, Eden Prairie, and Maple Grove, accounted for much of that growth, while Minneapolis and St. Paul experienced net losses until they stabilized around 1988. Inmigration accounted for roughly one-fourth of the net gain. The healthy Twin Cities economy has been a draw for displaced workers from other regions, both rural and urban. It has retrieved some former residents from ailing Sunbelt areas and provides an incentive for local families to remain in the Frostbelt capital. Even as the metro area boasted growth and economic health throughout the late 1980s and even the early 1990s, the problems of the least-well-off population became more acute. Nearly 8 percent of the Minneapolis-St. Paul population lives in poverty. They are
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disproportionately minority, elderly, and female. Nearly 10 percent of families in the metro area are single-parent, female-headed households. The Twin Cities are in step with the rest of the nation in that their growing inner-city poverty has become more chronic and intergenerational and is spawning more intractable social problems than in previous decades. As the economy shifts away from the low-skill, central-city manufacturing jobs, those falling behind in education are even more disadvantaged in the labor market, even as national economic conditions require higher wages to support families. The expansion of the service sector will continue to create more low-paying, unskilled jobs, but it also may attract more displaced workers from other regions. Although most of the Twin Cities' poor are not recent arrivals looking for work, the competition for low-skill and unskilled jobs exacerbates the unemployment of the bottom wage groups, and the mere passage of time without genuine solutions to social welfare problems is leading to chronic and intergenerational poverty. Continuing middle-class out-migration to the suburbs, especially among the large baby boom cohort, has led to a concentration of poverty in the central cities, while the local tax base and political support needed to maintain the economic health of the central cities erodes compared to the demands placed on it. Both St. Paul and Minneapolis have taken measures to retain their solid mixes of middle-class households, but the problem is greater than the local means for its solution. Middle-class families want to distance themselves geographically from the social problems arising from poverty, but creating solutions to those problems depends on the middle class remaining in those communities. Demographic Trends that Affect the Future In 1991, the Metropolitan Council reported that popula-
tion in the eleven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA had increased by 15 percent between 1980 and 1990, putting it in sixteenth place among comparable U.S. metro areas (table 6). The urbanized area added 280,000 people, 125,000 households, and 200,000 new jobs during the decade, outpacing the council's middecade projections, because most of that growth occurred during a late 1980s surge.3 What happened up to 1990 does not necessarily predict what will happen over the next decade or two, but planners must project future trends in order to prepare for needed infrastructure and services. The dynamics of demographic and economic change will determine the Twin Cities' quality of life into the next century. About 37 percent of the metropolitan area's population was between 25 and 44 years of age in 1990. During the 1980s, these baby boomers were in their peak childbearing years, but they were having small families, typically only one or two children. Thus the 15 percent regional growth rate of the 1980s is expected to slow in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The relative growth rates of the region's minority populations will remain high, because of a young age structure and high fertility rates. Net migration is expected to remain near zero. Out-migration peaked in 1983 at 22,000, but then migration to the South and West slowed and even reversed, creating a housing miniboom in the Twin Cities from 1985 to 1988. Suburban growth is expected to be highest in the second- and third-ring suburbs, and up to 120,000 new homes will be needed by the year 2000. As the baby boomers attempt to sell their starter homes in order to upgrade or to cut back to smaller and more manageable monthly housing outlays, the cohort of buyers will be smaller than when they were buying. Deflated house values will lead to a relatively smaller property tax contribution from residential land, and thus a greater
share of the tax burden will fall on beleaguered business property, several sectors of which were badly overbuilt at the end of the 1980s. The shift to high-technology and service activities, as well as shifts within industries to new technologies and practices, will necessitate massive retraining of the work force through the 1990s and into the decade beyond. Baby boomers then will be in their fifties and may not appreciate the need to adjust to new labor demands. Some social commentators have long predicted intergenerational economic strife in the United States, and employment would not be the least contested turf, as displaced baby boom workers compete with younger, less skilled, or otherwise disadvantaged workers for the pick of the less skilled service-sector jobs. As new entries to the 1990s labor market become relatively less abundant, businesses will be forced to cope with less educated and more poorly trained workers, either by training, retraining, and educating employees themselves, or by lobbying for better general education in the school system. Meanwhile, the weight of the aging baby boom cohort on the retirement and social services systems will encourage many of that generation to fend off retirement to a later age, and to continue to compete with younger workers. As the rate of growth slows into the next century, the pace of change that is visible on the landscape should slow as well. Redevelopment and economical and efficient reuse, much of it aimed at serving an aging population, will be the watchwords of change, especially in the central cities. Growth in the Twin Cities region, as in the nation, has been decentralizing for years, but the strong controls on sprawl exercised by the Metropolitan Council continue to bound expansion. Between 1990 and 2010, the current urban service area should fill in, mature,
and recycle, with only a small proportion of households seeking to escape to the life-style of exurbia. The outlook for the Twin Cities into the twentyfirst century presents an enormous challenge to planners, politicians, and citizens. The likely trends are clear, and the actions required to mitigate the negative impacts of those trends are within reach. What is needed is bold leadership in Minnesota's long tradition, unafraid to take charge of its future.
Locations of New Jobs Job growth in the suburbs lagged far behind residential growth until the middle or late 1950s. A lag in new commercial and industrial building permits reflected the slow pace of jobs moving into or arising within the suburbs. Neighborhood convenience goods and services, plus building materials and supply businesses, mushroomed in many places; then a vanguard of warehouses and manufacturing firms started relocating from cramped quarters in obsolete multistoried buildings in the central business districts of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The companies pioneering the outward shift included mainly those most directly affected by the booms in housing and family formation—grocery and home appliance distributors and millwork manufacturers and distributors. The location of initial suburban job growth reflected mainly two factors. For one thing, concentrations of retailing and services followed the old arterials from the city into the former countryside. They represented persistence of the commercial strip idea, nourished in the streetcar era, then transmitted from the central cities into the suburbs. On the face of it, strip development seemed to have little if any functional value in the new, auto-oriented postwar epoch. The sidewalks of arterial streets no longer served as strung out "depot platforms,"
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petrochemicals arriving mainly with the opening of where people who moved about the city congregated while transferring from vehicle to foot or foot to vehicle. pipelines from the new Alberta oil fields—extended the lower-river rail-industry strip downstream from South In fact, suburban arterials generally lacked sidewalks. St. Paul's packing plants and stockyards. Instead, the new suburban commercial establishments hugged streets that carried virtually no pedestrian traffic, left little room for parking, and ignored popular subRecent Trends in Land Use urban amenities of landscaping and open space. But and Transportation perhaps there was little freedom at first to change the existing pattern. Businesses that served a regional New trends in suburban development accompanied the clientele had to face the question of how customers changing conditions of the 1960s and 1970s. There was would find them. Geographical ignorance was a real a shift toward a broader mix of housing types. Apartproblem. The names of a few arterials were well known ments, townhouses, and planned-unit developments and conjured images of landmarks and locations. Navibroke the virtual monopoly of the single-family gation into uncharted suburbia began with streets that dwelling. The apartments and townhouses, as well as a were suburban extensions of well-known Minneapolis substantial portion of the new single-family homes, and St. Paul radial highways and commercial strips— were located well behind the low-density frontier of Wayzata Boulevard, Lake Street, and Excelsior Boulemetropolitan growth. They filled in areas closer to the vard into Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, and Hopkins; central cities that had been initially developed in scatNicollet and Lyndale avenues southward into Richfield tered tracts at low density. Low-density suburban tracts and Bloomington; South Robert Street into West St. shifted to medium or high density at the rate of about Paul; Central Avenue into Columbia Heights and Fridthree square miles per year from 1945 through 1956. ley; and West Broadway into Robbinsdale and Crystal. From 1957 to 1970 the comparable rate was seven When industry expanded suburbanward, it first square miles per year. The fill-in rate more than doulooked to extensions of older rail-industrial strips. The bled. In the latter part of the period, the Twin Cities prime example was the extension of the westward belt also saw the emergence of organized innovation in the along the Milwaukee Railroad adjoining the Lake housing industry, stimulated by higher costs and growStreet commercial strip from South Minneapolis into St. ing restlessness in the market. So far these innovations Louis Park and Hopkins. The origins of the St. Louis have included large, planned communities of factoryPark-Hopkins rail-industry strip go back to the nineassembled homes, cluster development of both singleteenth century. But during the early postwar years it family and multiple units to preserve open space and became the scene of rapid and extensive development of natural amenities, and the marketing of modular and new food warehouses and processors and machine precut homes. industries, mostly transfers from central Minneapolis. Other agricultural processors along with machinery and Suburban Jobs and Infrastructure Catch Up with metalworks expanded into the suburban reaches of the Population Meanwhile, suburban job growth caught North Minneapolis upper-river rail-industry strip. And up with population growth; indeed, since 1970 nearly a new generation of "dirty" industries—oil refining and all Twin Cities job growth has been in the suburbs. The
FIGURE 77. Regional business concentrations. Concentrations of business centers of 10,OOO or more employees, of retailing centers of $ IOO million or more annual sales, or both. SOURCE: METROPOLITAN COUNCIL.
value of nonresidential building permits in the suburbs leveled out at 40 to 50 percent of the total. That level reflected a succession of new developments—large-scale retail shopping malls, industrial parks, office parks, hospitals, high schools, regional community colleges— each a major source of suburban employment (fig. 77). Also, for the first time since early in the century, there was a resurgence of concern about acquiring public open space. There were major acquisitions of parkland when the frontier of development approached the boundaries of the central cities, and again in the latter part of the post-World War II building boom. Both occasions were preceded by periods of rapid residential expansion and relative neglect of public land acquisition. Behind the frontier of urbanization, municipalities bought small remaining parcels and developed them as neighborhood playgrounds. Just ahead of the advancing frontier, county and regional agencies bought tracts of hundreds or thousands of acres for regional parks, nature preservation, public golf courses, and a metropolitan zoo. At the same time, local governments began to use their vastly increased revenue and bonding capacity to embark on public works programs that had been neglected during the frenetic years of the residential building boom. Street paving and curbing, sewer and water lines, libraries, and civic centers began to transform the suburban landscape and, incidentally, to give institutional substance to the suburban municipal governments. Some of those investments formed an important part of the greatly increased value of nonresidential building permits in the late 1950s and 1960s. While the total annual value of nonresidential building permits in the suburbs grew from typically $60 million to $100 million in the mid-1950s to nearly $400 million in the early 1970s, the public share of that total grew from about one-eighth to one-third.
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Increased Public Control of Development Increasing public control of new development also marked the period of suburban maturation. At the beginning of the postwar boom, fewer than half a dozen suburban communities had any semblance of zoning, subdivision regulations, capital improvement plans, or comprehensive planning commissions. By the early 1960s, of roughly fifty municipalities comprising the area inside the frontier of low-density settlement, only three had not yet undertaken at least some of those programs. Meanwhile, to coordinate these local efforts, the state legislature established the Metropolitan Planning Commission in 1957. Planning activity reflected the growth of governmental controls over land development and the efforts of both local governments and the larger metropolis to monitor physical change and to program public investments. The commitments grew out of the experiences of voters generally and of community leaders in particular during the chaotic years of explosive residential development. But figures on governmental efforts tell only part of the story. During the period of maturation, large developers accounted for an increasing share of total building. Because they controlled large and diverse tracts of land and large amounts of front-end capital, they could package more comprehensively planned communities. Those efforts were further encouraged by ever-higher land costs and high construction costs. So the integrated design of residential, commercial, and open space over large areas came from private as well as public initiative. More Planning The end result was that "planning" became a symbolic term—perhaps also a buzzword—in suburban development in the 1960s and 1970s: planned communities, planned unit developments, planned residential clusters, planned garden apartments, planned
shopping centers, planned educational centers, planned industrial parks, planned mobile home communities, and so on. The system of freeways and expressways was probably the single most important new ingredient introduced into the suburbs from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In general, those roads greatly increased the overall speed and capacity of transportation. Their effect in the Twin Cities was even greater than in other metropolitan areas of comparable size. The Twin Cities area built more miles of freeway per capita than any other metropolis in the million-or-more class because the double downtowns called for two sets of radials rather than one. The freeway system also exerted a crucial influence on the location of other new investments. The radials reinforced the traditionally easy movement from the central business districts and the Midway District to suburban areas and drastically increased the distance to which activities linked to those districts could penetrate the countryside. The new circumferential routes opened extensive areas of woods and lakeshore in the voids between older radial spokes of growth. The circumferential routes reduced travel time among suburbs by providing more direct routes. So open land, market need, and freeways provided a decentralizing force, and the decentralization was further spurred by the creation of new major nodes in the metropolitan circulation system at the intersections of radial and circumferential freeways. The freeways interacted with the new levels of affluence and the inertia of established metropolitan and regional markets to guide the location of new jobs and new homes during the period of suburban maturation. Matching Costs and Benefits Despite the best projections, original infrastructure cannot accommodate
growth indefinitely. The Twin Cities metro area freeway system will be improved incrementally during the 1990s and 2000s, especially to meet demand in the fastgrowing south and west suburbs. By 1990,1-494 was just beyond its planned-for capacity during rush hours, and traffic was expected to double by 2010. A $550 million plan to meet this added demand was adopted in 1988 by a joint-agency task force, to include in the short term alternatives to rush-hour driving (staggered working hours and ride-sharing incentives), and in the long term adding lanes to the most-used routes and metered access to divert short trips to city streets and arterials. A smooth-flowing freeway system is essential not only to serve suburban development but also to maintain good access by suburbanites to the central cities to support its business and commerce there. On the other hand, there persists a mismatch in the geographical allocation of costs and benefits that promotes costly congestion and invites overbuilding especially in the southwest quadrant of the metro area, while areas to the north and east and in the central cities are underused or prematurely abandoned, creating a massive "solid waste" disposal problem for local economies whose governments lack the resources to resolve it.
Increased Highway Congestion Land use and transportation conditions changed greatly as the years of residential explosion advanced into the late 1950s. The pent-up housing demand from the war and the Depression was relieved. A vast new market had emerged in the suburbs, and leaders of retailing and the service businesses pursued it. A huge new real property tax base had accumulated and continued to grow, and a new generation of elected officials and village administrators who had moved onto the suburban political stage debated how to tap it. Meanwhile, the
suburbs of the Twin Cities, like others across the nation, became the action centers as America moved to record-high levels of personal income and buying power that nurtured the financing of large-scale development projects. The Exploding Metropolis, by the editors of Fortune, was replaced by The Affluent Society, by John Kenneth Galbraith, as the popular reading of the time. The newfound affluence was seductive, as were the occasionally overblown growth projections. A 1970 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program of loan guarantee assistance made its first commitment, $21 million, to a new planned community called Jonathan in the suburb of Chaska about twentyfive miles west of Minneapolis. The model town was to include five villages, a commercial core, transit, an education center, and industrial park. By 1979, however, with more than a thousand households in place, the Jonathan Development Corporation was bankrupt. Overall metropolitan growth continued at a rate close to expectations, however, through the mid-1980s. Fortunately, the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Minnesota Department of Highways, and their successors, the Metropolitan Council and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, saw to it that excellent freeway and sewer systems were in place to accommodate planned outward growth through the 1980s. To duplicate those systems in 1980s dollars without the federal subsidies of the past, as many Sunbelt cities are today called upon to do, would have redirected scarce resources away from more urgent needs. Between 1980 and 1984, all twenty Sunbelt cities of more than 1 million population exceeded the national average growth rate of 3.8 percent, while only three northern cities of that size range—Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis-St. Paul—managed to do so. The MinneapolisSt. Paul area gained more than a million people after World War II. Among the thirty-seven metro areas with
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populations over 1 million, the Twin Cities moved up in fits they derive using the freeways are much higher than the costs they themselves pay, so they use the freerank from seventeenth in 1970 to fifteenth in 1980. way even when it is highly congested, thereby imposing Despite this foresight, the 1980s saw the Twin huge costs of pollution, fuel wasting, accidents, higher Cities metropolitan area begin to outgrow its transnoise levels, and greater patrol needs on the public at portation infrastructure to the point where traffic conlarge. The typical response of highway departments to gestion and its associated environmental and efficiency congestion is to expand capacity. A better response is to costs became a primary concern for planners. Two charge congestion fees as is done with airline travel, routes became particularly congested because of new long-distance telephoning, or electrical usage during development in the late 1980s—Highway 12 into the times of peak demand. Programs for metering and western suburbs, and the south and west extent of Icharges for using congested freeways are already in 494. Communities adjacent to these highways went so far as to impose development controls, with Golden Val- place at several locations around the world and are likely to be installed on certain stretches of Twin Cities ley, St. Louis Park, and Minnetonka planning around the 1992 completion of the upgraded Highway 12 into I- freeways by the end of the 1990s. The Metropolitan Council recommended in 1988 394. The new interstate highway has temporarily eased that the Regional Transit Board prepare a regionwide traffic snarls for them, but will draw even more development into the western reaches of the metro area. Res- plan to address the future of the area's transit system. The council forecasts a 63 percent rise in metro miles idents of Edina, Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Richfield, traveled per year, to accompany a 25 percent population and Minnetonka along 1-494, meanwhile, have no such increase over the next two decades (see table 11). There solution in sight. Interstate 494 is one of the two freeways designed will be longer commutes, more people, and more cars, to carry through-traffic around the Twin Cities. Increas- but the council discourages simply constructing more ingly, though, the freeway carries commuters from their roads. The Department of Transportation, however, envisions another freeway loop well outside the Interdispersed suburban homes to dispersed suburban jobs. The increase in jobs along the freeway added 80 percent state 694-494 ring in the face of difficulties in financing the maintenance of existing roads and bridges. Instead to traffic volumes between 1976 and 1986 as the sevenof more new roads, the council advises making the teen-mile stretch from 1-394 to the airport became the existing system more efficient, adding several cost-effecmain street of the southwestern metro area. As the tive rail lines, and striving for behavioral changes in Mall of America and other traffic generators stimulate drivers. The council also, in its approval of metro highstill more trips, even conservative forecasts point to way projects, has placed priority on the need to remove gridlock on 1-494 in the 1990s. The congestion problems arise when businesses capacity constraints from the regional system and on and drivers are able to draw benefits from the transport how well a project both services existing development system for which they do not fully pay. Building owners and promotes ride sharing. and businesses near the freeway gain visibility and The Regional Transit Board prepared a five-year accessibility benefits that they feel exceed their costs. transit plan, with initiatives through 1995 to include Freeway drivers, usually alone, perceive that the beneadding bus service to congested corridors, adding com-
munity-based service to developing areas, expanding the Minnesota Rideshare carpooling program, and travel demand management programs, as well as a light rail transit (LRT) program. The Metropolitan Council adopted the Transit Board's LRT recommendations in 1990, with a two-step, twenty-year construction plan to be managed by a joint-powers board, but implementation would depend entirely on legislative funding.4 The Twin Cities stand in good stead for future growth, with numerous small new businesses, abundance of open land for expansion, and a well-tended infrastructure compared with older eastern areas. Sunbelt cities growing at comparable rates or faster inevitably will be forced to raise their recently low tax rates to provide new infrastructure for their rapidly expanding populations. Whether the Twin Cities can relax their rates a bit because of new tax base growth in areas with existing services is questionable. Despite a surface veneer of quality construction and maintenance, the Twin Cities physical infrastructure appears to be deteriorating faster than it is being repaired or replaced. Roads, bridges, sewers, pipelines, school buildings, and park structures are in a race with time as governments try to balance budgets by shifting capital and physical maintenance monies into current and laborintensive service functions. It is always easier to take yesterday's investments for granted, to use them and use them up, rather than to tax ourselves for tomorrow's users. But at the end of the 1980s, that troublesome attitude had seemed to intensify.
New Locations for Burgeoning Employment In 1950, suburban employment numbered about 90,000—roughly 20 percent of the metropolitan total. In the next two decades, suburban jobs grew to more than
350,000 and comprised more than 40 percent of the metropolitan total by 1970. By 1980, suburban jobs had grown to 598,000 or just over half of all seven-county metro area jobs. Between 1980 and 1990, three out of four new jobs in the metro area appeared in the secondtier suburbs and beyond, while inner-ring suburbs claimed 22 percent of new jobs. Meanwhile, Minneapolis and St. Paul managed to acquire only 4 percent of the new jobs. Nearly 240,000 jobs were added to the entire region between 1980 and 1990, and 63 percent of them went to developing suburbs including Eagan, Eden Prairie, and Woodbury. Service-sector jobs rose to first in number in the metro region, surpassing manufacturing jobs in 1981 and wholesale and retail jobs by 1986. Business and health services led this growth. At the start of the 1990s, suburban employment was estimated by the Metropolitan Council at 829,000 (63 percent of the metro total), with continued rapid growth projected through 2000. Explanations for this decentralization include the good transit system of the metro area, extending into exurbia; plentiful, undeveloped land surrounding the built-up area; a growing labor pool; and the efforts of small outlying municipalities to augment their commercial and industrial tax bases. Continued Shift to Suburban Locations To be
sure, at least one quarter of the new jobs between 1978 and 1987 were in scattered locations. But much of the suburban employment boom occurred in just a few major commercial and industrial districts. Several locations simply reflected expansion or relocation away from the central business districts or the Midway District, across narrow barriers of railroad yards or older development to nearby freeway interchange areas. Most important in that class are West Highway 55 (Golden Valley, Plymouth), West Highway 12 (Golden Valley,
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Plymouth, Minnetonka), Roseville-Arden Hills, and Maplewood. Several large Twin Cities-based corporations were early leaders in their expansion away from the central cities into these new districts. General Mills, Honeywell, and Gamble-Red Owl Stores shifted some operations to the west of Minneapolis in the 1950s and early 1960s. Control Data, Univac, and a complex of trucking firms and suppliers shifted north from the Midway District to Roseville and Arden Hills. And the 3M Corporation built its new headquarters and research center in Maplewood, east of St. Paul. These locational decisions further reinforced the freeway development pattern. The size or monumental nature of the investments and the number of work trips involved dictated that major private relocation and development plans be coordinated with regional transportation plans.
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Persistent Pull to the West and South The general pattern of suburban employment growth reflected the century-old pull toward the south and west. Since the frontier of commercial agriculture passed westward across central Minnesota in the 1870s, the locational advantage for distribution firms serving the Upper Midwest has been on the Minneapolis side of the metropolitan area. Each central city posed a barrier to the other in shipping to the outlying region, but most of the market lay to the west. Regional distributors and services look west and northwest to the Red River Valley and the spring wheat region, and south and southwest to the northern part of the Corn Belt in southern Minnesota, northern Iowa, eastern South Dakota, and northeast Nebraska. This directional attraction persisted during the era of suburbanization of regional branch offices, warehouses, and related banks, hotels, and restaurants. It was reinforced by the chance location of the metropoli-
tan airport on the broad outwash plain west of historic Fort Snelling. The result is that the major suburban employment concentrations are largest in the southwest quadrant. From Edina to the airport, plus the extreme southwest corner of St. Paul, subdistricts and strips have coalesced into a new third center of the Twin Cities, exceeding downtown St. Paul in retail sales and office floor space. The development in this district includes many shifts or expansions from the central part of Minneapolis, but they have also included many new firms. Control Data, which initially moved north from the Midway, eventually built its world headquarters just southwest of the airport, and Univac (later called Sperry, then Unisys) moved to Eagan before its parent company was absorbed and reabsorbed in the 1980s spate of corporate mergers and acquisitions. The district features hotels, branch offices, branch plants, retailers, corporate headquarters, and financial institutions, some locally based and others branching into the Twin Cities for the first time. Altogether, a dozen major suburban concentrations contain about two-thirds of the employment located within the area of post-World War II development. They embrace all of the eight major regional shopping malls, with 7.5 million square feet of floor space. They include ten of the eleven major concentrations of suburban offices, with 98 percent of the floor space, or about one-third of the modern office space in the metropolitan area. They also include about three-fifths of the suburban industrial parkland, with nearly nine-tenths of the total industrial parkland value. In fact, 48 percent of the total suburban industrial parkland value is concentrated in the western portion of the Edina-airport district—testimony to the pull of the market toward the southwest.
FIGURE 78. Farmland conversion at the edge of the builtup urbanized area. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
New Jobs in the Urbanizing Countryside Meanwhile, office and industrial employment that forms an integral part of the metropolitan system has grown throughout a zone of metropolitan influence far beyond the suburban belt twenty-five to sixty miles from the downtowns. Home offices of major corporations are dispersed widely through this zone. Most are homegrown manufacturing or financial firms needing accessibility to regional markets, drawing local surplus labor from farms and small towns, and using access to regional resources of management and financing. They tend to be located within or near the principal historic rural trade centers; hence they also lie in the main highway and rail corridors. All of them are no farther in time from the Twin Cities airport than Westchester or Fairfield counties are from Kennedy Airport in New York. Branch plant concentration coincides with the major area of industrial job growth. Accessibility to Twin Cities markets and parent plants most influences the pattern, although it stretches somewhat toward the southwest by the rich farm equipment and supply market of the Corn Belt and toward the northwest by a rel-
atively abundant supply of underemployed farm labor in the marginal dairy country. With corporate offices and branch plants in the countryside and major concentrations of job locations in the suburbs, suburbia and exurbia became integral parts of an extensive, evolving, interacting metropolitan system. Decentralization of employment locations accompanied suburban maturation and rural assimilation, and that deconcentration tended to equalize geographical accessibility to jobs for people who live in all parts of the metropolis. The average home-to-work trip from most suburban neighborhoods increased from four to seven miles but remains less than the commute would be to the nearer of the two central business districts or the Midway. While metro suburbs saw the most job growth in the 1980s, Minneapolis and St. Paul held their own in the face of hard times nationally. Minneapolis added 8,000 jobs, and St. Paul's jobs remained stable during the decade.
Locations for the New Mix of Homes To Twin Cities residents, lakeshores and wooded hillsides are highly desirable places to live. They combine amenity and prestige in whatever combination one wishes. This view holds within any socioeconomic stratum and from any socioeconomic perspective. The completion of the modern arterial and freeway network in the late 1950s and 1960s opened up vast areas of rolling, lake-studded glacial moraine that had been inaccessible from the metro area for years. If the rough terrain and abundance of surface water forced higher land preparation, utility, and construction costs, those barriers fell easily before the unprecedented affluence of the times. The improved highway net and the search for amenity reinforced each other, and residential develop-
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ment helped to set the trend away from flatland and railroad or streetcar orientation toward moraine land and freeway orientation, and toward larger lots and lower densities for multiple as well as single-family dwellings.
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Leapfrogging and In-filling There was a new element in the pattern of residential development during this period, and it intensified after 1970. On the one hand, there was a record rate of low-density expansion, with less contiguity—more leapfrogging—than ever before (fig. 78). At the same time, however, there was a record rate of medium- and high-density fill-in of previously low-density areas. The fill-in showed less contiguity of development than in previous periods. About 70 percent of the new medium-density development was adjacent to the contiguous medium- and high-density metropolitan mass; about 30 percent was not. The record rate of low-density expansion and leapfrogging was noted widely and with alarm. The record rate of fill-in received much less attention. The two phenomena probably reflect alternative responses of the housing industry and the market to extreme cost increases for capital, land, and construction. Alternative courses of action have been (1) to increase density, and hence develop close-in locations where central sewer is available, or (2) to reduce land costs, and hence go farther out than ever before. The trend was judged by numerous public agencies and organizations in the 1970s as portending a serious problem. The new islands of medium-density development received extensions of the sewer network. As a result, sewer trunks crossed intervening areas of remaining low density, and those areas now have both land and sewer available. Meanwhile, unsewered developments sprawl in low-density islands far beyond either the existing or the contemplated sewer network. It is
feared that those unsewered areas will fill in, and then their residents will need sewers whose cost will greatly exceed the fiscal capability of the local residents and needlessly strain the resources of the metropolitan sewer board. The rate of sprawl stabilized in the 1980s at about one-third of the peak rate. Policies have evolved to inhibit further advances or leaps of the low-density frontier and to force new development to fill in areas adjacent to the contiguous urban mass or between anticipated new, medium-density islands. The evolving policies favor the medium-density approach to the cost squeeze, and discourage the cheap land, low-density approach. The questions of what densities are safe for rural areas and how those densities can be controlled remain. Varied Environmental Settings for Housing Notwithstanding the widespread image of suburbia as a homogeneous or monotonous mass, a vivid and complex regionalism appears to have developed, especially in the period of suburban maturation. The moraine areas— even the outwash plains—have tremendous physical diversity. The metropolitan area contains nearly one thousand "recreational lakes," so classified by the state Department of Natural Resources. But there are also many more hundreds of small ponds. Because of the detail of small knobs and kettles, the larger lakes have intricate shorelines, with countless bays and islands and varied vistas. The metropolis lies astride major continental vegetation boundaries between forest and prairie and between broadleaf and coniferous forests. Hence there are rich maple-basswood-white oak forests, birch-aspen groves, ridges and islands of pine, tamarack bogs, and fields in former prairie openings bordering oak woodlands. And there are accompanying differences in bird and animal life.
The distribution of these diverse landscapes has the randomness and kaleidescopic detail with which the glaciers acquired and dumped their burden during the Ice Age. Most Twin Citians are keenly aware of these variations and have preferences among them. Hence the market for residential land and housing has reflected them down to their most minute details. The result is a great diversity in local residential landscapes, with every conceivable combination of socioeconomic and physical features. This phenomenon is unquestionably a great leveler, though it remains to be described and interpreted. Since few suburban municipalities are homogeneous physically, few can be homogeneous in family income and related cultural attributes. As one walks and talks in the suburbs, the evidence is abundant that there are vivid and vitally important differences in diet, nutrition, drink, the nature and sources of information, parent-child relationships, family stability, health care, clothing, and recreational expenditures. There are geographies of gardening, bowling, golfing, snowmobiling, and boat ownership. Insofar as these are related to income, they reflect the intricate pattern of residential land values. But they are also related to values and tastes that lead some households to sacrifice for a lakeshore location, others to shun it—or lead to countless other kinds of locational decisions. Meanwhile, the central cities strive to provide low-cost housing to low-income families, with help from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency and private foundations.
Great Variety in the Urbanizing Countryside Beyond the suburbs, in the urbanizing countryside, the changing residential landscape tells yet another story. The part of this zone twenty-five to sixty miles from the
downtowns reported the highest population growth rates in the metropolitan system during the 1970s and 1980s. The baby boom, housing boom, and schoolroom boom made their last stand here. Most important, young local people with traditional values try to shelter and nurture those values by staying in their home communities while tapping into city-suburban affluence by means of long-distance commuting. These people graduated from high school, and most of their work trips lead to technical, clerical, or unskilled jobs. They work not only in the central cities and suburbs but also in the small towns and the open country—in filling stations, taverns, and gravel pits—throughout the metropolitan region. Their work puts them in the middle and lowermiddle income range. Contributing to growth in this zone are emigrants from the central cities and suburbs, who are making a deep thrust into the countryside. The emigrants form a heterogeneous lot, with a wide range of educational and occupational backgrounds in the middle and upper-middle income brackets. They are executives, proprietors, and professionals, to be sure, but the group also includes salespeople, tradespeople, office clerks, factory workers, and technicians. Some of the proprietors bring their small businesses with them into the countryside. For example, one proprietor set up his metal fabricating plant in an abandoned creamery near his residential estate, while another moved his cabinet shop from the city to a former dairy barn, which he rents on a farm near his lake home. Then he remodeled the lake home for comfortable year-round occupance. Finally, there is a growing accumulation of aging and elderly people, retired farmers and small-town business operators, artisans, laborers, and homemakers. These energetic souls decided to bypass retirement in an institution or a warmer climate. They lack the money for relocation to the Sunbelt, but their attach-
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ment to the locale would probably keep them here even if they could afford to relocate. The local retirees are joined by the transplants coming from the Twin Cities as well as from other parts of the Midwest, especially Iowa and the industrial cities of Illinois and Indiana. To serve this population there is an expansion of clinic and nursing home facilities comparable to the boom in school classrooms.
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Diverse Households, Diverse Housing New householders in the urbanization zone create a rich variety of housing. There is a remodeling boom, with much of the work being done by the residents themselves. Newcomers remodel old farmsteads as singlefamily homes. Others redesign and remodel old houses in the small towns into single family homes and apartment buildings. Still others adopt abandoned one- or two-room schoolhouses in the countryside and old stores at rural crossroads or on the main streets of small hamlets. Some families park mobile homes in farmyards, on small town lots, in courts large and small—usually in the open country or at least beyond the edges of small towns, in subdivisions of one- to five-acre lots, on lakeshore land, in ten- or twenty-acre woodlots. Some of them are retirement homes, and some are perhaps gifts from retiring farmers to their newly married children. Precut houses ranging in size from two to five bedrooms provide a popular housing choice. The owners and their relatives willingly provide the labor for both the foundation and finishing. Owner-built homes are also common. Their designs are usually conventional, but distinctive features ranging from the ingenious to the outlandish are not uncommon. Finally, there are conventionally built custom dwellings ranging from modest to elaborate. Outbuildings are common. Many are kept for horses, which are luxury items, although kept by fami-
lies in a very wide range of incomes. Many outbuildings are for trucks, incidental to the livelihood of so many laborers and tradespeople. But many outbuildings also house genuine farming enterprises. The region features a distinctive kind of suburbanization and intensification of its agriculture. Productivity of farmland ranks among the highest in Minnesota, although the soil quality is only mediocre. The proportion of part-time farmers ranks among the highest in the state. In this region of relatively intensive part-time farming, a farmer plowing or harvesting by tractor headlight after a day's work at the factory bench, grease rack, or supply room counter is a common sight. Population growth areas in the zone of urbanization appear not only on the map of population change but also on the map of family income. For growth occurs mostly where long-distance commuting or branch plants of metropolitan industries contribute to basic income. The location of those areas correlates partly with highway access to city and suburban employment centers. But the local patterns of lakeshore and wooded hills and also accessibility to local employment centers greatly modify the population growth patterns. Protecting Exurban Land—the "Green Acres" Law5 Some observers express concern that exurban settlement will usurp the resource of open land that surrounds the suburbs and central cities. There is some basis for this concern. In one respect, there is an abundance of open space—about 5,000 square miles without significant development within an hour's driving time of the central business districts or the Midway. Such a volume represents enough land to accommodate six to ten centuries of growth even at low outer-suburban densities and recent metropolitan population increase rates. On the other hand, if the open space were divided into
parcels averaging eight acres, it would last only about a decade at recent growth rates. One strategy adopted by the Metropolitan Council to slow sprawl in the seven-county metro area and to protect remaining agricultural land from the economic pressures of encroaching development was the Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves Act—the "Green Acres" Law—adopted in 1980. The legislation was passed to enable and encourage landowners to invest in long-term agricultural uses without risk of losing their investment under urban development pressures. Local jurisdictions identify areas where long-term agriculture is the best permanent use of the land, and they must adopt comprehensive plans designating lands eligible for this long-term use. These lands are density-zoned to no more than one dwelling on each forty acres. County, or city, or township authorities manage and enforce the program. Owners of eligible land must initiate the preserve process and enroll a minimum of forty acres for a minimum of eight years. Lands entered in the program are tax-assessed based on their agricultural use-value rather than market value, and they have a tax ceiling equal to their current local tax rate or to 105 percent of the statewide average township tax rate (excluding the metro area), whichever is lower. The difference in tax income, if any, is repaid to local jurisdictions from a five-dollar fee collected by metro counties on deed transfers and mortgage registrations. At the program's inception, metropolitan tax rates were higher than the statewide average, and thus encouraged moderate enrollment in the program. In the late 1980s, however, the situation was reversed as assessed land values (down 21 percent) and agricultural land acreage (down over 1 million acres) decreased faster statewide than in the metro area (down 17 percent and 32,000 acres, respectively). Meanwhile, nonmetro tax rates rose faster as local governments tried to
compensate for their diminished tax bases. As a result, tax on MAPA-enrolled land came to equal that on nonenrolled parcels, and tax credits paid by the program to enrolled farmers dropped from $650,582 in 1986 to $45,885 in 1990. With the incentive for program participation so diminished, and with 23 percent of enrolled lands due to reach the end of their eight-year term by the end of 1992, the Metropolitan Council had to redefine the program's enrollment criteria and benefits to encourage reenrollment and new participation. In 1991, the council proposed allowing a flat tax credit of three dollars per acre for program parcels, cutting the minimum parcel size from forty to twenty acres—and in some cases even to ten acres—and relaxing the soil quality standards for eligibility. These changes would provide a stable incentive for enrollment and would allow smaller-scale agricultural uses to take advantage of the program. Growth rates slowed on exurban land in the 1980s. Moreover, there are more than 100,000 acres of public open space within the one hour driving time zone. The Minnesota legislature created the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Board under the Metropolitan Council and gave it significant bonding power. Much of the open space acquisition under that program will be in the exurban zone. Furthermore, legislative and agency studies disclosed that most of the overcrowded state park facilities lie in the metropolitan zone of urbanization, so future state acquisition and protection programs likely will focus in that area as well.
A Tradition of Planning Confronts Today's Challenges Of primary concern to each municipality and to metropolitan government, from countryside township to cen-
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tral city, is the management of growth and change for orderly, coherent, and nondestructive development. The most important facet of this management is areawide coordination of its many tools, including staged growth techniques, capital improvements programming, zoning controls, subdivision regulations, and environmental protection legislation. The people of Minnesota and the metropolitan area had considerable regional consciousness well before the turn of the twentieth century. The 1880s saw the formation of a Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners. H. W. S. Cleveland was engaged by the board to prepare a comprehensive report. His proposals for both Minneapolis and St. Paul also carried recommendations for joint municipal action. By 1888, he had proposed his "combined plan" for the Twin Cities. In 1917, the plan for Minneapolis was published, prepared by Edward H. Bennett, who had previously collaborated with Daniel H. Burnham in writing the famous Chicago plan of 1907. In the 1920s, area citizens made a valiant effort to emulate the famous New York regional plan by establishing a Twin Cities Regional Planning Commission, the first version of which was created in 1927. The area to be planned was determined by choosing as a focal point the center span of the Marshall Avenue-Lake Street bridge and drawing a circle at a twenty-sevenmile radius from that point, a zone almost equal to the area now served by the Metropolitan Council. The Depression kept this first attempt from getting off the ground. In the years that followed, special districts became the legislature's approach to area problem solving. The two principal districts prior to 1950 were the Minneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District (MSSD) and the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC). During the 1920s, the Minnesota legislature was struggling with a serious sewage disposal problem
in the metropolitan area. The 1933 legislature set up the MSSD with authority to tax both cities to carry out the pollution-abatement recommendations of the Metropolitan Drainage Commission, established in 1928. The MSSD created the first pollution control facility anywhere on the Mississippi River. The new facility was designed to serve both Minneapolis and St. Paul but soon expanded services to all contiguous political units, twenty-one in all by 1959. But postwar suburban home building outpaced sewer extension, and by 1959 the recirculation of effluent from septic tanks and on-site wells had created a critical groundwater contamination problem in many communities. The Metropolitan Council When the Metropolitan Council was created by the 1967 legislature, one of the council's top priorities was to prepare a study recommending the creation of a metropolitan sewer board. The board was created in 1969 and subsequently named the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission (MWCC). By 1975, the MWCC had made dramatic improvement in the area's water pollution control system, both in water quality and in efficiency of operation. Prior to 1943, Minneapolis and St. Paul had been engaged in a destructive competition over airports. Planes hopping less than ten miles between Wold Chamberlain Field in the southeastern corner of Minneapolis and Holman Field near downtown St. Paul seemed ridiculous to outsiders and pathetic to frustrated airline operators. Wold Chamberlain Field had room to grow on the flat land south of Minneapolis. The law creating the Metropolitan Airports Commission in 1943 required that a study be made to formulate a plan for a new airport. An area of 3,000 acres was acquired, and $30 million was spent in developing the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the site of Wold Chamberlain Field.
The Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission (MFC) was authorized by the Regional Planning Act passed by the legislature in 1957. The adoption of the act received wide publicity in national planning circles. This was the first metropolitan planning agency in the country that had the status of a political subdivision with a tax levy to finance its operation. The role of the MPC was misunderstood from the start by many in local government. They thought they needed to worry no further about local planning—that the MPC was created to do that. So, instead of increased initiative for local planning, there was a perceptible slowdown. At that time there were some 365 units of local government in the metropolitan area. The MPC was to work directly with local governments, advising them and coordinating their planning activities. Metropolitan Land Use Planning Act of 1976 In
1976, the Minnesota legislature enacted the Metropolitan Land Use Planning Act, requiring municipal governments to devise growth management strategies within their comprehensive plans that would be compatible with Metropolitan Council plans. Improved information sharing between the council and local governments was an important feature of the act. The 1976 act was modeled after the growth management plan adopted in the 1960s by the northwest suburb of Brooklyn Park, which restricts development to those areas of the city already served by sewer lines. In the 1990s, hope persists that the 1976 act will remain a crucial step toward having well-managed cities, in which growth and change are coordinated with metropolitan plans. Ever since the Metropolitan Council was created by the legislature as an arm of state government, there has been a spirited public debate about whether council
members should be elected or appointed, in order to create the most able and productive body. The central question has been whether the council should be moving toward greater autonomy, with a greater capacity to allocate resources among different categories of infrastructure (e.g., parks, roads, sewers, airports) within the region, or should be more tightly linked with state operating agencies. Currently, council members, including the council chair, are appointed by the governor.
Judgment Day Approaches Reviewing the landscapes that have emerged in the Twin Cities suburbs and beyond since 1945, one can recite the full litany of sins of American suburbia and exurbia. The region is fragmented into scores of autonomous local governments. Its ragged frontier of urbanization, low density, and commuters living sixty or more miles out from the central cities are proof of urban sprawl. Many, if not all, of the suburban communities have an imbalance between residential and nonresidential development. Some are almost entirely residential, others heavily commercial or industrial. Hence there are unbalanced community tax bases. Some have large nonresidential valuations to help the residents pay for municipal services; in others the residents have had to go it alone. The streetcar system was dismantled, and for a time the bus system was neglected. There was neglect of public open space acquisition for many years. Despite Metropolitan Council rules that insist on a "fair share" of low- and moderate-income housing for each suburb, the demand far exceeds supply in most areas outside the central cities. Racial segregation produced minority ghettoes and virtually all-white neighborhoods. In the 1980s, it appeared that we were leaving the era that spawned suburbia and exurbia and entering a
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new one. The population explosion and the affluent society found themselves awash in heavy seas of unprecedented contraception and economic uncertainty. The nation evolved a new perspective on energy consumption in particular and resource consumption in general. That too affected housing costs, styles, and locations. As Twin Citians approach the day of atonement for this age in the life of their metropolis, how will their sins be judged by that Great Urban Model in the Sky? Increasing Need for Metropolitan Management
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The post-World War II growth ring of the Twin Cities was built in four decades to accommodate more than a million people. At a minimum, that was a large accomplishment. At the beginning of the epoch a large and fast-growing population, with a legacy of circumstances from the war and the Depression years, faced a pressing task and finite resources. In retrospect, we now see that there were priorities and an unplanned but rational order of procedure. The community addressed the necessary tasks in the following chronological order: (1) housing and elementary schools; (2) streets, sewers, and highways; (3) commercial and industrial buildings; (4) hospitals, high schools, and churches; and finally, (5) junior colleges and vocational schools, government and business offices, and public open space acquisition and improvement. There were priorities within each of those broad tasks. For example, single-family homes dominated production overwhelmingly during the years when demand arose from young households and high birth rates. Then apartment construction escalated when demand shifted heavily toward retirement households and young households with low birth rates. Although the tasks were initiated in chronological order, the effort devoted to each of them continued once it was begun. Neverthe-
less, peak years of activity on each task tended to follow soon after its initiation. Suppose a suitable comprehensive model of urban development and operation had existed in 1945. Suppose further that all of the necessary data had been available and had been collected, organized, and synthesized. And suppose that the consequences of alternative strategies of investment and regulation had been considered and voted upon. In retrospect, it is quite plausible that the general priorities and procedures might have been similar to those that actually occurred. One wonders if more balance between one-family and multiple-unit structures would have been acceptable to people who desperately wanted new housing in the late 1940s and 1950s. If the model indicated that more "balance" between housing construction, municipal capital improvements, and nonresidential building would have slowed rectification of the housing shortage and raised prices, would the majority of households have voted for more "balance"? Would abstinence from the automobile, and accompanying pre-Depression residential densities, have been acceptable to a middle-income majority in need of housing, given the available data and theory on energy pricing and supplies in 1946 (or a quarter century later or half century later)? In short, individual priorities were clear and easy to justify. They aggregated into collective priorities through the discipline imposed by the market for labor, materials, land, and money, all in a crude but recognizable way. Meanwhile, the community gradually increased the management of this expansion as experience accumulated. Examples are abundant: metropolitan-wide coordination of zoning, hospital planning, and solid waste management; metropolitan financing and operation of airports, sewers, and transit; metropolitan-wide financing of regional parks; metropolitan-wide organizations of county officials, open housing advocacy
groups, school officials, and many others. Zoning without establishing special or consolidated districts, became increasingly influenced by the timing and locaseparate from the general units of local governtion of public capital improvement programs. Performent—the counties and municipalities? And what mance requirements are increasingly used in connecthen is the appropriate function of the counties and tion with zoning to improve the aesthetics in the municipalities? landscape. 2. Proponents of growth control argue that sprawl is The reasons for this increasing management are bad because extra costs are borne not by the fundamental. The metropolitan area and its component sprawlers but by people who live in higher-density communities monitored the changing postwar settleareas closer to the central cities. Commonly used ment. They did it rather poorly, but with gradually illustrations are the costs of road improvements and growing sophistication. The job was done by a loose conmaintenance, school busing, or sewer lines. The sortium of public agencies, private utilities, scholars questions are: Who actually is subsidized now? By and teachers, and citizens' organizations. As those whom? Where? How much? Until those questions are groups monitored growth and publicized their findings, answered it is frustrating to try to establish equity. the general understanding of both the evolving metropOnce the actual situation is well described, it will be olis and its evolving problems grew. much simpler for public officials and their conThe Twin Cities and Minnesota attracted national stituents to respond to the ultimate questions: Which attention for their approaches to problems of metropoliparts of the system should be subsidized? Where? By tan development. It may well be that the significant whom? Why? accomplishment was not so much anticipating future problems and preparing for them in advance as quickly 3. It was observed earlier that evolving policies tend to grasping current problems and responding to them as favor the high-density approach to the housing-cost an intelligent community. squeeze and to discourage the cheap land approach. Yet important cost-cutting housing innovations, actuNagging Questions Some questions have been espeal or potential, have been permitted on the low-densicially stubborn. They were on the public agenda at the ty frontier or beyond, while they have been discourbeginning of the postwar epoch, they are still unreaged or prohibited in the developed and solved, and they are likely to persist. institutionalized suburbs and central cities. Notable cases are factory-assembled, precut, and owner-built 1. Advocates of local government organization argue houses. As sophisticated innovations arise in conthat the multiplicity of local governments in the metstruction, sanitation, or space heating there will be ropolitan region is irrational and costly. In what more need than ever for people and places willing ways is this true? Does each different service providand able to do the testing. What zone will perform ed by local government have its own unique optimal the essential experimental and safety-valve functions service area (threshold and range), unrelated to the of the relatively unregulated frontier under condivagaries of municipal and county boundaries? If this tions of controlled growth? is the case, can those services ever be rationalized
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4. Multiple agencies of government evolved out of the experience of four decades of fast growth. They have responsibility for regulation in the fields of natural resources or environment, health, education, human relations, welfare, and transportation. Their powers are defined by countless pieces of legislation. Yet, their responsibilities within the metropolitan region are interrelated in thousands of ways. For almost any problem that arises, there are existing agencies and powers that can move toward its solution, but such action is almost certain to require coordinated use of multiple powers by multiple agencies. That situation will occur no matter how the agencies are realigned or redefined, because each problem tends to be both complex and unique. The question is: How are these many agencies and laws going to be effectively coordinated? 5. Finally, if a new epoch indeed is now upon us, what will be the distinctive and important characteristics of that epoch? What will be the major problems and solutions of metropolitan operations? Which of today's problems in the post-World War II growth rings—whether they are solved or not—will quietly be replaced by new problems of greater urgency in the new epoch?
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How, then, will the Twin Citians' postwar development effort be judged? Perhaps it will be on how we met the demand to monitor, change, carry on informed discussion, develop understanding, and discipline our response to the problems and issues we perceived. Perhaps Twin Citians in the new epoch will be judged according to our effort to further improve those activities, and on our ability to respond to tomorrow's prob-
lems more quickly and effectively than we did to yesterday's, even as those problems become more complex. Airports Deregulation in 1978 triggered a major restructuring of the U.S. airline industry, and the Twin Cities felt its impact. The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, just twenty minutes southeast of downtown Minneapolis, was handling 60 to 65 percent of its capacity in flights and passengers at the end of the 1980s. At then-current rates of growth, national air traffic would double by the year 2000 and overload the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport within twenty years. Its annual passenger load increased by 48 percent to 11 million in the dozen or so years after deregulation, with a projected increase of 13.2 million by 1998. The debate about air traffic in the metro area centers on three key issues: noise, congestion, and location. The location of the Twin Cities airport has meant that adjacent neighborhoods in Richfield, Bloomington, and south Minneapolis are subjected to extreme levels of airplane noise. In the mid-1980s, the Metropolitan Airports Commission persuaded airlines serving Minneapolis and St. Paul to reroute traffic from these builtup areas to the south and east over open spaces in Eagan and Mendota Heights. In the decade since the strategy was adopted, however, those far-flung suburbs have filled in at phenomenal rates, and the residential communities that sprang up on former farm fields experience the noise problem anew. The multitiered airport governance structure has complicated efforts to solve the problem. The Metropolitan Council has oversight for planning, performance, needs assessment, and site selection for Twin Cities airports. The MAC owns and operates all airports and has direct responsibility for noise management. The Minnesota Department of Transportation, the Pollution Control Agency, and the state legislature all have less direct involvement. All of
these bodies, plus the Citizens League, studied the options for meeting future demand and reducing noise: 1. The current airport could be expanded to meet growing demand, but that would bring even more noise to the area. The Metropolitan Council suggested guidelines for further development in the affected suburbs, so that only commercial and industrial land uses would lie directly under flight paths. 2. The airport could limit the amount of new traffic it accepts, but that would mean forgoing expansion and jobs in related industries. Alternatively, changes in aircraft technology or a modification of the hub-andspoke method of airline operation could reroute many flights to smaller airports elsewhere in the country. 3. A new airport could be built, but inevitably it would be much farther from the city centers, thus creating enormous new capital and operating expenses and relocating air passenger traffic away from the business and entertainment investments located near the current airport to serve that traffic. The Citizens League recommended that the MAC purchase a land site now, just in case a new airport is needed later. The projections for air traffic growth usually assume no surprises, either in the overall economy or in the airline industry, and they assume above-average growth for the Twin Cities. These assumptions were based on keeping Northwest Airlines, which handles 80 to 85 percent of the Minneapolis-St. Paul traffic, in the Twin Cities, and on increasing the growth of midwestern feeder lines into Minneapolis-St. Paul. These feeder lines might account for 45 percent of Twin Cities air traffic by the year 2008. Failing any of these condi-
tions, the expected growth of the current airport may be deferred. In 1989, the Minnesota legislature mandated that the MAC increase capacity and investments at the existing airport to meet growing demand, and that the Metropolitan Council identify a search area for a new airport by 1992, in case one is needed. The council was empowered by 1990 legislation to protect candidate search areas from incompatible development and land speculation until the final location decision is made.6 Waste Management Minnesota's reputation for a clean environment has not exempted it from dealing with the by-products of an active economy—the tons of household and industrial waste generated each day. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) power to bill polluters even years after they have polluted has led many real estate developers and bankers to require preclosing environmental assessments, to certify the condition of a site before sale. In 1980, in response to the federal Superfund law, the state legislature passed the Minnesota Solid Waste Management Act, mandating a regional waste management program that would eliminate most of the need for landfill disposal of metro waste by 2000, and creating the Minnesota Waste Management Board, which is charged with finding the state's first hazardous waste disposal site. Disposal of the most hazardous wastes, which cannot safely be burned or put into regular landfills, was a job no place wanted. The board initially searched for a site underlain by stable and impermeable crystalline rock or dense clay, where toxic waste could simply be stored untreated. By 1984, however, difficulties in finding a community willing to accept a toxic waste storage site led to a legislative mandate to the board to find a safer and more acceptable disposal method, and to identify a volunteer community for its site. Eventually the
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search for a site was abandoned, and the state will continue to send its hazardous waste out of state at least through 1993, when the process will be reviewed. The debate over waste-to-energy incinerators has been nearly as hot as that about toxic wastes, and for the same reasons. The Metropolitan Council encountered great difficulty in its effort to create a concrete plan for dealing with the large quantities of toxic fly ash that remain after some substances are burned, and which contain heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Many Twin Citians are concerned about levels of dioxins and furans that are atmospheric by-products of mass burning, although the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) believed that the quantities emitted at the end of the 1980s remained far below hazardous levels. While the debate raged, construction of an $81 million incinerator on the north edge of the Minneapolis central business district proceeded and a $100 million facility was proposed for Pine Bend. These large facilities—fourteen either exist or were planned in the state by the end of the 1980s—generate steam or electricity as a by-product of incineration, which then is sold. The Minneapolis facility, the state's largest, was something of a shock to some downtown business owners, who were looking the other way while the decision to build was being reached. Little public interest was expressed before the fact, but during construction and after operation began citizens groups raised serious concerns about the plant's safety. The burner handles 1,000 tons of trash daily and generates steam that could besoldtoNSP. For disposal of all other solid waste, the use of landfills seemed a facile answer, especially when fees were relatively low. The state picked up the bill for the consequences, such as groundwater cleanup around landfill sites. Fees tripled between 1985 and 1990, how-
ever, reflecting the true costs of landfill use. Twin Cities communities tried steadily to phase out landfill use to comply with the 1980 waste management act by burning more waste and by stepping up recycling programs. Some argue for a landfill tax that would encourage haulers to have trash sorted for recyclables before it hits a landfill. The Metropolitan Council set a goal of recycling 35 percent of the area's waste by 1993, and 50 percent by 2000. By 1988, 6 percent had been achieved, with some materials like newspaper and cardboard being recycled in such great quantities that residential collection programs had to be suspended for a time. Meanwhile, cleaner, safer landfills, better hazardous waste management strategies, and more efficient collection of recyclables became immediate priorities. In the fiscal year ending June 1990, the metro region recycled approximately 23 percent of its garbage and processed into fuel and energy another 33 percent at refuse-derived fuel plants and incinerators. The remaining 44 percent of total garbage went to landfills.7 Water In addition to solid waste management, water quality control always has been a primary concern in the land of 10,000 lakes. The Metropolitan Waste Control Commission, an arm of the Metropolitan Council, drafted a 1981 sewage system plan to expand facilities and upgrade water quality, and that phase of system development was completed. Later plans called for increasing the system's cost-effectiveness by repairing or replacing any worn sections or plants, eliminating excess flows from storm sewer overflows, and upgrading the quality of treated water even further. Along the parts of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers that flow through the Twin Cities, sewage effluent accounts for only 13 percent of water pollution, with the greatest proportion (81 percent) coming from nonpoint sources.
Minnesota's groundwater is a cherished resource. The state's Superfund balance stood at nearly $10 million at the end of the 1980s and was being applied to aggressive cleanup, monitoring, and elimination of any potential sources of groundwater pollution from landfills or toxic waste sites. The metropolitan area's lakes are among its most prized assets, but in the late 1980s a serious threat to them appeared in the form of Eurasian water milfoil, a prolific weed that can grow two inches per day—the kudzu of Minnesota's lakes. Milfoil lies in the top two feet of lakewater, shading other vegetation and thus threatening fish and plant life below. The DNR has waged a public education campaign to stop the spread of the weed, and uses harvesting and chemical herbicides to control it, but the weed continues to spread from lake to lake as fragments adhere to boats and motors and are transplanted. Pressure from overuse on metro area lakes eventually will necessitate use controls, perhaps a permit system. Maintaining and improving the quality of the Twin Cities surface- and groundwater is a tough job because there are so many sources of stress and degradation to the water resources system. The state, counties, and municipalities are working closely together to control all types of water pollution and to preserve the recreational value of our lakes by managing their use. Transportation One notable lapse in comprehensive planning for the metro area developed during the 1970s and 1980s, as increasing freeway congestion and projections of significant growth raised the question of how to expand the capacity of the area's transportation system. After the last streetcar disappeared in 1954, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company expanded its bus system into the new suburbs. Major highways were built and the interstate freeway system was begun in the 1950s.
When the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) appeared in 1966, it began laying plans for an eventual light rail system. The Metropolitan Council turned new attention toward transit in 1972 with a report advocating improving bus service with designated freeway rights-of-way. Legislation in 1975 to expand the bus system still further was the last instance of full support for buses as the primary transit form for the metro area. Increasing auto use and declining central city populations contributed to decreasing ridership (table 11). In 1979, the MTC withdrew from the transportation planning debate to turn its full attention toward improving the economic efficiency of the bus system, but not in time to fend off legislation in 1981 that allowed suburban municipalities to opt out of the special metro transit taxing district and apply the savings to developing their own bus services. In the absence of clear guidance from the Metropolitan Council for bus rights-ofway, the Twin Cities lacked a comprehensive workable plan for meeting its rapidly expanding transportation demands. There even was a brief debate over a Minnesota Tollway Authority proposal to build a super tollTABLE 11
Highway and transit use in the Twin Cities sevencounty metropolitan area, 197O, 1986, and projections for 2OOO 1970 Daily trips per person
1986
2000
2.7
3.4
3.6
Daily number of auto drivers
3,350,000
5,300,000
6,100,000
Daily number of auto passengers
1,600,000
1,400,000
1,800,000
Daily number of transit riders Daily vehicle miles Miles of congested highways Annual per-person miles of travel Average work-trip miles Average daily vehicle occupancy
162,000
230,000
275,000
24,000,000
38,000,000
48,000,000
45 miles
132 miles
206 miles
7,700
9,200
10,500
6.6 miles
8.1 miles
9.7 miles
1.5 persons
1 .3 persons
1 .3 persons
SOURCE: Leigh Homstad, "Something Big Is Building in the Twin Cities Area—Traffic Congestion," Metro Monitor, March 1988, p. 4.
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way encircling the Twin Cities outside the interstate highway ring. The idea failed to gain support because it was predicted that a tollway would just encourage sprawl and further congestion, and that it would cost more than user fees would pay. The highway system's congestion will worsen unless effective steps are taken to address it. For example, between 1972 and 1984 the number of miles of local freeway with severe traffic congestion tripled—from 24 miles to 72 miles. The highest concentrations of demand on the highway system are made by workers who travel daily to and from their places of employment. As a result, the system's capacity for carrying people from one place to another is largely defined by its ability to handle work trips during peak traffic periods in the morning and afternoon. If nothing is done to improve the people-moving capacity of the system, the number of miles experiencing severe congestion will triple again between 1990 and 2010, to 200 miles. At the same time, many regional highways are reaching the end of their design life, so that by the year 2010 most of the metropolitan highway system will require major rebuilding. The region cannot build its way out of congestion because demand grows much faster than the amount of available funds.
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Light Rail Transit Debate The slack in leadership on regional transit policy quickly was taken up by a persistent contingent of light rail advocates, whose relentless promotional campaigns are designed to appeal more to Chamber of Commerce boosters than to comprehensive metro planners. They steered public attention away from cost-benefit analyses and toward the cosmopolitan go-go image that supposedly accrues to cities with light rail transit (LRT) systems, extolling the comfort and convenience of bypassing congested freeway traffic at rush hour, and indicting the self-indul-
gence of commuting alone in a private auto. Perhaps the most clever element in the LRT strategy was the decision of the Hennepin County Board to proceed independently with planning and land acquisition, in hopes that other supracounty agencies would join in, in the interests of regional coordination. The county used an old law that had been written to enable counties to form their own regional rail authorities to deal with abandoned rural railroad land within their jurisdictions. Hennepin County's Regional Rail Authority appeared in 1981 and immediately began to raise funds, purchase land, and commission route studies. The lobbying effort worked. The discussion of LRT had been ongoing since the early 1970s, but Hennepin County's threat to go it alone stirred other agencies to action and escalated debate to the front pages. Not to be left behind, Ramsey County leaped into the fray to study a possible LRT corridor along University Avenue that would connect downtown St. Paul with the University of Minnesota and downtown Minneapolis. The 1987 legislature rescinded the state ban on rail development, and the Metropolitan Council incorporated LRT as one element in its comprehensive transit plan. The Regional Transit Board (RTB) moved LRT to the top of its agenda. In 1989 legislation, the RTB was given the right to approve or reject light rail plans of county rail authorities. Multiple studies were carried out to identify feasible LRT routes. Hennepin County already held a rightof-way strip along Hiawatha Avenue from downtown to the airport, and another from downtown southwest through St. Louis Park, Minnetonka, and out into Carver County. Addition of a line running along the right-ofway was considered for later development. The best arguments for LRT development in the Twin Cities have consistently gone unsupported by survey and other data. Success of LRT here will depend
upon coaxing people out of their cars and onto the train. As the baby boom generation has come into its prime years of career and family life cycle, two-job and two-car households have increased to more than 50 percent of all metro area households. Twin Cities population grew by 13 percent between 1970 and 1986, but the workingage population (18 to 65 years) grew by 34 percent. Moreover, most of the expansion of people and jobs over the past two decades has been in the suburbs, where nonauto transit options are limited and where LRT systems as proposed would be of negligible usefulness. By 1982, 70 percent of all daily trips in the metro area were suburb-to-suburb. A 50 percent increase in CBD jobs and a 30 percent increase in residents are forecast by 2000, making downtown-to-suburb access crucial. The leading LRT advocates, including the companies peddling LRT hardware and rolling stock, are strong supporters of downtown vitality, and the system of routes they propose is a series of radials running in and out of downtown Minneapolis to the southeast, southwest, northeast, and to the university, the very routes that have been served cost-effectively by buses since 1954. Expansion of freeway capacity by adding lanes was ruled out on cost and political considerations. Interstate 394 cost $40 million per mile to construct. Estimates for LRT, while somewhat less to build, require major subsidies to operate. Much has been made of the estimated construction costs, but little talk is heard about needed operating subsidies which easily reach several dollars per ride. More important to some, widening the freeways would mean razing more houses for the right-of-way, further disrupting neighborhoods that already experienced major upheavals when the system was first built. Skeptics of the value of LRT argue that mass ridership is not assured and is in fact doubtful to draw from the suburbs it will serve, thus doing little to
relieve freeway congestion. The hope of commercial development along the rail lines, they add, is by no means assured since that depends more on adjacent residential densities and associated disposable income than on the proximity of a transit line. Moreover, more commercial development could be undesirable along high-density central-city and first-ring suburban corridors. One reason for the growing public acceptance of the proposed LRT system over other options is that the other options appear utterly unglamorous. Since discussion began, both the Citizens League and the Metropolitan Council have based their policy positions on certain generally agreed-upon propositions: 1. There is neither space nor money nor citizen support for widening existing freeways, and to do so only would encourage more low-occupancy vehicles in the system. 2. Freeway congestion is essentially a diurnal rushhour problem; at other times the system flows smoothly, and therefore rush-hour traffic and not overall system capacity should be targeted for relief. 3. The metro bus system is cost-effective, currently serves all communities, and provides the fastest home-to-work bus trip in the country, but it needs more riders to support better service. 4. Commuters will not easily be coaxed out of their cars and onto mass transit, regardless of congestion levels. 5. Geographical patterning of development and jobs (and therefore increases in trip origins and destinations) in no way matches any proposed fixed-guideway system, and particularly not one radiating in a
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few spokes westward from the central business districts.8
206
As public debates and numerous studies have put all aspects of the transit debate into better focus, both bodies have reached similar conclusions about how to address the issue. The Metropolitan Council's revised regional transportation plan through 2010 reemphasizes the long-recognized need to dissuade low-occupancy rush-hour auto traffic by making ride sharing faster and cheaper than driving alone. Carpool, vanpool, and bus ridership will be encouraged by installing traffic meters on more ramps on the most-used freeways, by adding bypass ramps for high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs), and by designating HOV-only lanes on some routes. The council will look to the private sector to offer ride-sharing coordination and staggered working hours to distribute commuter traffic away from the rush hours. Government agencies will be called on as well to offer incentives such as free parking for car and vanpools, as some already do. The council suggested that it may be time to rein in development to match the capacity growth rate of the regional transportation system. Highway project funding proposals will be given priority based on the extent to which they advance the plan's goals. The Metropolitan Council reasserted its coordinating authority over regional LRT development by including it as an element in the revised plan, thereby maintaining review and veto power over regional rail authority projects. Like the Citizens League, the council advocated a slow and cautious approach to LRT. LRT boosters offer a pleasant escape from the unpleasant prospect of self-sacrifice by conjuring up images of East Coast executives commuting into Manhattan from Long Island or Westchester County, and trigger the same big-town/small-city identity confusion
in Twin Citians that produced an overbuilt riverfront and high vacancy rates in huge new downtown office towers. The Twin Cities' (or at least some of its developers' and officials') urgent desire to enhance its cosmopolitan image is good evidence that, at least in terms of self-assurance, it has not quite yet joined the big leagues. Poverty and Gambling Despite the Twin Cities' general prosperity, stark contrasts exist between its best-off and worst-off citizens. Unemployment, inflation, and federal cutbacks in assistance to low-income families have produced dramatic rises in the number of people looking to the community for help. In 1981 and 1982, 80,000 Minnesota households had their federal food stamp benefits reduced, and 3,000 families were cut from the program altogether. AFDC recipients dropped from 55,000 to 45,000 during the same period. In the Twin Cities area about half of all low-income households live in the central cities, which combined have just under a third of the metro area population. In 1980, that meant that one in seven people in Minneapolis and one in nine people in St. Paul were poor. The major concentrations of low-income households in Minneapolis lie in a corridor stretching directly south from downtown to Lake Street, and on the Near North Side where the city's largest public housing complex is located. In St. Paul the poor are more dispersed. Low-income housing is an increasingly difficult problem, as 20,000 housing units in the metro area approach the date when they will lose their subsidized status. The 1980s saw subtle but perceptible changes in the nature of poverty in the metro area. A more persistent kind of poverty was noted, with an increase in lifelong and intergenerational public assistance families. Out-of-wedlock births were on the rise, as was the infant mortality rate. The percentage of minorities and
female-headed households among the poor increased. Minnesota has one of the lowest rates of school-aged children living in poverty, although its proportion of school-aged residents in the total population ranks twentieth in the nation. The most influential advocate group for the poor in the Twin Cities may be the Urban Coalition, which since 1968 has been policymaker and lobbyist for housing improvements and rehabilitation, employment training, and education. The Urban League focuses more directly on the concerns of the African-American community, and the Minnesota Human Rights Department is charged with enforcing human rights legislation in the state. These organizations and others bear an overwhelming burden as federal support for poverty programs dwindles and as local monies become increasingly dedicated to drawing consumer income back into the central cities, through downtown retail and housing developments, and through tax breaks to lure corporations back to central locations. A good share of the work of advocates is inevitably political, as they attempt to keep the needs of the poor on an equal footing with economic development on the public agenda, so that the affluent downtowns and the poor around their fringes do not become even more polarized. Community aid networks of other kinds sprang up quickly in the early 1980s, especially to provide food and shelter to the needy. Most started as emergency stopgap measures but continued to operate. The Loaves and Fishes program serves a free dinner five nights a week to 1,600 people from neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul, at sites in both downtowns, the Near North side and south side of Minneapolis, and St. Paul's Frogtown. Church groups and employee associations of local companies cook and serve food that they buy and donate or that is donated by area food stores and distributors.
The problem of hunger seems especially poignant in Minnesota, where about one-third of the state's economic base is related to agriculture. The several multinational food corporations headquartered in the Twin Cities pitch in to provide food, dollars, and distribution support to local food banks, and Minnesota farmers donate much of their surplus production, plus some extra production from land bank acreages, to alleviate hunger. The social distance between these urban poor and the most affluent central city in the state is matched by geographic distance. Cities like Bloomington prosper as the truly poor are left behind in the older central cities, just as eventually the farther suburbs of Plymouth and Eden Prairie will overshadow Bloomington as it declines. Populations age and move up and out in income, job status, family life course, and housing tenure. Bloomington now is the third-largest central city in the state and still growing, the first Minnesota suburb to have been designated a central city by the Census Bureau. More than 72,000 people moved there or were born there during the postwar boom era, 10,000 during the 1970s alone. Now the city boasts the highest home-ownership rate and full-time employment rate of the state's seven central cities, and the lowest percentage of poor people. As discussed earlier, the Fiscal Disparities Act has kept the tax revenue gaps between communities from being any larger than they are, but no one should labor under the illusion that there are no gaps. Even so, 1980 to 1990 population growth rates already reflect this city-to-suburb succession process, with Bloomington, Plymouth, and Eden Prairie scoring 6 percent, 61 percent, and 142 percent growth, respectively. Furthermore, the Loaves and Fishes program opened its sixth site in 1992, in Bloomington. In 1989, the state legislature established a staterun lottery, expected to net about $100 million in tax
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FIGURE 79. Casino gambling on Native American land. PHOTO BY J. S. ADAMS.
Ew3
revenues for the state annually. The decision to allow gambling into the state is seen by some as an ill-advised capitulation to short-term political pressures from those who stand to profit, and as a failure of leadership to consider the best long-term interests of the community (fig. 79). As the tax dollars pour in, however, it is not likely that any legislature voluntarily will shut off this flow, especially as economic hard times overtake the nation. Crime The Twin Cities historically have been spared the troubles of many larger metro areas, where crime
has overtaken much of the central cities. During the 1980s, however, the nature of crime in the metro area took on a much more "big city" character. Street gangs arrived from California and Chicago, increasing drug trafficking and its accompanying troubles. In addition, worsening poverty in certain pockets of the city made life in these areas more dangerous. City governments are insufficiently funded to address these problems fully, nor does the community seem to have an answer to the growing dilemma. The Twin Cities still have lower rates of crime than many other comparable metro
areas, but some say that it is only a matter of time until we match them.
Managing Change and Creating Our Future Minnesota's tradition of progressive and activist government owes much to the state's civic-minded founders and to the radical activism of many of its Scandinavian farmers and workers through the Depression and New Deal years. To carry on that tradition through changing economic times will require some well-thought-out adjustments in the manner in which government provides for its citizens, and in the manner in which local citizens assume responsibility to care for themselves in an increasingly complicated world. As the rate of per-capita income growth levels off and federal funding constraints intensify, the state undoubtedly will be forced to transfer some of its public service delivery into private hands or public-private partnerships, and to rethink other spending issues as well. Minnesotans traditionally have been reluctant to compromise on providing education, shelter, good roads, welfare, medical care, and responsible government to all citizens, even if that means paying higher taxes. The 3,532 government bodies—the state, 87 counties, 855 cities, 1,801 townships, 433 school districts, and 358 special districts—spend $3,049 per resident each year, making Minnesota the fourth-biggest public spender in the nation; 40 percent of that amount goes for public employee wages. As the state's dependent population grows, even more services will be required, for education, health care and nursing homes, day care, and housing. One-third of the state's spending currently goes to the children, elderly, and others in these programs, and public opinion is calling for even more social services spending.
Whenever the question of spending reform arises, the issue of governmental overlap is among the first responses. State residents will have to think hard in the coming years about the benefits of intergovernmental bodies and supralocal coordination provided by the Metropolitan Council and others. In the Twin Cities, the council created a Metropolitan Futures Task Force to help direct its efforts. With the recent emphases on economic development in the state and metro area, the council examined whether it should get more directly involved in development plans and revised its definition of "metropolitan significance"—the criterion upon which it may choose to review or veto a local proposal—to consider economic significance, based on whether a project will require a substantial public subsidy. In the 1990s, the Metropolitan Council's role in the metro area undoubtedly will be redefined. Despite a history of innovation and important successes, the council's power peaked in the 1970s and became more diffuse thereafter. Other agencies, boards, and commissions have been created to make important decisions, without council participation. By 1991, a serious debate was under way about how to reconstitute the council to better fulfill its vital long-range planning functions, in circumstances that sometimes are markedly different almost thirty years after its creation.9 By all accounts, Minnesota and the Twin Cities were in pretty good shape economically and socially at the start of the 1990s, and seemed likely to remain so for decades to come. Beyond that, if the state maintains its vigilance and the cities continue to cooperate, the plans for economic development that will serve future needs, and for investment in the state's human resources, should allow Minnesota to retain its position of national leadership, and the Twin Cities to remain eminently livable.
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Notes Preface 1. This book is a revision and expansion of material originally written by Ronald F. Abler, John S. Adams, and John R. Borchert in The Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1976).
1. The Character of the Place 1. Depending on the discussion, "Twin Cities" and "Twin Cities region" usually refer to the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul plus the surrounding counties, basically comprising the 1990 Metropolitan Statistical Area (Minnesota counties of Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Scott, Washington, and Wright, plus St. Croix County, Wisconsin). 2. Jacqui Banaszynski, "Minnesota's Image Hangs in Balance," St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 24 October 1987, pp. 1A, 8A. 3. William Rogers, "Fighting the Cold War," Minnesota, January/February 1986, p. 48. 4. George Monaghan, "Horoscope of a City: The Stars Tell on Minneapolis," Picture, Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 5 August 1984, p. 4. 5. "America's Top Cities," Newsweek, 6 February 1989, p. 42; John McCormick, "The Twin Cities Better Half," Newsweek, 6 February 1989, pp. 43-44. 6. James Thornton, "Miracle of Ice," Twin Cities, January 1986, p. 32. 7. Eric Black, "Outraged by Our Politicians? You Should Be Grateful," Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 15 April 1982, p. IB.
8. Wayne Nelson, "Seasons of Change: The Environmental Movement Hits Its Stride," Twin Cities Reader, 11 November 1983, p. 22. 9. "The State That Works," Time, 13 August 1973. 10. Curtis Lawrence, "As Prisons Go, Oak Park Gets Highest Marks," St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 2 October 1983, p. 2D.
2. The First Century and a Half 1. Dane Smith, "State/local Spending in Minnesota Ranks Fifth-highest in the Nation," Star Tribune, 25 January 1991, p. 1A. 2. U.S. Bureau of Mines, Department of the Interior, Mineral Industry Surveys: Mineral Industry in Minnesota (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1990). 3. D. J. Tice, "The Ties that Bind," Twin Cities, October 1987, pp. 61-65. 4. Mary Bader Papa, "Technology Transfer," Corporate Report Minnesota, October 1986, pp. 7284. 5. Dick Youngblood, "CPT Chief Says Reviving Firm Far More Difficult than Starting New One," Star Tribune, 30 October 1991, p. 2D. 6. John Freivalds, "Experts in Exports," Corporate Report Minnesota, October 1984, pp. 88-183. 7. Jeff Barge, "World Trade Center: All Over But the Shouting," Twin Cities Reader, 7 February 1984, p. 5. 8. Metropolitan Council, "A Ranking of Major Corporations in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, 1989," Metropolitan Council Publication
211
No. 620-90-034 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1990).
24. Tom Smith,"Re-ranking the Regionals," Corporate Report Minnesota, March 1992, pp. 48-57.
9. Steve Massey, "Grocers Face Change as Warehouses Eat Up Market," St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 12 September 1983, pp. 1C, 10C-11C.
25. Patrick Kennedy, "Minnesota's Largest Employers," Corporate Report Minnesota, November 1991, pp. 71-75.
10. Sara Saetre, "It Ain't What It Used to Be," Minnesota, November/December 1984, pp. 25-28.
26. Metropolitan Council, "A Ranking of Major Corporations."
11. Lee Egerstrom, "St. Paul Barges Ahead with Flurry of Exports," St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 3 October 1983, p. 3B.
27. "Metro Mobility: How Much Is Too Much?" Star Tribune, 1 July 1991, p. 18A; Special section, Minnesota's largest companies, Corporate Report Minnesota, January 1990, pp. 87-90; Metropolitan Council, "A Ranking of Major Corporations."
12. Robert P. Kearney, "Four Surprises," Corporate Report Minnesota, September 1984, p. 96. 13. "Minnesota's High-Tech Hierarchy," Corporate Report Minnesota, October 1983, p. 63. 14. Tom Smith, "The High-Tech 100," Corporate Report Minnesota, October 1991, pp. 45-56. 15. Ibid. 16. Mary Bader Papa, "Technology Transfer." 17. Robert P. Kearney, "Minnesota's Technology Corridor," Corporate Report Minnesota, March 1986, pp. 43-44. 18. Ibid. 19. Robert P. Kearney, "Biotech Blossoms," Corporate Report Minnesota, July 1986, pp. 43-48.
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20. Dale Jester, "Buhler-Miag: A Swiss Stake in Minnesota," Corporate Report Minnesota, September 1984, pp. 68-74; Robert P. Kearney, "A Pumped Up Graco," Corporate Report Minnesota, April 1986, pp. 45-50. 21. Metropolitan Council, "A Ranking of Major Corporations." 22. Tom Smith, "The Corporate Report 100," Corporate Report Minnesota, August 1991, pp. 38-49. 23. Tom Smith, "The Private 100," Corporate Report Minnesota, May 1992, pp. 54-59.
3. Inside the Central Cities: Land Use, People, and Neighborhoods 1. In 1983, the U.S. Bureau of the Census added Isanti County to the ten-county Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA, so that the 1990 census numbers reflect an eleven-county metro area. 2. Mel Piehl, "Catholics and Lutherans in America: A Comparative Perspective," The Cresset (Valparaiso University), March 1983, pp. 14-15. 3. Ibid., pp. 15-16. 4. Clark Morphew, "Minnesota's Christians Changing Ideas about Faith," St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 24 September 1983, p. 6B. 5. Warren Wolfe and Martha S. Allen, "Minnesotans Overwhelmingly Believe There Is a Watchful God," Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 30 August 1987, p. 1A. 6. Ibid., p. 4A. 7. Barbara J. VanDrasek, "Social Structure and Residence in Minneapolis, 1860-1940" (Master's thesis, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990) chapter 4.
8. Carey McWilliams, "Minneapolis: The Curious Twin," Common Ground, Autumn 1946, pp. 6165.
4. Judith Yates Borger, "More for the Mall," Corporate Report Minnesota, November 1989, pp. 2933.
9. Metropolitan Council, "Minority Enrollment Trends in Twin Cities Area Schools, School Year 1989-90," Social and Demographic Report, Metropolitan Council Publication No. 620-90-164 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, November 1990).
5. Marlin Gilhousen, "Selected Data from the 1987 Special Censuses," Metropolitan Council Publication No. 620-90-129 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1990).
10. Amy Ward, "A Short History of a Very Small Place," Minnesota, September/October 1985, p. 25.
6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1987 Census of Retail Trade, Geographic Area Series, Minnesota (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1987), pp. 24-34.
11. Lynn Closway, "White Bear Lake: A Sapphire Set with Emeralds," Twin Cities, July 1983, p. 57.
7. William J. Craig, "Shopping Downtown," CURA Reporter, Vol. 19, no. 2, April 1989, pp. 14.
12. Quoted in Scott Hagg, "A Rolling Tour of Our Lakes and Parks," Twin Cities Reader, 13 July 1983, p. 10. See Horace W. S. Cleveland, Suggestions for a System of Parks and Parkways for the City of Minneapolis (Minneapolis: n.p., 1883).
8. Norman Draper, "Mall May Bring 10,000 Jobs," Star Tribune, 24 November 1991, p. IB; Eric J. Wieffering, "Southdale vs. the Mall of America," Corporate Report Minnesota, March 1990, pp. 44-51; and Kurt Errickson, "Bloomington's Babylon," Twin Cities Reader, 1 August 1991, pp. 1, 8-11.
13. Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission, "Annual Use of the Regional Recreation Open Space System in 1988," Metropolitan Council Publication No. 580-88-11 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1988).
9. David Carr, "High on Franklin Avenue," Corporate Report Minnesota, November 1991, pp. 6469.
4. Postwar Suburban Growth and Consequences for the Central Cities
5. Recycling the Central Cities: Infrastructure Change at the Core
1. Janet L. Pershing, "Changes in the Subsidized Housing Market in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area," Metropolitan Council Publication No. 45090-061 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1990).
1. The name "Muse Ten" derives from the MCDA's creation of a tenth muse, one that "works in technology creation and finance development."
2. Metropolitan Council, "Condominiums in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area," Metropolitan Council Publication No. 19-83-095 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1983).
2. Carol Pine, "Downtown St. Paul: To Be or Not to Be?" Corporate Report Minnesota, 25 November 1984, p. 117.
3. Metropolitan Council, "1991 Builders Survey" (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1991).
3. Linda McCarthy, "Status and Spatial Implications of Historic Preservation in Minneapolis" (paper, University of Minnesota, 1992); Minnesota Historical Society and Minnesota State Plan-
213
ning Agency, Historic Preservation for Minnesota Communities (St. Paul, 1980). 4. Paul Goldberger, "Romantic Modernism Is Now at the Cutting Edge of Design," New York Times, 8 July 1984, pp. 23-24. 5. Barbara Flanagan, Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 29 February 1984, p. IB. 6. D. J. Tice, "A Theater in a Park on a River," Twin Cities, January 1985, pp. 29-36; Bette Hammel, "Ordway Revisited," Twin Cities, May 1986, pp. 72-76; Alan Rich, "Adventures in the Twin Cities," Newsweek, 28 January 1985, p. 75. 7. Sir Tyrone Guthrie, A New Theatre (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964), quoted in "The Guthrie Summer," the Guthrie Theater's Summer 1988 playbill. 8. William Swanson, "A Life on the Cutting Edge," Twin Cities, July 1985, p. 49. 9. Michael Booth, "The Latest from the Father of the HMO," Corporate Report Minnesota, October 1991, pp. 28-36. 10. Lyle V. Jones, Gardner Lindzey, and Porter E. Coggeshall, eds., An Assessment of ResearchDoctorate Programs in the United States (Washington, B.C.: National Academy Press, 1982.) 11. Steve Fox, "Canterbury Downer," Twin Cities, October 1987, pp. 50-57.
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12. "Restaurant, New Shops Are Planned as Sale of Bandana Square Is Set," Star Tribune, 18 December 1991, p. 6B. 13. Peter Leyden, "Downtown Devaluation Shifts Tax Burden," Star Tribune, 2 December 1991, p. 1A. 14. Jack Whitehurst and Fred Smith, "Neighborhoods and City Hall in St. Paul and Minneapolis," CURA Reporter, vol. 18, no. 3, June 1988, pp. 1-8; Curtis W. Johnson, "Seeking a Better Way to Run the City," Minnesota Journal, 6 September 1988, p. 2.
15. Peter Leyden, "Revitalization Aid Going Mainly to South Minneapolis," Star Tribune, 20 December 1991, p. IB; "For Revitalization Program to Succeed, Put Neighborhoods in the Driver's Seat," The Southwest Journal, August 1991; Mark Anderson, "NRP Diary—Kingfield, Kenny, and Fulton Among First NRP Grant Winners," The Southwest Journal, August 1991; Minneapolis Community Development Agency, "Building Blocks: A Report from the Minneapolis NRP," no. 3, October 1991; no. 4, November 1991; no. 5, December 1991; Stephen Ames, "Organizing People Is Key to Neighborhood Effort," Minnesota Journal, 12 February 1991, pp. 1, 7. 16. Minnesota Statutes 1978, Chapter 473F.01473F.13. 17. Jody A. Hauer, "Region's Shared Tax Base Grows Five Percent," Minnesota Journal, 21 January 1992, p. 2. 18. Ibid. 19. Robert Franklin, "Increases in Grants by State Foundations Slow after Boom Years," Star Tribune, 25 January 1992, p. 5B. 20. Greater Minneapolis Area Chamber of Commerce, "Building a Strong Future: Minnesota Keystone Program" (Minneapolis: Greater Minneapolis Area Chamber of Commerce, 1991). 21. Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility (Minneapolis: Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility, n.d.).
6. The Suburbs and Beyond: Living, Working, and Planning for the Future 1. Metropolitan Council, The Metropolitan Development and Investment Framework (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1988).
2. Metropolitan Council, "Revised Preliminary 1990-2000 Forecasts" (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, November 1991). 3. Ibid. 4. Regional Transit Board, Minnesota Transit Report: 1990 Annual Report (St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Transportation, Office of Transit, 1990). 5. Metropolitan Council, "Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves Status Report," Metropolitan Council Publication No. 640-91-120 (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1991); Metropolitan Council, 1989 Annual Report (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1989); Metropolitan Council, "Introduction to the MAPs Program" (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, n.d.). 6. Metropolitan Council, 1990 Annual Report to the Minnesota State Legislature (St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1990). 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Mike Kaszuba and Laurie Blake, "A Vision Clouded: Metropolitan Council's Future Uncertain as Its Influence Drops Sharply," Star Tribune, 14 April 1991, p. 1A.
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Sources Source materials for this book, including more than a thousand news items, interpretative essays, case studies, personal profiles, and photo essays, were assembled over the decade 1982 to 1992. The principal sources are the Chronicle of Higher Education; City Pages; CL News; Corporate Report Minnesota; CURA Reporter; Metro Monitor; Minnesota; Minnesota Daily; Minnesota Journal (Citizens League); Minnesota Monthly; Mpls. /St. Paul; St. Paul Pioneer Press; Minneapolis Star Tribune; Twin Cities; and Twin Cities Reader. Occasional use was made of materials from Encounters (Science Museum of Minnesota); Freeway News; Loring Community Crier; The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; and Neal Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom, The Book of America: Inside Fifty States Today, 1983, excerpts from chapter on Minnesota, reprinted in St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch, 10 July 1983. Quoted material is referenced in chapter notes.
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Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading "A Practical Guide to the Twin Cities." Fortune Magazine 13:4 (April 1936): 112ff. Abler, Ronald F., John S. Adams, and John R. Borchert. The Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1976. Abler, Ronald F., John S. Adams, and Ki-Suk Lee. A Comparative Atlas of America's Great Cities: Twenty Metropolitan Regions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. Adams, John S. "Housing Submarkets in an American Metropolis." In Our Changing Cities. John Fraser Hart, ed. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, pp. 108-26. Adams, John S. Housing America in the 1980s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1987. Adams, John S. "A Geographical Basis for Urban Public Policy." Professional Geographer 31:2 (1979): 135-45. Anderson, Gary Clayton. Little Crow: Spokesman for the Sioux. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1986. (A biography of Little Crow [1846-63] that provides fresh insights into the leader of the Mdewakanton Sioux [Dakota] tribe from 1851, which covers Dakota culture, especially its social systems, leadership, and religion, and the dynamics of interethnic relations that culminated in the Dakota War of 1862 in Minnesota, illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps.) Atwater, Isaac. History of Minneapolis. New York: Munsell, 1895. (Two impressive volumes, representing the first major comprehensive history of Minneapolis, unfold the principal events, with black-and-white sketches of notable people in the life of the city, from its earliest settlement until the end of the nineteenth century.) Baerwald, Thomas J. "The Emergence of a New Downtown." Geographical Review 68 (1978): 308-18. Baerwald, Thomas J. "The Twin Cities—a Metropolis of Multiple Identities." Focus 36:1 (Spring 1986): 10-15. Baerwald, Thomas J., and Karen L. Harrington, eds. Twin Cities Field Trip Guide. Washington, B.C.: Association of American Geographers, 1986. Bennett, Edward H., ed. Plan of Minneapolis. Minneapolis: The Civic Commission, 1917. Berman, James, ed. Saint Anthony Falls Rediscovered: The Architectural Heritage of Minneapolis's Saint Anthony Falls Historic District. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Riverfront Development Coordination Board, 1980. (A survey of the rich history and architecture of the birthplace of Minneapolis, designed to be used as a guide in field investigation and interpretation of the surviving mostly commercial historic buildings, with black-and-white photographs, including a foldout panorama of Saint Anthony and Minneapolis in 1857.) Blegen, Theodore C. Minnesota: A History of the State. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963. (A highly readable, authoritative account of Minnesota's history since prehistoric times, with black-and-white photographs and maps, written for the general reader by the late Theodore C. Blegen, distinguished historian, dean of the graduate school of the University of Minnesota, and for a number of years the superintendent of the Minnesota Historical Society.) Borchert, John R. America's Northern Heartland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. (Skillfully employing maps and black-and-white photographs, John R. Borchert, Regents' Pro-
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fessor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, masterfully unfolds the evolving geography of the Upper Midwest, its economic growth, population change, and people's adaptation to wider natural and human forces that produced the regional culture that today characterizes America's northern heartland.) Borchert, John R. "The Twin Cities Urbanized Area: Past, Present, Future." Geographical Review 51 (1961): 47-70. Borchert, John R., David Gebhard, David Lanegran, and Judith A. Martin. Legacy of Minneapolis: Preservation amid Change. Bloomington, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 1983. (Careful research produced text, black-and-white photographs, and maps that provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical development of the city of Minneapolis within contexts such as settlement, industry, commerce, architecture, and the contemporary issues facing historic preservation.) Borchert, John R., and Neil C. Gustafson. Atlas of Minnesota's Resources and Settlement. 3d ed. Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1980. Borchert, John R., and Donald P. Yaeger. Atlas of Minnesota Resources and Settlement. Minneapolis: Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, 1968. Brandl, John E., and Arthur Naftalin. The Twin Cities Regional Strategy. St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1980. Bromley, Edward A. Minneapolis Portrait of the Past. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 1973. (A photographic history of the early days in Minneapolis, with views illustrating the city's growth from earliest settlement to 1880.) Byrum, Oliver E. Old Problems in New Times: Urban Strategies for the 1990s. Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1991. Changes in the Subsidized Housing Market, 1980-89. St. Paul: Metropolitan Council, 1990. Clark, Clifford E., ed. Minnesota in a Century of Change: The State and Its People Since 1900. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1989. (Topical essays by fourteen scholars using black-andwhite photographs and maps provide a varied yet comprehensive view of the social, economic, political, and cultural history of Minnesota in the twentieth century.) Dashefsky, Arnold, and Howard M. Shapiro. Ethnic Identification among American Jews: Socialization and Social Structure. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1974. (Based on a study of the Jewish community in St. Paul, this book examines certain social and psychological issues related to Jewish identification and presents a picture of communal life, social patterns, and individual characteristics relevant to ethnic identification among contemporary American Jews, using tables and a map.) Daubenmire, Rexford F. "The 'Big Woods' of Minnesota: Its Structure and Relation to Climate, Fire, and Soils." Ecological Monographs 6 (1936): 233-68. Ervin, Jean Adams, Gemma Rossini Cullen, Robert Halladay, Heidi Schwabacher, and Robert N. Taylor. The Twin Cities Perceived: A Study in Words and Drawings. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. (Black-and-white sketches by Rossini Cullen, Halladay, Schwabacher, and Taylor ably complement Ervin's easy writing style to stimulate the reader to look at the variety and richness of the Twin Cities and its neighborhoods in a fresh light.) Fairbanks, Evelyn. The Days of Rondo. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990. (In her first book, illustrated with black-and-white family photographs, Fairbanks affectionately recounts a collection of stories about the people, events, and places of her youth and her genera-
tion during the 1930s and 1940s that comprised St. Paul's largest black neighborhood, at that time the lively Rondo district.) Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. The WPA Guide to Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985. (Originally published in 1938 and republished in 1985 with a new introduction by Frederick Manfred. Although now over fifty years out of date, this guide remains a practical and enjoyable survey of the people, resources, and traditions of the early years of the state. Vivid vignettes of Minneapolis and St. Paul are illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps.) Flanagan, Barbara. Minneapolis. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973. (Chatty, informal, perceptive, well-illustrated account of the evolution and personality of Minneapolis, with photographs old and new.) Frieden, Bernard J., and Lynne B. Sagalyn. Downtown Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. (Compares the redevelopment of downtown St. Paul with major downtown redevelopment projects elsewhere in the United States, including Boston, Pasadena, San Diego, and Baltimore.) Gebhard, David, and Tom Martinson. A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. (This comprehensive guide to Minnesota's architectural legacy encourages the reader to look at Minnesota's architecture by providing detailed information on significant examples of the state's architecture from the early decades of the nineteenth century onward, organized by geographical location. It includes black-and-white photographs, a discussion of 175 years of Minnesota history, and a glossary of architectural styles and building types.) Gordon, Albert I. Jews in Transition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949. (A perceptive study, with tables and maps, of the changes in the beliefs, practices, and institutions of immigrant Jews to Minneapolis as a result of their contact with other cultural and ethnic groups.) Hall, Stephen P. Fort Snelling: Colossus of the Wilderness. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987. (A colorful look—with reproductions of black-and-white and color photographs, maps, and nineteenth-century paintings—at this historic fort during the century and a half since it was originally built. It stands restored today as a reminder of the days when it represented a first tentative foothold in the colonization of this part of the Midwest. Open to the public, it is the focus of a living history program with costumed interpreters that re-create military and social life in the 1820s.) Harms, G. F., et al. Soil Landscapes and Geomorphic Regions: Twin Cities Metropolitan Area Sheet. Agricultural Experiment Station, Miscellaneous Report 130-1975. St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 1975. Hartshorne, Richard. "The Twin City District: A Unique Form of Urban Landscape." Geographical Review 22 (1932): 431-42. Heath, Richard. Minneapolis Growth and City Form. Minneapolis: City Planning Department, n.d. A copy is housed in the Minneapolis Municipal Information Library, Minneapolis City Hall. Hobbs, Elizabeth. Presettlement Vegetation of St. Paul, Minnesota. Paper presented at annual meeting, Association of American Geographers, Phoenix, Arizona, April 9, 1988. Holmquist, June Drenning, ed. They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1981. (Twenty-seven experienced historians and scholars wrote the individual sections on Minnesota's more than sixty ethnic groups that com-
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bine to become an impressive history of their immigration and subsequent social, economic, religious, and political experiences during the period 1850 to 1980, with black-and-white photographs, maps, and tables.) Jacob, Bernard, and Carol Morphew. Pocket Architecture. Minneapolis: Minnesota Society American Institute of Architects, 1987. (A revised edition of this handy pocket-sized walking guide to the architecture of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul with maps and black-and-white photographs of many of the buildings, first published in 1984.) Kane, Lucile M. The Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987. (Originally published in 1966 as The Waterfall that Built a City: The Falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis, this compelling story of the only major waterfall on the Mississippi River features the people and the technological innovations that harnessed the river's power and contributed to the development of the city of Minneapolis. The revised edition, with more than fifty black-and-white photographs, additionally describes commercial development along the waterfront since the 1960s.) Kane, Lucile M., and A. Ominsky. Twin Cities: A Pictorial History of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1983. (A pictorial history of the Twin Cities, with chapters organized chronologically, in which nearly 800 historic photographs captured by the art of the photographer and held in photographic collections in the area and in national repositories, often both stunning and instructive and sometimes humorous, display images of people, buildings, and places. These photographs reflect the development and dynamics of the Twin Cities as well as advances in American photographic technology, documented through blackand-white reproductions of paintings, drawings, maps, photographs, advertisements, and broadsides.) Kaufman, Sam H. The Skyway Cities. Minneapolis: CSPI, 1985. (As publisher of Skyway News, a free Twin Cities newspaper, at the time this book was published, Sam H. Kaufman was eminently qualified to tell the story of the development of the skyway system and its contribution to the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with the assistance of black-and-white photographs.) Kennon, Peggy Korsmo, and Robert B. Drake. Discover St. Paul: A Short History of Seven St. Paul Neighborhoods. St. Paul: Ramsey County Historical Society, 1979. (A short history with blackand-white photographs, sketches, and maps of seven St. Paul neighborhoods formed during the 1840s. A useful companion on a walking tour of a city that has always maintained a strong sense of community in its neighborhoods.) Kolderie, Ted. "Charlie Weaver: Good Politics, Good Government." Minnesota Journal 9:3 (17 March 1992): 2ff. (Explains how Charles Weaver, Sr., state representative from Anoka [1967-75], authored the metropolitan tax-base sharing law and provided the essential political insight that underlay the fiscal disparities law, namely, that the Twin Cities area could never achieve genuine regional planning with a system of purely local public finance.) Kunz, Virginia Brainard. Saint Paul: The First 150 Years. St. Paul: The St. Paul Foundation, 1991. (A history of St. Paul's first 150 years, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, that represents a vivid narrative of the experiences and contributions of its various cultural and ethnic groups to the city. Virginia Brainard Kunz, originally a writer for the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, later became executive director of the Ramsey County Historical Society.) Kunz, Virginia Brainard. The Mississippi and Saint Paul. St. Paul: Ramsey County Historical Society, 1987. (A short history, with black-and-white photographs, of the city of St. Paul during the
past 150 years and the importance of the Mississippi River to the life and growth of the city that was the practical head of navigation on the Upper Mississippi.) Kunz, Virginia Brainard. Saint Paul: A Modern Renaissance. Northridge, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1986. (The story of recent urban revitalization projects by a coalition of public agencies and the private sector that sought to bring about the city's renaissance in the wake of often devastating large-scale urban renewal schemes in the 1950s and 1960s and the flight of middle and upper socioeconomic groups to the suburbs. It contains profiles of businesses that are important in the city's economy today and is richly illustrated with reproductions of historic prints and color photographs.) Kunz, Virginia Brainard. St. Paul: Saga of an American City. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1977. (When published, this book was the first history of St. Paul in more than sixty years. With its black-and-white and color photographs, many from local historical societies and libraries, and often printed in sepia to add to the historical effect, this saga embraces the broad sweep of history from the American Indians who initially inhabited the area to the businesses that were important in St. Paul's commercial life in the late 1970s when this book was published.) Lanegran, David A. Urban Dynamics in Saint Paul: A Study of Neighborhood and Center City Interaction. St. Paul: Old Town Restorations, 1977. (A well-documented description and analysis of the character of, and interdependent economic links between, St. Paul's inner-city neighborhoods and the central business district. Focusing on the historic hill district, the book elaborates the relationships between people and capital, using socioeconomic statistics, maps, and blackand-white photographs.) Lanegran, David A., and Ernest R. Sandeen. The Lake District of Minneapolis: A History of the Calhoun-Isles Community. St. Paul: Living Historical Museum, Macalester College, 1977. (A highly readable history of how generations of human inhabitants augmented the natural environment to produce the Lake District of Minneapolis, known for its charm and elegance, with a tour guide of its distinctive neighborhoods, and black-and-white photographs and maps.) Liebling, Jerome, and Dan Morrison. The Face of Minneapolis. Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1966. (A perceptive interpretation of the city by University of Minnesota professor of film and photography Jerome Liebling and Minneapolis Tribune columnist Dan Morrison.) Lind, Alan R. Twin City Rapid Transit Pictorial. Park Forest, 111.: Transport History Press, 1984. (A well-produced illustrated history and geography of the Twin Cities' streetcar system.) Macintosh, Craig, and Ilga Eglitis. Minneapolis Cityscape: An Artist's View. Wayzata: Minn.: MACILO Publishing, 1986. (Following a foreword by Barbara Flanagan, black-and-white line drawings by Craig Macintosh, editorial cartoonist and illustrator for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, with accompanying text by Ilga Eglitis, writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, uniquely portray surviving and lost historic places and buildings to evoke the character of the city of Minneapolis. ) McWilliams, Gary. "Minneapolis: The Curious Twin." Common Ground 7:1 (Autumn 1946): 61-65. Marschner, Francis J. The Original Vegetation of Minnesota. Map. St. Paul: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station (redraft of the original 1930 edition), 1974.
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Martin, Judith A. Recycling the Central City: The Development of a New Town-In Town. Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1978. (The story of the CedarRiverside redevelopment project.) Martin, Judith A., and Antony Goddard. Past Choices I Present Landscapes: The Impact of Urban Renewal on the Twin Cities. Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1989. (This volume, well illustrated with black-and-white photographs and maps, places the Twin Cities' urban renewal efforts in a broad historical context in order to analyze the social and political processes that guided local renewal decisions, and to determine what spatial considerations were important in decisions that significantly affect the contemporary landscape.) Martin, Judith A., and David A. Lanegran. Where We Live: The Residential Districts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press in association with the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1983. (A discussion of the residential areas of the Twin Cities, divided into eight residential zones containing numerous smaller residential districts based on their character and age, captures the character of these neighborhoods using maps and black-and-white photographs.) Mason, Karen, and Carol Lacey. Women's History Tour of the Twin Cities. Minneapolis: Nordin Press, 1982. (A women's history that brings to life the experiences of various Twin Cities women, from anonymous individuals to prominent figures, through walking tours, maps, and black-andwhite photographs that focus on buildings that serve as physical reminders of the accomplishments of some of these women.) Millett, Larry. Lost Twin Cities. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992. (A photohistory of the Twin Cities, focusing on the buildings and spaces that have been lost from the urban landscape over time, illustrated with 350 black-and-white photographs.) Oredson, Vincent. "Planning a City: Minneapolis, 1907-17." Minnesota History 33:8 (Winter 1953): 331-39. Payne, C. Marshall. "Bedrock Geologic Map of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Vicinity." Minnesota Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Map Series Map M-l. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965. Plaut, W. Gunther. The Jews in Minnesota: The First Seventy-five Years. New York: American Jewish Historical Society, 1959. (A perceptive history of Jewish life in Minnesota, in particular in the three major Jewish communities of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth, from the early pioneers to the establishment of institutional life and the creation of individual fortunes by the end of the First World War.) Richter, Bonnie, ed. Architecture Minnesota. 7: 2 (1981). (With articles by Bernard Jacob, Mathews Hollinshead, Thomas H. Hodne, David A. Lanegran, Kate Johnson, Judith Martin, Bonnie Richter, Ed Frenette, and Michael K. Garitty, authors pre-eminent in their fields, this special edition of Architecture Minnesota is designed as an invitation to experience the present urban form and architecture of the Twin Cities in order to more fully understand the forces that influence them and the heritage that they represent.) Richter, Bonnie, ed. Saint Paul Omnibus: Images of the Changing City. St. Paul: Old Town Restorations, 1979. (Scholarly yet readable essays and tours by Patricia Kane, David A. Lanegran, Eileen Michels, Christopher Owens, and Ernest R. Sandeen illustrate the history of St. Paul and the groups that settled it, with numerous black-and-white photographs, maps, and sketches, in
this interpretative guide that is an essential companion on an exploration of the city's downtown and neighborhoods.) Sandeen, Ernest R. St. Paul's Historic Summit Avenue. St. Paul: Living Historical Museum, Macalester College, 1978. (A history of Summit Avenue with black-and-white photographs and sketches that includes historic preservation and architecture, an entry for each house that notes the original owner, year of construction, architect, cost, architectural style, and historical context, and concluding with a leisurely walking tour of what Professor Sandeen describes as the best-preserved example of the Victorian monumental residential boulevard in America.) Schmid, Calvin Fisher. Social Saga of Two Cities: An Ecological and Statistical Study of Social Trends in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Minneapolis: Bureau of Social Research, Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies, 1937. (A now classic study of the development of the city and community life in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including the growth and expansion of the Twin Cities, population trends, housing, and social and personal aspects such as divorce and crime.) Schwartz, George M., and George A. Thiel. Minnesota's Rocks and Waters: A Geological Story. Helena, Mont.: American Geographic Publishing, 1988. (Two University of Minnesota professors of geology recount the story behind the geological features of Minnesota, using black-and-white photographs, maps, and schematic drawings, in a manner that is both understandable and fascinating to the general reader and allows the geological excursions outlined in the book to become enriching experiences.) Smith, Robert Tighe. Minneapolis-Saint Paul: The Cities, Their People. Helena, Mont.: American Geographic Publishing, 1988. (Text and color photographs provide a colorful overview of the history, economy, and people of the Twin Cities and bring to light similarities and differences between Minneapolis and St. Paul.) Stipanovich, Joseph. City of Lakes: An Illustrated History of Minneapolis. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Windsor Publications, 1982. (Following an initial chronological overview of the development of the city, this insightful history of Minneapolis covers topics such as economic activity, political processes, and community, setting them within a broader state and national context. It contains profiles of organizations that are important in the city's economic life and is copiously illustrated with both black-and-white and color photographs.) Stuhler, Barbara, and Gretchen Kreuter, eds. Women of Minnesota: Selected Biographical Essays. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1977. (Increased interest among professional historians and the general public in the history of women prompted the production of this book, with fifteen chapters on individual women and a black-and-white photograph of each, written by eighteen female writers, which adds to the growing knowledge about the achievements of women in Minnesota society and their contributions to the development of the state from territorial days in the 1850s onward.) Svendsen, Gustav Rolf. Hennepin County History: An Illustrated Essay. Minneapolis: Hennepin County Bicentennial Commission, 1976. (The text, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, sketches, and maps, describes the natural environment, the people, and processes of growth, including urban and rural settlement, economic activity, and government institutions in the history of Hennepin County.) Tishler, William H., and Virginia S. Luckhardt. "H. W. S. Cleveland: Pioneer Landscape Architect to the Upper Midwest." Minnesota History 49:7 (Fall 1985): 281-91.
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Trimble, Steven C. In the Shadow of the City: A History of the Loring Park Neighborhood. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Community College Foundation, 1990. (A history of the Loring Park neighborhood, with black-and-white photographs, from early contact between white settlers and American Indians in the 1850s, through its rise and fall in residential status, and its redevelopment as part of the city's urban revitalization plans in the early 1970s in the face of neighborhood opposition. It includes a walking tour of the neighborhood with information on individual buildings and sites.) Vance, John E. Inside the Minnesota Experiment. Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 1977. VanDrasek, Barbara J. "Social Structure and Residence in Minneapolis, 1860-1940." Master's thesis, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990. Warren, William W. History of the Ojibway People. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984. (First published in 1885, this summary of transcribed Ojibway [Chippewa] tribal memory at mid-nineteenth century is a unique history of the Ojibway people, in particular the principal events of the Ojibway during the previous five centuries.) Westbrook, Nicholas, ed. A Guide to the Industrial Archeology of the Twin Cities. St. Paul and Minneapolis: Society for Industrial Archeology, 1983. (Organized by industrial and engineering themes important in the history of the Twin Cities such as railroads, warehouses, and bridges, short essays on each theme with black-and-white photographs and sketches provide a historical context for individual structures and sites of particular architectural or industrial significance.) Williams, J. Fletcher. A History of the City of St. Paul to 1875. Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1983. (First published in 1876, this text represents the first major local history of the St. Paul community's growth beginning in the 1830s, covering both trivia and major events, with black-and-white sketches of notable people and buildings.) Wolpert, Julian. "The Geography of Generosity: Metropolitan Disparities in Donations and Support for Amenities." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78:4 (December 1988): 66579.
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Index Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, 151 Adams, John, 147 Adath Israel congregation, 75 adoptions, overseas, 35 The Affluent Society, 187 African-Americans, 8, 42, 62, 63, 64, 106 Afton, 108 agency coordination, 200 Agricultural and Applied Economics Department, University of Minnesota, 24 agriculture, 50, 172 AIDS, 19 air quality, 26 airplane noise, 200 airports, 201 Albrecht's Furs, 49 Alexander Ramsey House, 145 Alt, Tim, 125 American Crystal Sugar Company, 50 American Indian Business Development Corporation (AIBDC), 115 American Indian Cultural Center, 115 American Indian neighborhoods, 76 American Indians, 8, 42, 64, 105 American Lutheran Church (ALC), 11, 71 American Public Radio (APR), 25 American Swedish Institute, 11 Amhoist Tower, 133, 140 Andersen Corporation, 50 Andover, 166 Anoka, 34 Anoka County, 4 anti-Semitism, 42, 74 apartment buildings, 100 apartment construction, 198 Apple Valley, 14, 104 Aquatennial, Minneapolis, 13 Arcade Street, 107 architectural legacies, 139 Arden Hills, 21, 166
Armajani, Siah, 145 arts, 15, 144, 150 Asians and Asian-Americans, 7, 8, 65, 66 Asian children, 155 AT&T office tower, 125 Audubon Council, 21 Augsburg College, 158 Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 11 auto congestion, 113 autumn, 5 Bach Society, 15 Baker Properties, 120 Bakken, Earl, 54 Balanchine, George, 148 Ballet of the Dolls, 148 ballrooms, public, 18 band shell (Lake Harriet), 87 Bandana Square, 110, 115, 137, 160 Bank Shares, Inc., 154 banking, 153 Barnes, Edward Larrabee, 145 baseball, 15 basketball, 15 Bassett's Creek, 59 Battle Creek Park, 107 Beddor Companies and Partnerships, 53 Bennett, David, 140 Bennett, Edward H., 196 Berryman, John, 16 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 73 biotechnology, 51 blacks. See African-Americans Elaine, 104, 107 Bloomington, 14, 62, 103, 104, 166, 179, 207 Ely, Carol, 16 boating, 17 Bohemian flats, 78, 108 Bohemians, 59, 77 Bonaventure, 161
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Boschwitz, Rudy, 20 Boundary Waters Canoe Area, 21 Brain Science Center, 151 branch banks, 153 Bridge Square, 56, 102, 118 Broadway Avenue, 85 Brookdale Shopping Center, 110 Brooklyn Center, 103, 106, 180 Brooklyn Park, 103, 106, 180, 197 Brown and Bigelow Company, 41, 53 Brown Printing, 53 Bucket Brigade, 167 Buhler-Miag, 51 Burger, Chief Justice Warren, 24 Burlington Northern Railroad, 38, 40 Burnham, Daniel H., 196 Burnsville, 104 buses, 90, 92, 203, 205; conversion to (1954), 90 Bush Foundation, 167 Bush, Archibald G., 167 business, 13, 44, 144, 184; climate, 13; concentrations, 184; international, 47; leaders and leadership, 13, 44; services, 144 Butler, Patrick and Mary Ann, 44 Butler Square, 161 Byerly's, 49
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Calhoun, John Caldwell, 86 Calhoun, Lake, 86, 106, 142; controversy of high rise apartments on north shore, 142 Calhoun Square, 110,115,116,129, 161 Cambodians, 65 Canada, 33 Canterbury Downs racetrack, 14, 159 Capital Centre, 130 Capitol Hill, 98 Capitol Mall, 137 Capitol-University area, 67 Cargill, Inc., 47, 48, 52 Carleton College, 158 Carlson, Curtis L., 54 Carlson Companies, Inc., 52, 54 Carlson School of Management, 169 casino gambling, 208
Cathedral of St. Paul, 70 Catholic Colonization Bureau, 77 Catholic schools, 76 Catholics, 11, 19, 68, 69, 70 Cedar Lake, 78, 86 Cedar Square West, 128 Cedarfest, 14 Cedar-Riverside area, 104 Cedar-Riverside project, 78, 147 Central Avenue, 84, 85, 117 Central Riverfront Park, 86 Centre Village, 140 Chain of Lakes, 4, 86, 95, 141 Champlin, 166 Chanhassen, 14, 149 Chanhassen Dinner Theaters, 15, 148 charitable giving, 167 charter schools, 156 Chaska, 187 chemical dependency, 151 Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, 40 Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroads, 38 children: adopted, 19; orphaned, 35 Children's Home Society, 35 Children's Museum, 132, 145 Children's Theatre Company, 15, 145, 147, 148, 167 Chinese, 65 Church of the Lutheran Brethren, 71 Citizens League, 12, 172, 201 city boundaries, 103 City Center, 110, 123, 132 City Pages, 24 class structure, 101 Cleveland, Horace W. S., 85, 196 climate, 4, 21-22 Coffee House Press, 150 College of St. Benedict, 159 College of St. Catherine, 158 College of St. Scholastica, 159 Columbia Heights, 103, 106, 107, 166 commercial agriculture area, 174, 175 commercial transitions, 117 community college system, 156, 157
commuting, 181, 193 Como, Lake, 85, 95 Como neighborhood, 79 Como Park, 85, 107 Concord Street, 108 Concordia College, 159 condominiums, and conversion to, 100 congestion fees, 188 Conservatory, 111, 123, 140, 161 consulates, 10, 11 consumer services, 143, 144 Control Data Corporation, 48, 50, 190 convention and trade shows, 144 convention center complex, 122 Coon Rapids, 106 co-op housing units, 100 co-ops, 18 Corporate Report Minnesota, 12 corporations, 51; culture, 12; giving, 26; headquarters, 51; management, 169 Cottage Grove, 104, 107, 108 Country Club area, St. Paul, 95 country clubs, 17 Coyle, Brian, 19 CPT Corporation, 47 Cray Research, Inc., 47, 48, 50, 53 Cray, Seymour, 53 Cricket Theatre, 148 crime, 19, 208 Crocus Hill, 162 cropland, harvested, 33 Crosby family, 145, 167 Crown Roller Mill, 125 Crystal, 105 Crystal Court, 110, 140, 141 Cub Foods, 49 cultural corridor, St. Paul, 133-34 cultural environment, 26 Dain Bosworth Plaza, 122 Dakota County, 62, 102 dance, 148 Danish immigrants, 77 DataCard Corporation, 47
Davies, Dennis Russell, 147 Dayton, Donald, 110 Dayton family, 45 Dayton, George Draper, 54 Dayton Hudson Corporation, 18, 52, 54, 71, 85, 126, 167; department stores, 123,167 Dayton Hudson Foundation, 150 Dayton's Bluff, 58, 79, 98 de Waart, Edo, 146 debt per capita, local government, 45 Deephaven, 105 Dellwood, 96 Deluxe Corporation, 53 Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party, ward clubs, 106 demographic trends, 182 developing area, 174, 175 development imbalances, 180 Dinkytown, 78 Dirksen, Everett, 24 district heating system (St. Paul), 133 Dome. See Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome Dorati, Antal, 146 Dorr, Caleb, 56 downtown areas, 102, 111, 112; housing in, 135, 138; migration of center of, 102; Minneapolis, 56, 85, 139; nightlife, 138; parking problems, 112; planning of, 121; population of, 135; redevelopment of, 10, 120, 162; repopulating, 113; residents of, 139; St. Anthony, 56; St. Paul, 56, 85; upscaling of, 113 Dunwoody Institute, 81 Durenberger, David, 20, 24 Dutch elm disease, 26, 88 Dylan, Bob, 78 Eagan, 104,181, 190, 200 Eagan and Eden Prairie area, 189 East Bloomington, 104 East Franklin, 115 East Side (St. Paul), 60,107, 108 Eastern Rite Catholic churches, 76, 106 Ebenezer Society, 72 economy, 43
Eden Prairie, 104, 105, 166, 181, 207 Eden Prairie Center, 110 Edina, 96, 103, 105 education, 26-27 elderly people, 193 electric streetcar era, 98 Elliot Park, 67, 125, 128 Elwood, Paul Jr., 152, 153 employment, 43 Energy Park, 110, 136, 137, 160 environmental settings for housing, 192 Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mark, 73 ETA, 48 Ethiopian Jews, 75 Ethiopians, 7 Ethnic Dance Theatre, 149 ethnic groups, 6, 10 ethnic tensions, 42 Eurasian water milfoil, 26, 203 Evangelical Lutheran Church, 71 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), 71 Excelsior, 81 Excelsior Park, 81 exclusive enclaves, 102 expenditures, local government, 45 The Exploding Metropolis, 187 exurban diversity, 194 fair share, housing, 197 Faith and Ferment (1983 study), 69 Falcon Heights, 165 farmers' markets, 7, 18 female-headed households, 102, 182, 207 Ferndale, 105 festival malls, 115 festival markets, 110 festivals, 13 Fiftieth and France intersection, 109, 117, 161 Filipino, 65 film and video, 149 Film in the Cities, 15 film production, 149 filtering of housing, 99
finance and banking, 153 Finnish-American Cultural Activities organization, 11 Finns, 34, 42 First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry, 149 First Bank Center, 121 First Bank Minneapolis, 55 First Bank Place, 122 First Bank Systems, Inc., 55, 154, 161, 168 Firstar Corporation, 154 Fiscal Disparities Act, 165, 166 fishing, 16 Fjelde, Jacob, 15 flour milling, 41 FMC Corporation, 21 fog, 4, 5 football, 15 foreign investors, 125 forests, 192 Fort Snelling, 28,108 Fort Snelling national cemetery, 104 Foshay Tower, 140 foundations, and arts funding, 150 Franklin Avenue, 64, 115 Freeman, Orville, 24 freestanding growth centers, 174, 175 freeway automobile era, 84, 98 Freeway News, 24 freeway systems 98, 186, 187, 203; capacity of, 205; congestion of, 187, 204, 205; intraurban, 98; use of, 203 Fridley, 106 Fuller Company (H.B.), 169 fully developed area, 174 fur trade, 30, 38 future growth, 189 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 187 Galtier, Father Lucian, 28 Galtier Plaza, 110,134, 140, 141, 161 Gamble-Red Owl Stores, 190 gambling, 206 gang activity, 27 Gateway Center, 118, 120, 121
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Gateway redevelopment, 160 Gaviidae Common, 124, 161 General Mills, 37, 45, 52, 190 General Mills Foundation, 150, 168 general rural use area, 174, 175 geographical patterning of development, 205 German consulate, 11 German settlement, 106 Germans, 7, 42, 105 Germany, 33 Getty, J. Paul, 73 glacial action, 2, 4 glacial landscapes and social geography, 193 glacial moraines, 40 Glacier National Park, 38 Golden Valley, 75, 103, 105, 106, 166, 189 golf, clubs and courses, 17, 89 Gophers, University of Minnesota, 15 government, 44-45, 159; revenue, expenditures, debt, 45; services, 159; spending, 44 Graco, Inc., 47, 50, 51, 168 Graham, Martha, 148 grain elevators, 41; conversion to housing, 141, 142 grain market, 41 grain milling, 35 Grand Avenue (St. Paul), 84, 85, 117, 136 Grand Metropolitan PLC Research and Development facility, 127 Grand Rounds, 86 Graywolf Press, 150 Great Northern Railway, 36, 38, 39 Greater Minnesota, 46 Green Acres Law, 175, 194, 195 Greenway Gables, 129 Griffith, Calvin, 170 ground moraines, 4 groundwater, 203; contamination of, 196 Group Health, Inc., 152 Groveland Addition, 81 growth management, 197 growth-generating economic activity, 143 Gruen, Victor, 110 Grunseth, Jon, 20
Guest, Judith, 16 Gustavus Adolphus College, 71, 159 Guthrie, Sir Tyrone, 16, 147 Guthrie Theater, 81, 120, 145, 147, 148 Hamline University, 79, 158 Hampl, Patricia, 16 Harmon Place, 109 Harold's, 161 Harriet, Lake, 4, 86, 87 Hassler, Jon, 16 Hauser, Nancy, 148 hazardous waste, 26 Hazelden Foundation, 151 health care, 150, 152 health maintenance organizations (HMOs), 152 Health Planning Board, 152 Heffelfinger, Major Christopher, 45 Hennepin Avenue, 78, 84, 85, 138 Hennepin Avenue Bridge, 126 Hennepin County, 4, 31, 62 Hennepin County incinerator, 128 Hennepin County Park Reserve District, 88 Hennepin County Regional Rail Authority, 204 Hennepin, Father Louis, 2 Hiawatha, 104 High Bridge, 108, 137 higher education in Minnesota, 156 Highland Park, 40, 68, 95, 100, 108 Highland Park Shopping Center, 161 high-tech corridor, 51 high-tech manufacturing, 50 Highway 12, 188 Hill, James J., 23, 36, 38, 45, 96, 167; Family Foundation, 39; House, 145; Monastic Manuscripts Library, 24; Reference Library, 23, 133 Hill, Louis Warren, 38 Hispanic population, 7, 42, 64, 67, 68 Hispanic pupils, 155 historic preservation, 21, 26 HMO approach, 152 Hmong, 7, 65, 66, 67 Hogwood, Christopher, 147 Holiday Companies, 52
Holman Field, 196 Holmes neighborhood, 127 Holmsten Ice Rinks, Inc., 53 home finance, 98 home values, 96 Homestead Act, 34 Honeywell, Inc., 21, 47, 50, 52, 190 Hopkins, 103, 178 horse farms, 108 horse racing, 159 hospitals, 151; planning, 198 Houlton, Loyce, 148 House of Hope Presbyterian Church, 73 households, female-headed, 102 households, increase in number of, 102 houses, pre-World War I, 93 housing, 77, 94-105, 135, 197; construction of, 82, 83, 180; cost-cutting innovations in, 199; demand for, 101; density, 98; downtown, 135; expensive, 95; filtering process, 99; inexpensive, 94, 96; low- and moderately priced units, 97; pre-1890, 77; site preferences, 179; styles, 103; submarkets, 105; tenure, 100 Housing and Redevelopment Act (1947), 118 HOV-only lanes, 206 Hub (at Sixty-sixth and Nicollet), the, 109 Hubert H. Humphrey Center, 140 Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, 114, 125 Hudson Road, 107, 108 Humphrey, Hubert H., 20, 24 I-35E, 93, 108 I-35W, 107 1-394, 141, 188 1-494, 93, 187, 188 IBM, 181 ice fishing, 16 ice palace, 14 IDS (Investors Diversified Services) Center, 121, 139, 140 Illusion Theater, 15, 148 immigrants and immigration, 23, 27, 33-35, 43, 60, 77; and settlement, 32; Asian, 8; children, 155
Immigration Act of 1965, 66 Immigration Act of 1976, 66 Immigration Act of 1978, 66 incinerator, 202 income, median family, 8 income taxes, 11, 18 Independent Feature Project (IFF), 149 Indian population, 35, 64 Indian Summer, 5 Indo-Chinese, 7, 62; refugees, 66 industrial parkland, 190 international business, 47 International Diabetes Center, 151 International Market Square, 129 International Multifoods, 52 InterStudy, 153 interurban streetcar lines, 178 Inver Grove Heights, 104, 108 Iranian Jews, 75 Ireland, 33 Ireland, Archbishop John, 70, 77 Irish, 7, 9, 105 Irish-American Cultural Institute, 11 iron range, Mesabi, 46 Irvine, Sally Ordway, 147 Isaak Walton League, 21 Italians, 42 James J. Hill House. See Hill, James J. Japanese, 65 Jerome Foundation, 150 Jews, 7, 42, 60, 63, 68, 73-75, 105-6, 108; departure from Near North Minneapolis, 63; immigrants, 106, 108; Iranian, 75; Orthodox, 73; Reform, 74; Romanian, 105; St. Paul's West Side, 75; settlement, 60; Soviet, 7 Johnson Parkway, 107 Johnson, Philip, 140 Jonathan, 187 Jonathan Development Corporation, 187 Joseph Co., I.S., 48 Josten's, Inc., 53 Kaiser Roll, races, 17
Kallestad Laboratories, 21 Keillor, Garrison, 16 Kenesseth Israel congregation, 75 Kenwood, 58, 78, 86 Keystone Program, 168 King, Col. William S., 81 Kirkegaard, R. Lawrence, 146 Kmer, 66 Koreans, 65 Lakes, 203; Calhoun, 86, 106, 142; Como, 85, 95; Harriet, 4, 86, 87; Medicine, 59; Minnetonka, 4, 26, 80, 105, 178; Nokomis, 104; Isles 58, 78, 86, 105; Phalen, 107; Prior, 18 Lake and Hennepin intersection, 116 Lake and Nicollet intersection, 109 Lake of the Isles, 58, 78, 86, 105 Lake District, 58, 100, 116, 141 Lake Harriet band shell, 87 Lake Phalen, 107 lake plains, 4 Lake Street, 85, 115
Lake Wobegon, 16 Lampman, Gary, 125 land development, controls over, 186 Land O'Lakes, Inc., 52 land, availability for new development, 104 landfills, 202 Landmark Center, 132, 133 Landmark Tower, 140 landscape renewal, Minneapolis, 118 Lao, 66 LaSalle Plaza, 122, 124 Latimer, George, 130 Latin Americans, 7 leapfrogging, 192 Leonard Parker Associates, 140 Lewis, Sinclair, 6 liberals and conservatives, 18 light rail transit (LRT), 90, 92, 189, 203, 204-6 Limited English Proficiency (LEP) program, 155 Lincoln Center, 140 Linwood neighborhood, 162 liquor patrol limits, 19
Little Earth of United Tribes, 64, 115 livable winter city, movement, 6 Loaves and Fishes program, 207 local governments, 197; multiplicity of, 199 locations of new jobs, 183 Loft, the, 16, 150 Long Lake, 105 long-term vitality, 160 loosestrife, purple, 26 Loring, Charles W., 86 Loring Green, 129 Loring Park, 15, 17, 78, 123, 129 Loring Way, 129 Lower Broadway, 85 Lower Town, Minneapolis, 56 Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation, 134 Lowertown, St. Paul, 102, 135, 136, 138, 139 Lowertown (shopping center), 110 Lowry Hill, 116 Lowry, Thomas, 23, 81 LRT. See light rail transit lumber production, 41 lumbering, 37 Lund's, 49 Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, 73 Luther Seminary, 72 Lutheran neighborhoods, 104 Lutheran Brotherhood, 140 Lutheran Brotherhood Insurance Company, 11 Lutheran Church in America (LCA), 71 Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 71 Lutheran Free Church, 71 Lutherans and Lutheranism, 11, 19, 68, 69, 71 Macalester College, 158 Macalester Park, 108 McCarthy, Eugene, 24 McKnight family, 167 McKnight Foundation, 134, 150, 167 McKnight, William T., 167 magnet program, 156 Main Street, 127 Majestic Lake Casino, 15, 65 Mall of America, 14, 110, 114-15, 162,173, 188
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manufacturing, 43, 44, 50, 143, 182; high-tech, 50; jobs in, 143,182; value added in, 44 Maple Grove, 104, 105,181 Maplewood, 47, 103, 107, 190 Marine on St. Croix, 28, 34 Marquette Bank, 154 Marriner, Neville, 146 Marshall Avenue-Lake Street Bridge, 196 Marshall-University High School, 129 Martrade, 48 Marty, Martin, 69 Mayo Clinic, 150, 181 Mdewakanton Community. See Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Mears Park, 141 meat packing, 41 median home values, 96 median rents, 96 Medicine Lake, 59 Medtronic, Inc., 50, 54 megamall. See Mall of America Melvin Simon Associates, Inc., 114 Memorial Parkway, 86 Mendota, 108 Mendota Heights, 108, 200 Mesabi iron range, 46 Methodists, 73 metro centers, 174 Metro Mobility, 92 Metro 2000 Plan, 123 Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves Act, 175, 195 Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC), 120, 196, 200 Metropolitan Council, 12, 27, 87-88, 96-97, 152, 172, 183, 187,196-97, 209; boundary of jurisdiction, 172; elimination of Health Planning Board from, 152; growth planning, growth controls, 183, 187, 196-97; housing policy and, 9697; open space planning and, 87-88; planning environment and, 27, 209; role as national model, 12 Metropolitan Development and Investment Framework, 172 Metropolitan Drainage Commission, 196
metropolitan governance, 175 Metropolitan Health Board, 152 Metropolitan Land Use Planning Act of 1976, 173, 196 metropolitan management, 198 Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Board, 195 metropolitan planning, 176 Metropolitan Planning Commission. See Metropolitan Council Metropolitan State University, 157-58 Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC), 90, 92, 203 Metropolitan Urban Service Area (MUSA), 173-74 Metropolitan Waste Control Commission (MWCC), 196 Mexican migrants, 108 Mexican-Americans, 42 Midway District, 40, 107, 109 migrant workers, 46 migration, 182; rural to Twin Cities, 47 milfoil. See Eurasian water milfoil Milkweed Press, 150 Mill District, 127; development, 126 millers, 36 milling district, Minneapolis, 39 milling, flour, 37 Minneapolis, 31, 34, 39; communities and neighborhoods, 165; downtown, 2; lakes, 86; skyway system, 120 Minneapolis Athenaeum, 23 Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 145 Minneapolis Community Development Agency, 165 Minneapolis Convention Center, 125 Minneapolis Energy Center, 121-22 Minneapolis Grain Exchange, 37, 48 Minneapolis Heart Institute, 151 Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 15, 97, 144-45 Minneapolis Junior League, 167 Minneapolis Office of Film, Video, and Recording, 149 Minneapolis Park Board, 142 Minneapolis Public Library, 15, 23 Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, 145
Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts (MSFA), 144 Minneapolis Sound, 149 Minneapolis Spokesman, 24 Minneapolis Technology Corridor, 126 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, 93, 196 Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area, 103 Minneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District (MSSD), 196 Minnehaha (trail), 86 Minnehaha Falls, 15, 86 Minnehaha Park, 14, 86, 104 Minnehaha Parkway, 86, 95 Minnesota Ballet Theatre, 149 Minnesota Center for Arts Education, 150 Minnesota Center for Corporate Responsibility, 168-69 Minnesota Children's Aid Society, 35 Minnesota Chorale, 15 Minnesota Composers Forum, 15 Minnesota Daily, 25 Minnesota Dance Theater, 148 Minnesota Department of Transportation, 141 Minnesota Film Board, 149 Minnesota Historical Society, 55, 145 Minnesota History Center, 55 Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, 193 Minnesota Human Rights Department, 207 Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), 13, 21, 47, 50, 52,108,190 Minnesota Miracle, 154 Minnesota Model, 122 Minnesota Municipal Heritage Preservation Act (1971), 134 Minnesota Museum of Art, 15, 145 Minnesota Opera, 15-16,133,146 Minnesota Orchestra, 15-16,133, 146 Minnesota Project on Corporate Responsibility, 168 Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), 25 Minnesota Refugee Program, 7 Minnesota Rideshare, 92,121 Minnesota River, 16
Minnesota State Arts Board, 150 Minnesota Super Computer Center, Inc., 128 Minnesota Supercomputer Institute, 51, 128 Minnesota Technology Corridor, 127 Minnesota Timberwolves, 125, 159 Minnesota Transportation Museum, 82 Minnesota Twins, 125, 159 Minnesota Valley Trail System, 15 Minnesota Women's Economic Center, 44 Minnesota Zoo, 15 Minnetonka, 96, 103, 105, 166, 190 Minnetonka, Lake, 4, 26, 80, 105, 178 Minnetrista, city of, 88 minority populations, 182 Mississippi Lower Gorge Trails, 86 Mississippi Mile, 126 Mississippi River, 2, 16 Mississippi River Parkway, 95 Mitropoulos, Dimitri, 146 Mixed Blood Theater, 15, 148 mobile homes 83-84, 96,107 Molecular Genetics, Inc., 51 Mondale, Walter, 24 Morgan, J. P., 38 Morrison, Dorilus, 45, 56 Morrison family, 97, 167 mosquitoes, 4 Mounds View, 107 Mt. Airy Homes, 66 Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, 72 Mt. Sinai Hospital, 74 Mt. Zion congregation, 75 Mt. Zion Temple, 75 MTS Systems Corporation, 47 municipal parking ramps, 122 Munsingwear, 129 Muse Ten, 128 music, 150 National Guard Armory, 21 National Public Radio (NPR), 25 Native Americans, 8, 64, 155 Near North (Minneapolis), 94, 105
Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), 164-65 neighborhoods, 94-95, 99, 162-63 Neiman Marcus, 122 New Brighton, 107 New Dance Ensemble (NDE), 148 New Hope, 105 New Market, 175 New Rivers, 150 NewMarket (grocery stores), 49 Nicollet and Lake intersection, 117 Nicollet Avenue, 85, 104 Nicollet Island, 31, 40 Nicollet Mall, 110-11, 120, 123, 161 Nokomis, Lake, 104 Nokomis-Hiawatha Park, 86 nonresidential building permits, 185 Nordeast. See Northeast Minneapolis North End (St. Paul), 107 North Minneapolis, 59, 106 North Mississippi River Trail, 86 North Oaks, 96, 107 North Side (Minneapolis), 106 North St. Paul, 166 Northeast Minneapolis, 7, 43, 59, 63, 106 Northern Pacific Railroad, 33, 36, 38 Northern States Power Company, 21 northern suburbs, 180 Northrop Auditorium, 146 Northwest Airlines, 46, 53, 201 Northwest Area Foundation, 39, 45, 167 Northwestern National Life Insurance building, 120 Northwestern Seminary, 72 Norwegians, 6, 34, 42 Norwest Bank, 55 Norwest Center, 121, 124, 140 Norwest Corporation, 55, 111, 154, nuclear wastes, 21 NWA, Inc., 52 Nyrop, Donald, 53 Oak Park Heights, 25 Oberhoffer, Emil, 146
O'Brien, Tim, 16 occupational structure, 43 office condos, 124 office space, 124,160, 162 office-warehouse, 124 Old Log Theater, 148 Oldenburg, Claes, 145 Olson, Floyd B., 20 Olson Memorial Highway, 105 Omnibus program, 167 Omnitheater, 132 open enrollment, 154 open space, 85, 87, 185, 194 Opportunity Workshop, 167 Orchestra Hall, 138, 146 Ordway family, 13, 167 Ordway, Lucius P., 13 Ordway Music Theatre, 133, 138, 146 Ordway, Sally. See Irvine, Sally Ordway Ormandy, Eugene, 146 Orono, 96, 105 Orthodox churches, 106 Orthodox Jews, 73 Orthodox parishes, 76 outmigration, 102, 182 outwash plains, 4 Pacific Islanders, 65 Pacific Northwest Ballet, 148 Paisley Park Studios, 149 Panama Canal, 41 Parade Stadium, 81 Park Avenue, 58 Park Nicollet Medical Foundation, 151 parking, 112-13, 120 parks and trails, 88 parochial schools, 76 part-time farmers, 194 Pavilion Place, 161 Payne Avenue, 14 Peavey & Co., F. H., 45 Pei, I.M., 124 Pelli, Cesar, 124 Penn Avenue North, 106
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Penumbra Theatre Company, 148 people living alone, 102 performing arts, 146 Perpich, Rudy, 20, 154 personal parishes, 76 Phalen Creek, 77 Phalen, Lake, 14, 85 philanthropy, 12, 167-68 Philippines, 65 Phillips, J., 74 Phillips neighborhood, 8, 67 physical environment, 26 Pillsbury A Mill, 36 Pillsbury Center, 140 Pillsbury Company, 37, 53 Pillsbury family, 97, 145, 167 Pillsbury, George, 45 Pillsbury, George Jr., 45 Pillsbury, John Sargent, 44 Pioneer House, 151 Piper Tower, 140 Pirsig, Robert, 16 planning, 27, 186, 195 Plymouth, 104-5, 166, 181, 189-90, 207 Plymouth Avenue, 75, 85, 106, 117 Polaris Industries, Inc., 53 Poles, 42 politics, 11, 20, 26, 31,163; conduct, 20; environment of, 26; heritage, 163; rivalries, 31 popular music, 149 population, 36, 41, 60, 93, 111, 181-82; center of gravity in Twin Cities, 93; county, 61; downtown, 135; ethnic composition of, 62; growth, 188, 193; racial composition of, 62 postwar suburbia, 177 post-World War II housing, 176 poverty, 8, 27, 181-82, 206-7 Prairie Home Companion, 25 Prince (Roger Nelson), 149 printing and publishing, 41 Prior Lake, 14, 18, 65, 166 prisons, 25 private colleges, 156 private open space, 89
Project Environment, 21 property taxes, 11, 162 Protestants, 20 public education, 154 public housing, 66 publicly subsidized housing, 94 public-private partnerships, 122 Quebecor Co., 53 racial minorities and racial segregation, 6, 63, 197 radial highways, system of, 178 Radisson Plaza Hotel, 140 rail transit, 90 railroads, 32-33, 40, 58-59, 60 Rainbow Foods, 49 Rajender Consent Decree, 44 Ramsey, 166 Ramsey County, 31 Ramsey Hill, 98, 107, 135-36 Rapson, Ralph, 147 real estate development, 138, 170 real estate values, 105 rebuilding and revitalizing St. Paul, 129 recreation, outdoor, 16 recreational automobile era, 84, 98 recycling, 202 Red Owl (grocery stores), 45 Red River country, 30 Red Wing, 108 redevelopment capital, 125 refugees, 7, 155 regional business concentrations, 174 regional park system, 88, 185 Regional Transit Board (RTB), 92 religion and politics, 18 religious tensions, 42 Renaissance Festival, 15 Renaissance Square, 124 rents, rental housing, 94, 96 research and development, 24 residential areas, 95, 142, 177, 179, 191; development of, 179, 191; expansion of, 177; property values, 142; sectoral nature of growth of, 101
retailing and retail trade, 85, 108, 111-14 revenue, local government, 45 Rice Park, 133 Rice Street, 14, 85, 107, 117 Richfield, 103-4, 179 ride sharing, 206 Ridgedale Shopping Center, 110 riverfront redevelopment, Minneapolis, 126 Riverplace, 110, 116-17, 127, 161 Robbinsdale, 103, 166 Robert Street, 108 Robinson Co., C.H., 52 Rochester, 23, 46, 180-81 Rood, John, 15 Rosedale Shopping Center, 110 Roseville, 103, 107, 166 Roseville-Arden Hills, 190 Rum River, 28 Rupp, John, 135 rural centers, 174,175 rural service area, 172, 175 St. Anthony, 28, 30-31, 34 St. Anthony, Falls of, 2, 30, 31, 37, 106 St. Anthony Main, 110, 115, 116, 127, 161 St. Anthony Park, 40, 79, 95, 100, 107 St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, 106 St. Cloud, 23, 46, 180-81 St. Cloud State University, 181 St. Croix River, 28,108 St. Francis, 175 St. John's University, 70, 159 St. Leonard of Port Marice Church, 76 St. Louis Park, 75, 103, 106 St. Louis Park-Hopkins rail-industry strip, 184 St. Martin de Porres Church, 76 St. Mary's College, 159 St. Olaf College, 72, 158 St. Patrick's Day, 7, 14 St. Patrick's Day parade, 11 St. Paul, 9, 130-37, 164; downtown, 9; downtown redevelopment, 130; Lowertown area, 134; planning districts, 164; riverfront, 137; skyway system, 131
St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, 33, 38 St. Paul Cathedral, 9, 11, 135 St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, 15-16, 133, 146-47 St. Paul Civic Center, 125 St. Paul Companies, 53, 136 St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development (PED), 131 St. Paul Hotel, 133 St. Paul Park, 108 St. Paul Pioneer Press, 24, 102 St. Paul Port Authority, 110, 131-32, 134, 137 St. Paul Public Library, 133 St. Paul Recorder, 24 St. Paul Seminary, 70-71 St. Paul Technical Institute, 158 St. Paul Winter Carnival, 39 St. Peter Claver Church, 76 savings and loan associations, 153 sawmilling, 30, 37 Scandinavia and Scandinavians, 7, 19, 33, 42, 105; culture and social welfare goals, 151; image of Minneapolis and, 10; settlement, 106 Scholar Coffeehouse, 78 schools, 26-27; attendance areas of, 92; Catholic, 76; districts, 114; enrollment, 154-55 Schroeder, Pat, 24 Schubert Club, 133, 146 Science Museum of Minnesota, 15, 132, 145 Sears store (on Lake Street), 109 sectoral housing markets, 104 sectoral residential structure, 101 segregating forces, and housing, 101 Selby and Western intersection, 135 Selby Avenue, 85, 135 Selby-Dale neighborhood, 67, 108, 117, 136; redevelopment, 136 service economy, 142 services, 43-44 service-sector jobs, 143 Seven Corners, 77, 118, 128 701 Fourth Street Building, 140 Seventh Place Farmers' Market, St. Paul, 7 Seventh Place Redevelopment Project, 130 Seventh Street, 85
sewage disposal, 196 Seward, 129 sewer systems, 172, 178-79, 187, 192 Shakopee, 14,15 Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, 15, 65 Sherburne County, 4 shopping centers, 108-9 shopping districts, 84 Shoreview, 104, 107 Shrei Chesed congregation, 75 Sibley House Museum, 145 Sierra Club, North Star Chapter, 21 single-family homes, 198 skid row, 120 Skrowaczewski, Stanislaw, 146 skyline, 139 Skyway News, 24 skyways, 120-21, 123, 160 Slovaks, 77 Snelling and University intersection, 109 Snelling Avenue, 85 Snoose Boulevard, 77 Snoose Boulevard festival, 14 snow, 6 snowmobiles, 17 social justice, 23 solid waste management, 26, 198 Song of Hiawatha, 28 Sons of Norway, 11 Soo Line railroad, 36 South Minneapolis, 104, 115 South St. Paul, 41, 103, 108, 166, 178 South St. Paul packing plants, 184 Southdale Center, 103, 109, 114 Southeast Asians, 67, 105 Southeast Minneapolis, 107 Southern Theatre, 15, 148 Southwest Lake District, 105 southwest quadrant, 190 spatial trends, 136 spokes of growth, 177-78 sport of kings, 159 sports, 26 sprawl, 183, 199
spring, 6 spring wheat, 36 standards of public conduct, 20 Star Tribune, 24, 102 Stassen, Harold, 24 state capitol, 11 State Capitol Approach Area, 129 State Fair, 14 state university system, 53, 156-57 Stearns County, 106 Steele, Franklin, 30, 56 Stillwater, 28, 34 Stinson Boulevard, 106 Stokes, Carl, 24 Stone Arch Bridge, 39 street gangs, 208 streetcar boats, 81 streetcar system, 80-1, 84, 90 subsidized housing, 94, 97 suburbs, 94,102-3, 170, 181, 183-84, 189-90; employment and job growth in, 183-84, 189-90; offices in, 190; shopping malls in, 112-14; tiers of, 102-103 summer, 5 Summit Avenue, 21-22, 58, 98, 107-8, 136 Summit Hill, 60, 79, 95 Summit-University area, 94 Sumner Field, 63 Sun (newspapers), 24 Sunfish Lake, 96, 108 Suomi Synod, 71 Supercomputer Institute. See Minnesota Supercomputer Institute Supervalu, Inc., 49, 52 surface water conditions, 88 Svenskarnas Dag (Swedish Day), 7 Swede Hollow, 77, 108 Swedes, 6, 34, 42 Swedish Augustana Synod, 71 Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution Day), 7 taconite, 46 Target Center, 122, 125, 173 taxes, 11, 18
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TCF Financial Corporation, 154 Teamster's strike of 1934, 20 technical colleges, 158 temperature, 4 Temple Israel, 74-75 Tennant Company, 53 Tenth Avenue Bridge, 39 terminal moraines, 4 Torre del San Miguel Homes, 69 theaters, 15, 147 Theatre De la Jeune Lune, 148 Theatre In The Round Players (TRP), 148 Thomas-Dale area, 79 Thompson, Ben, 146 3M. See Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company 3M Foundation, 168 Thresher Square, 128 thunder showers, 5 till plains, 4 timber harvest, 30 Timberwolves (basketball), 15 Toth, Susan Allen, 16 Towers, The, 120 Town Square, 110, 132 Town Square Park, 130 toxic waste, 21, 201-2 trade, 30 traffic congestion, 188 transit, 90, 188 transportation, 203 Triple 5 Corporation, 114 Trout Creek, 40, 58 Twin Cities, 62, 188, Twin Cities Jazz Festival, 15 Twin Cities Marathon, 17 Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission (MFC), 197 Twin Cities Reader, 24 Twin Cities Regional Planning Commission, 196 Twin City Rapid Transit Company, 81, 90 Twins, Minnesota (baseball), 15 Tyrone Guthrie Theater, 15
Ugandans, 7 unemployment, 182 Union Depot (St. Paul), 9 unions, 18 Unisys, 190 United Danish Church, 71 United Evangelical Lutheran Church, 71 University Avenue, 85 University Film Society, 15 University of Minnesota, 24, 27, 51, 53, 65-66, 78, 156-57; Civil and Mineral Engineering Building, 140; Law Building, 140 University of Minnesota Heart and Lung Institute, 150 University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinic, 150 University of St. Thomas, 158, 168 unrelated individuals, 102 Upper Levee neighborhood, 108 upscaling of downtown, 113 Uptown area, 115-17 Urban Coalition, 207 Urban League, 207 urban living, 138 urban service area, 172, 183 urbanizing countryside, 191 vacancy chains, 97, 99, 105 Valley Fair amusement park, 15 Valspar, 128 value added by manufacturing, 44 Van Bruggen, Coosje, 145 Van Derlip family, 145 Varda, Richard, 124 vegetation, 34 Verbruggen, Henri, 146 Veterans Administration Medical Center, 151 Victoria Crossing, 161-62 Vietnamese, 7, 65-66 Vikings (football), 15 vocational and technical schools, 156 Volksfest Kulturhaus, 11 voter turnout, 19 Walker Art Center, 15, 81, 145
Walker Foundation, T. B., 147 Walker Sculpture Garden, 15 Walker, Thomas Barlow, 15, 23 walking and horsecar era, 84 Wards store (near Snelling and University), 109 Washburn, Cadwallader C., 56 Washburn estate, 104 Washburn Fair Oaks, 58 Washburn family, 97, 145 Washburn, William D., 56 Washburn-Crosby Milling Company, 37 Washington Avenue skid row, 118 Washington, D.C., subway system, 92 Washington Senators, 170 waste management, 201 waste-to-energy incinerators, 202 water and water systems, 178-79, 202 Wayzata, 81 WCCO, 25 Webb Publishing Company, 41 Wedge district, 116 Wesley United Methodist Church, 73 West Bank campus (University of Minnesota), 78 West Broadway, 105 West Publishing Company, 41, 53 West Seventh Street, 79, 108 West Side (St. Paul), 60, 108 West St. Paul, 103, 108 Westminster Corporation, 64 Westminster Presbyterian Church, 73 Weyerhaeuser, Frederick, 53 wheat bonanza (1870s), 35 wheat milling, 35 wheat, spring, 36 White Bear Lake, 80,107,178 White Bear Township, 166 Whitney Hotel, 127 Whitney Mill Quarter, 126 wholesale trade, 113 Wilder Foundation, 160 Wildwood Park, 81 Wilkins, Roy, 24 Willard/Homewood, 63 Wilson, August, 16
Winslow House, 31, 127 winter, 4-6 Winter Carnival, St. Paul, 13 Wirth Park, 86 Wirth, Theodore, 86 Wold Chamberlain Field, 196 Wolff, Hugh, 147 women, 43-44 Women Venture, 44 Women's Economic Development Corporation, 44 Woodbury, 189 Woodland, 105 work ethic, 13 worker-compensation benefits, 18 World Series, 15, 159 World Theater, 148 World Trade Center, 49, 130, 133, 140, 174 World Trade Center Commission, 111 Wright County, 106 Yamasaki, Minoru, 120 Yankees and Yankee heritage, 12, 15, 23, 56, 168 Young America, 175 Young, Whitney M., 24 Youngdahl, Luther, 72 Youngdahl, Paul, 72 Youngdahl, Reuben K, 72 Zenon Dance Company, 149 zones of transition, 126 zoning, 198-99 Zukerman, Pinchas, 147
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John S. Adams is professor and chair, Department of Geography, and professor of planning and public affairs in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He is former director of the Humphrey Institute, and also served as coordinator of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. Adams is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas and received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Minnesota. He is author of books and articles on cities, including A Comparative Atlas of America's Great Cities: Twenty Metropolitan Regions (University of Minnesota Press, 1976). He was born and reared in Minnesota. Barbara J. VanDrasek is a doctoral student and instructor in geography at the University of Minnesota, focusing on urban social and economic issues in the U.S. and former Soviet territories. Her dissertation research addressed the developing housing market in Moscow. She was an administrator of the Humphrey Fellowship Program, a Fulbright Exchange Activity for midcareer professionals from newly industrializing nations. She teaches urban geography, Soviet geography, and the geography of the Twin Cities, and served on the research staff for a series of economic analyses of the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and the Upper Midwest. She has co-authored articles and book reviews on Soviet urban geography and on social justice. Ms. VanDrasek, a lifelong resident of the Twin Cities, has been active in the Citizens League and in local and state politics.
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