http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... is/384975/

If the American dream has not quite shattered as the Millennial generation has come of age, it has certainly scattered. Living affordably and trying to climb higher than your parents did were once considered complementary ambitions. Today, young Americans increasingly have to choose one or the other—they can either settle in affordable but stagnant metros or live in economically vibrant cities whose housing prices eat much of their paychecks unless they hit it big.
...
Only three large metros where at least half the homes are within reach for young middle-class families also finish in the top 10 in the Harvard-Berkeley mobility study: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis–St. Paul. The last is particularly remarkable. The Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures. And yet, according to the Center for Housing Policy, low-income families can rent a home and commute to work more affordably in Minneapolis–St. Paul than in all but one other major metro area (Washington, D.C.). Perhaps most impressive, the Twin Cities have the highest employment rate for 18-to-34-year-olds in the country.

What’s wrong with American cities? is a question that demographers and economists have debated for years. But maybe we should be looking to a luminary exception and asking the opposite question: What’s right with Minneapolis?

Nice in-depth piece about the rise of the Twin City areas. What are all your guys's thoughts?

My opinion is that people often praise Minneapolis as a prime example of a Midwest metro that does everything right, which is correct in many respects. What they fail to mention is that Minneapolis was never a heavy industrial city and demographically (in regards to race and socioeconomic dynamics) is an outlier amongst major Midwest metros. It's benefited greatly from being the anti-Cleveland, St. Louis, and Detroit, being whiter, richer, and more highly educated, which makes it a lot easier to get things done. Going forward, I would love to see St. Louis implement some Twin Cities strategies, but one has to ask if they would go over well in a much more polarized region.

Also, I've heard A LOT of bad things about MSP from African Americans, many from St. Louis. This recent article kinda confirms it.
http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2015 ... _study.php

dweebe wrote:Since I've gotten more and more frustrated with St. Louis, the Twin Cities are on my very short list of relocation possibilities.

Not to be a total troll, but I'm just curious, what has you frustrated with St. Louis? What do you think the Twin Cities would provide that St. Louis doesn't?

I love the smell of anecdotal evidence and baseless claims in the morning.

^Trying to have a dialogue here Ebsy.

dweebe, your concerns are totally justified, and you're obviously not alone. But keep in mind that 2014 was one of the worst years in the history of St. Louis. Certainly top 3 in its 250 years. Also, not to go totally cheerleader on you, there are a lot of good things happening in St. Louis. Companies like the ones Arch City described are thriving (Centene, Express Scripts, Mallinckrodt, Scottrade, RGA, Stifel, Belden). Also, the research and start-up scene between Downtown, Cortex and the Danforth Center is burgeoning.

In this century core neighborhoods have seen investment and improvement on a scale that hadn't occurred in the previous 50 years, and those trends are only accelerating. Like RW pointed out, things are moving in the right direction, not only for stabilization, but also laying the foundation for growth. As a whole it might not have the same dynamism as Austin, Portland, Brooklyn, S.F, Atlanta or (apparently) Minne, but many of the (dare I say) most important areas of St. Louis have a lot of momentum, and all of the trends point toward that continuing. The progress has been overshadowed by the unfortunate events that grabbed the national media's attention, and the resulting highlighting of some core dysfunctions, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Current temperature in Minneapolis is eight below zero

I'll take St. Louis

A rebuttal of sorts from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/gov ... ck-people/

There's a conversation about this going on over at Skyscraperpage as well:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=215781

There is also a rebuttal on The Atlantic itself.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/newsr ... jpg?nk6nxt

^ I don't think those rebuttal articles are unfounded. I think they point out some very good points. I also do not know where you get the idea that Minneapolis blacks do much better than St. Louis blacks. The median household income for blacks in St. Louis was about $30,498 ($51,164 for whites) compared to $29,571 ($63,352 for whites) in Minneapolis. As you can see the black middle class is much more closer the white middle class in St. Louis, In Minneapolis the black middle class makes less than half the money. Not saying St. Louis is all roses for blacks, but to say Minneapolis is better is just not true. Obviously, there is also a much larger Afro-American middle class in St. Louis than the Twin Cities, but that goes without saying. I think the segregation and regional fragmentation hurts the black community more in St. Louis than anything, because black communities get poorer services across income levels. I just think there is a stereotype in St. Louis, that the majority black experience in St. Louis is drive-by shootings, drug deals, and riots, which is total nonsense. The black community is one of the most conservative in St. Louis. I just think many people on this forum have had little interaction with the black community in St. Louis (or anywhere for that matter), so the post dispatch and fox2now informs your opinions and reinforces your stereotypes, one of the tragedies of segregation.

^ good points Roger. Comparing Minneapolis to St. Louis is really apples and oranges in so many respects, the cities couldn't be more different. With that said, blacks are fleeing the city but the black population is actually still growing in the St. Louis metro, which is strange for a rust belt city. Although not on the same level as the Twin Cities, the Latino and Asian population is growing tremendously fast too. St. Louis is actually stagnate, because native-born Whites have been fleeing the region for decades. Surprisingly, St. Louis is actually getting very diverse, not as fast as booming cities, but the metro white population is dropping considerably every census and the city is become less black/white by the year. The problem in St. Louis seems to be that there is a mismatch between a region growing more diverse and a political establishment that is not reflecting this change. What is interesting is that we would probably have a similar growth rate to Minneapolis if we were able to retain some of those college educated, young whites, because that is who is leaving the region in droves. In fact, we could do better in educated our homegrown black population, who actually has an affinity for the city.

Also, its sad that Alex/NEXTSTL rarely reports on the Beyond Housing developments happening in NoCo. Communities like Normandy, Wellston, and Pagedale (in particular) are doing some super progressive things around community planning, great streets projects on Natural Bridge and Page (planned). Good urban design and TOD planned for St. Charles Rock Road station. Some real good stuff happening in inner ring North County. Imagine what Brentwood, Maplewood, Richmond Heights could do around Metrolink with their demand, squandered opportunity.

onecity wrote:There's nothing to see but success, and less successful metros trying to take MPLS down a notch.

What? In what universe is Washington DC (home of both the Washington Post and the Atlantic, from which the two linked articles were taken) less successful than Minneapolis? All three articles make relevant points—namely that Minneapolis is really good for certain demographics and not so great for others.

onecity wrote:^In the universe in which affordability and quality of life matters. MPLS is a city where you really can have it all without sacrificing much: nature, parks, no months of summer scorch, top notch arts institutions including the Walker Art Institute, MIA, McKnight Center for Photography and numerous others, an affordable house near the urban core chosen from a beautiful and well-maintained stock of craftsman styles, top-notch university education out the wazoo, good public schools, strong diversity including many races and the foreign born, great dining and brewing, cycling EVERYWHERE, a diverse and healthy economy with a lot of knowledge work, one of the nation's best music scenes, tons of Fortune 500s, tons of patents per capita, public radio powerhouse, progressive politics, lack of redneckery, cleanliness, and an extremely high quality of life in a city that is safe around the clock. Did I miss anything?

Those are all nice, qualitative things. I could rattle off a similar but much longer list for Washington. Have you spent any time in Washington? There's a reason that it's one of the fastest growing cities in the US. My point is that your criticism about "less successful metros trying to take MPLS down a notch" is ridiculous considering the sources of the two "rebuttal" articles. I don't think anyone here is offering up the rebuttals in an attempt to discredit Minneapolis, so don't take it personally. They're just two articles that came out in response to the "miracle" article. We're just linking them here for completeness and discussion.