What is Minneapolis/St. Paul's Secret??

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

To me, the level of similarities/differences between the river cities (Pittsburgh, Cincy, Louisville, St. Louis) is roughly akin to the level of similarities/differences between the Great Lakes cities (Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee).

None of them are truly interchangeable with each other, obviously, though Buffalo and Milwaukee might come closest?

And all of them are in the same general overarching rustbelt family to some degree (some more than others, of course).

When it comes to rust belt/great lakes river cities.. dont forget about Minneapolis/St. Paul. I say that as someone who frequently forgets about it, and upon thinking about why i forget about it, i realized there is some sort of je ne sais quoi that sets it apart from the rust belt.. how the hell is it so successful?

If i were sitting in 1960 predicting what rust belt cites were MOST likely to decline, I wouldve put MSP at the very top of the list. It seemingly has NOTHING going for it... its the coldest, most remote city in the midwest, it isnt close to a great lake or the appalachians or hurons or anything particularly pretty (all the prettiest parts of minnesota -and there are many, to be fair- are hours away, near and beyond Duluth).

And even from a purely economic perspective, the Mississippi river, which built Minnesota's economy, historically freezes over for a couple months of the year up there. And the place doesnt have any major universities either!! Dont get me wrong, U of M and Macalester are great schools. But theyre not on the same level as Carnegie Mellon or Michigan, let alone UChicago or Wash U STL.

So what the hell is it?? The more i think about it the more perplexed and impressed i become.

Actually i think im gonna put this one in a new thread

[jbermingham123]

When it comes to rust belt/great lakes/mississippi system river cities, Minneapolis/St. Paul, which logically ought to be in a group with St. Louis, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, stands out. How has it been so successful? It has not one, but two largely intact downtowns, most of its historic neighborhoods are still dense and healthy, and it has a growing population.

If i were sitting in 1960 predicting what soon-to-be-rust belt cites were MOST likely to decline, I wouldve put MSP at the very top of the list. It seemingly has NOTHING going for it... its the coldest, most remote city in the midwest, and it isnt close to anything particularly pretty like a great lake or the appalachians or hurons. All the prettiest parts of minnesota -and there are many- are hours away, near and beyond Duluth!

And even from a purely economic perspective, the Mississippi river, which built Minnesota's economy, historically freezes over for a couple months of the year up there (thats changing now, of course). And the region doesnt have any major universities either!! Dont get me wrong, U of M and Macalester are great schools. But theyre not on the same level as Carnegie Mellon or Michigan, let alone UChicago or Wash U STL.

In 1950, Pittsburgh had the steel industry, and Detroit had the world's largest manufacturing base. Minneapolis had... what, mining and timber?

So what the hell is it?? The more i think about it the more perplexed and impressed i become

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

When it comes to rust belt/great lakes river cities.. dont forget about Minneapolis/St. Paul. I say that as someone who frequently forgets about it, and upon thinking about why i forget about it, i realized there is some sort of je ne sais quoi that sets it apart from the rust belt.. how the hell is it so successful?

If i were sitting in 1960 predicting what rust belt cites were MOST likely to decline, I wouldve put MSP at the very top of the list. It seemingly has NOTHING going for it... its the coldest, most remote city in the midwest, it isnt close to a great lake or the appalachians or hurons or anything particularly pretty (all the prettiest parts of minnesota -and there are many, to be fair- are hours away, near and beyond Duluth).

So what the hell is it?? The more i think about it the more perplexed and impressed i become.

It's not rust belt.

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by pj3000

It's not rust belt.

...thats my point. And yes, i know the conversation was about the rust belt, and i am aware that I am causing a tangent. I started another thread for the record.

Here is a rephrasing of the question for anyone who is upset or pendantic:

Why did minneapolis avoid becoming part of the rust belt? All the cities to the East, South, and Southwest of it (Kansas City) experienced severe hollowing out and decline in large areas.

Why, after every city in the midwest has suffered acutely for the last 50 years, has MSP thrived?

[benp]

Originally Posted by pj3000

It's not rust belt.

Exactly. There wasn't large pollution-belting steel production, coke production, coal burning, shipping and storage of raw materials and waste products - along with the associated tens of thousands of jobs - that unceremoniously shut down, left town, left tens of thousands suddenly unemployed and a legacy of abandoned factories, brownfields, superfund sites, vacant housing, chronic health issues, and loss of future generations of workers who moved on to other cities.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by benp

Exactly. There wasn't large pollution-belting steel production, coke production, coal burning, shipping and storage of raw materials and waste products - along with the associated tens of thousands of jobs - that unceremoniously shut down, left town, left tens of thousands suddenly unemployed and a legacy of abandoned factories, brownfields, superfund sites, vacant housing, chronic health issues, and loss of future generations of workers who moved on to other cities.

Never really seen it put that way before.

[jbermingham123]

Oh I see!! So MSP, despite being in the midwest, didnt decline because there was not much heavy industry there to begin with, and is thus -economically speaking- more of a Western city, like, say, Denver

Thats very interesting

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Never really seen it put that way before.

Same.. that just blew my mind

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

...thats my point. And yes, i know the conversation was about the rust belt, and i am aware that this is a tangent. I started another thread for the record.

Here is a rephrasing of the question for anyone who is upset or pendantic:

Why did minneapolis avoid becoming part of the rust belt? All the cities to the East, South, and Southwest of it (Kansas City) experienced severe hollowing out and decline in areas of the city.

Why, after every city in the midwest has suffered acutely for the last 50 years, has MSP thrived?

I think you might want to check out where and what is considered the rust belt is. South and Southwest of Minneapolis is not the rust belt.

Minneapolis didn't have its primary economy based on the same sectors and structure common to rust belt cities.

Minneapolis' economy was primarily based on a continuing evolution of producing value-added agricultural products, which were not affected in the same way by the same pressures as the primary metals products industries were. Minneapolis, quite simply, never had a huge generational percentage of its workforce working in steel mills or directly employed in industries downstream of the mills. Instead, there were already huge integrated food conglomerates by the end of WW2, which made Minneapolis the major American player in global food markets. Add development of a computer tech industry to it postwar, and you have no rust belt.

So basically, it's not rust belt because it didn't have the ingredients to become part of the rust belt. It is a simple as my previous answer.

EDIT: But benp's answer above is more direct and visceral. Minneapolis was never built and then subsquently destroyed by its own industries, like what took place in the rust belt.

[Chef]

The Twin Cities industrial base began with food processing, most of which is still here. Geography and transportation costs mean that those jobs will probably never be offshored. When people talk about the area's economic success they usually start with the white collar work force, and forget that the metro still has a relatively large manufacturing job base and a lot of blue collar jobs that pay well.

[pdxtex]

Diversified economy, high population of instate born residents, Scandinavian pragmatism. Two cities that provide the state's complete civic needs right next door to one another.

[sopas ej]

Minnesota was never considered part of the so-called Rust Belt, right?

I'll be honest and say that I know nothing about Minneapolis, but my guess is that after WWII, its population declined like most every other US big core city because of the rise of the suburbs. From what it seems now, its population is growing because of non-white immigration.

[benp]

Unlike the other river cities mentioned, Minneapolis was a mill town, as the river was not navigable as a wide-river port, so it wasn't particularly a center of transportation and shipping, and therefore less affected as national and international shipping patterns changed over time. Unlike Great Lakes cities or Rust Belt cities, it was never a center of iron and steel production, so never had the rapid (and dirty) industrial growth that, once it crashed, left a legacy of destruction, decay, pollution, unemployment, and abandonment. Also, because it wasn't a thriving industrial city like those Rust Belt cities, it never attracted large numbers of poor Southerners during the Great Migration, and the subsequent white flight that followed, nor the resulting decay and decline of the neighborhoods of former unskilled workers unable to find employment following the departure of industries, along with job losses as remaining industries automated.

Minneapolis' secret is not what it had, but what it didn't have - a large labor and land intensive low skilled dirty industry that raped the land and then abandoned its land and workers. Essentially it existed with more of a clean slate than those other cities.

[SIGSEGV]

I could be wrong, but I feel like Minnesota has never had a "fuck the cities" attitude in state government.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

I could be wrong, but I feel like Minnesota has never had a "fuck the cities" attitude in state government.

Both parties used to have an element of it but it wasn't big enough to to actually harm the cities the way it was in other states. Since the rise of the tea party and MAGA the state Republicans have explicitly become the political vehicle for outstate grudges against the cities but at this point the Twin Cities plus Rochester and Duluth are enough of the state population that it has been political suicide for the Republicans.

[Docere]

Not being in the Rust Belt and the political culture of Minnesota?

[Steely Dan]

Because it's in Canada, duh.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

And the place doesnt have any major universities either!! Dont get me wrong, U of M and Macalester are great schools. But theyre not on the same level as Carnegie Mellon or Michigan, let alone UChicago or Wash U STL.

U. of Minnesota might not be at the same level of eliteness as Ann arbor or U.Chicago or Wash U or whatever, but it is absolutely a major university with a total student body of ~55,000.



And FWIW, here are the 17 Midwest universities that landed in the top 100 universities in the nation as ranked by USNWR 2023 (flaws and all).

It's safe to say the U. of Minnesota is a pretty big deal within that regional context.

#9. Northwestern University - evanston
#12. University of Chicago - chicago
#20. University of Notre Dame - south bend
#21. University of Michigan - ann arbor
#24. Washington University - st. louis
#35. University of Illinois - champaign
#35. University of Wisconsin - madison
#43. Ohio State University - columbus
#43. Purdue University - west lafayette
#53. Case Western Reserve University - cleveland
#53. University of Minnesota - minneapolis
#60. Michigan State University - east lansing
#73. Indiana University - bloomington
#82. University of Illinois Chicago - chicago
#86. Marquette University - milwaukee
#93. University of Iowa - iowa city
#98. Illinois Institute of Technology - chicago

[James Bond Agent 007]

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[FromSD]

I think the political culture of the state has a lot to do with it. Minnesota, the home of Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, was the only state to go for the Democrats in 1984. Minnesota drifted a bit to the center with governors like Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty in the'80s and '90s, but there just isn't the constituency for the anti-city agenda that you get in more Republican states.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are now dwarfed by their suburbs, but the Twin Cities metro, more than most metros, appears to have tamped down the city versus suburb hostility that you get in many metros in the Midwest and Northeast. It's my understanding that Metro government is a real thing in the Twin Cities area, and that steps have even been taken for some measure of revenue sharing so that there is less incentive for cities to compete and undercut each other.

And of course, there are the demographic differences in Minnesota which until the last few decades was overwhelmingly white. Minneapolis and St. Paul both experienced significant population loss, but not because of white flight. I think much of the loss was due to shrinking household sizes and loss of neighborhoods due to freeway construction. Whites fleeing African Americans looks to be less important, though I'm no expert on the Twin Cities so am willing to be informed otherwise by anyone who knows more about the area.