Rank how the Top 10 Midwest Metros will stack up in 2030 (compared, America)

[Kaszilla]

Originally Posted by iNviNciBL3

Minneapolis is way too small for it to overtake Detroit.



Detroit feels way more like a small Chicago; and Minneapolis is basically a big Des Moines.

Mpls feels bigger in more ways than not imo.

[Shakeesha]

Originally Posted by Maintainschaos

It’s probably not going to look dramatically different.

That I can agree on.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by STLgasm

I still consider Cleveland to be the dominant metro in OH. It looks and feels the biggest and most metropolitan of the 3 Cs.

I do, too, but I think the prospects for growth for the other 2Cs over this decade are better so this is my guess on what things are like in 2030. Cleveland’s been having a good construction boom downtown and in University Circle, but the other 2Cs just seem to be growing faster. Basically, there’s a big clump of cities between MSP/Detroit and Milwaukee which is obviously quite a bit smaller by MSA and CSA than the others and not a state capital nor host to many very large institutions in comparison. Those in the middle can end up doing a lot of horse-trading as by one metric or another they shift positions and aren’t that far off from one another.

[jessemh431]

1. Chicago
2. Minneapolis
3. Detroit
4. Cleveland
5. Kansas City
6. Cincinnati
7. St. Louis
8. Columbus
9. Milwaukee
10. Indianapolis

Obviously this disregards population changes somewhat and focuses on a city's quality and future prospects.

[MrIndependent]

Chicago Tier
1.) Chicago - Has its own "tier" in the Midwest. Its status as a truly global city won't change. No real competition yet.

First Tier
Tie 2.) Minneapolis - will eventually overtake Detroit by 2030 in terms of GDP and population.
Tie 2.) Detroit will remain more nationally/globally relevant than MPLS in terms of real-world perception

Second Tier
4.) STL - this city could have been a Minneapolis-like success story. Unfortunately, the homicide rate is toxic as far as PR goes. On top of that, city vs. county politics is a huge roadblock. In spite of all those downsides, STL still has enough cultural cache that it can hold off KC and Indy....for now.
Tie 5.) Indy - making all the right moves. Great execution. Will clearly leapfrog its other regional peer cities in WI and OH. Unfortunately, Indy lacks the right cultural cache among a national/global audience to move any more spots up.
Tie 5.) KC - making the right moves, just not as well-executed as Indy. However, KC's cultural cache is stronger than Indy and is appreciating more rapidly. Worth noting that disputes between Johnson County KS vs KCMO have been major self-inflicted wounds. Until there's cross border cooperation between those two, KC will struggle to surpass Indy or STL.
7.) Columbus - the city will do more "growing up" by 2030. Best positioned Ohio MSA for future success.

Third Tier
Cleveland, Cincy, Milwaukee - they'll all make progress, but just not as quickly/aggressively as the cities in the Second Tier.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by MrIndependent

Chicago Tier
[...].
Tie 5.) KC - making the right moves, just not as well-executed as Indy. However, KC's cultural cache is stronger than Indy and is appreciating more rapidly. Worth noting that disputes between Johnson County KS vs KCMO have been major self-inflicted wounds. Until there's cross border cooperation between those two, KC will struggle to surpass Indy or STL. [...]

Johnson County* has been something of a thorn in the side of the metro, but I'd say the greater damage of late was inflicted not so much by the county but by the governor of Kansas, who, in a highly misguided and equally self-destructive "job creation" effort, dangled huge tax breaks in front of companies located on the Missouri side of State Line Road to move across it.

The nature of the breaks was such that they not only generated no net revenue for either Topeka or the cities and counties (county, really, since most of the moves have been to JoCo), but they deprived the state, county and municipality of revenue, since it seems that none of the geniuses pursuing this in the Sunflower State stopped to think that no Missourian working at one of these companies was going to follow the office to Kansas and any Kansan working for it would now be paying taxes to their boss rather than Topeka, Olathe or (Overland Park|Shawnee|Merriam|Lenexa|...)

The result? The budgets of the region's best school districts all cratered, and Topeka was hemorrhaging money as well thanks to the huge tax cuts the Governor enacted as a "red-state experiment." The experiment failed: It got so bad that the legislature, which was controlled by the Governor's party, finally overrode his veto of a tax hike to stanch the bleeding. After he resigned to take an ambassadorship, voters replaced his successor with a Democrat in the fall of 2018.

I think that said Governor finally accepted one of the olive branches Jefferson City had repeatedly offered Topeka to end this "border war." Kansas City's economic fortunes should improve from here out, even after Sprint HQ gets cleared out and Amazon buys AMC. After all, the city still owns Valentine's Day (didn't your honey give you | you give your honey a box of Russell Stover** chocolates and a Hallmark card along with the dozen roses?).

*My cousins Back Home usually insert a word beginning with F between "Johnson" and "County" when speaking of the place.

**Did someone give you a Whitman's Sampler instead? Same deal: Russell Stover Candies bought the venerable Philadelphia chocolate-maker somewhere close to 20 years ago now. The family that owned Russell Stover (one of whose members was a classmate of mine at Pembroke-Country Day) sold the firm to Swiss chocolatier Lindt about four years ago, but the company is run as a freestanding division out of 4900 Oak Street.

The reason you never see (or saw) Russell Stover or Hallmark in the Fortune 500: Both companies are (were, in Russell Stover's case) privately owned by the families that founded them (bought the candymaker they made boxes for in Russell Stover's case). Hallmark Cards, Inc., is, if not the, one of the largest privately-held companies in the United States. The Hall family did for Kansas City's core what the Rockefellers did for midtown Manhattan when they transformed a bunch of light-industrial and warehouse land around company headquarters into Crown Center.

[Isaysos]

I'm going to say, pretty much in 2030 as current and I'm going to go more than 10:
Chicago
(gap)
Tie for Minneapolis/ St. Paul and Detroit
St. Louis
Cleveland
Kansas City
Columbus (passing Indy)
Indianapolis
Cincinnati
Milwaukee
Grand Rapids/ Omaha (tie)
Des Moines
Madison
Dayton
Lincoln
Sioux Falls
Lansing
Fargo/Moorhead
Rochester
Ft. Wayne

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Isaysos

I'm going to say, pretty much in 2030 as current and I'm going to go more than 10:
[list deleted, except for the last entry:]
Ft. Wayne

There's a song that's pretty popular with LGBT choruses that emphasizes that we're not only everywhere, we're everyone. Called "Color Out of Colorado," it runs down a list of things that wouldn't be the same if it weren't for gay people, and I'm not just talking interior design. It makes all sorts of campy (and sometimes racy) references to the states of the Union much like what the title implies: get rid of the gay folk and you take the "color" out of Colorado.

We used to sing it fairly often in the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus.

Its last verse begins:

"Think of Provincetown, Key West and San Francisco
"Without us they'd be a lot more like Fort Wayne..."

[Texamichiforniasota]

Originally Posted by TacoSoup

There’s not too many people in this country, much less the world, that would put Minneapolis over Detroit, especially by a “gap”?

Originally Posted by iNviNciBL3

Minneapolis is way too small for it to overtake Detroit.

Detroit feels way more like a small Chicago; and Minneapolis is basically a big Des Moines.

I'd also put the Twin Cities Metro ahead of the Detroit Metro, having lived in both. It's still slightly behind in population, though catching up quickly, likely within 10-20 years. From an economic standpoint, MSP passed Detroit, and that gap is likely to widen the next few years post-COVID. Detroit is still an industrial heavy economy, and when car-buying slows down, the local economy tanks. The Twin Cities are more coporate heavy. It has some exposed sectors like retail (Best Buy and Target HQ), but others like Biotech that will likely do well (3M, Medtronic).

The Twin Cities MSA is younger than the Detroit MSA by 3 years, which is pretty significant from a demographic standpoint and means it will continue to have greater natural increase.

Median household income is already about $20K/yr higher in the Twin Cities MSA than in the Detroit MSA ($80K vs $60K). The economy in MSP is more knowledge based. Educational attainment- MSP 42.6% with bachelor's degree or higher (15% graduate degree) vs Detroit MSA 31.8% bachelor's or higher (13% graduate degree).

Detroit has done a good job in the last decade stopping the hemorrhaging. If you would have asked me 20 years ago, I would've picked Detroit to be in even worse shape than it is now. MSP isn't growing like the sunbelt, but it is the top growth metro in the Midwest.

[masssachoicetts]

Historically

1. Chicago
2. Detroit
3. St. Louis
4. Cleveland
5. Minneapolis

but now
1. Chicago
2. Minneapolis
3. Detroit
4. Indianapolis
5. St. Louis