Will Minneapolis ever see 500,000 again? (St. Paul: income, living, statistics)

[Radical_Car]

Originally Posted by City eYes

I think the city can do it, but it will take some time. The problem with large housing projects are that they can easily become slums if they are not planned or managed right. I like the smaller developments that have been popping up over the years. We also need more jobs here if we are going to see the population increase like that.

Thats a really good idea, large buildings and properties and such can easily become slums, well not quite literally, if they're not managed properly.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

It's obviously a generalization, but family size of immigrants is also mentioned in this immigration in MN report by the Minneapolis Foundation:
Immigration in MN Overview

There's no hard data in there. If there is a difference in family size between immigrant groups and people who were born here the difference has to be pretty small. I know alot of Hispanic immigrants in Minneapolis and none of them have more than 3 kids. I've seen some larger Somali families but it seems to be more of an exception than the norm.

If there's a difference it's probably like 1.8 kids for natives and 2.3 kids for foreign born...something like that.

[west336]

Slig,

That's a personal observation. A while ago I used to work for a Minneapolis non-profit that helped people pay their energy bills in the winter with subsidy, and many of the applicants who were Somali or Hmong especially had 5, 6, 7, 8 or more kids to claim on their reports. Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but I remember seeing first-hand how many children many of these poorer immigrants had with them.

[marmac]

What could a city of 500,000 offer that is lacking in a city of 385,000?

Just curious as some appear to think reaching 500,000 should be a goal or something.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by west336

Slig,

That's a personal observation. A while ago I used to work for a Minneapolis non-profit that helped people pay their energy bills in the winter with subsidy, and many of the applicants who were Somali or Hmong especially had 5, 6, 7, 8 or more kids to claim on their reports. Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but I remember seeing first-hand how many children many of these poorer immigrants had with them.

Yeah and that's your personal observation. We need actual birth rate data broken down by each immigrant group and then compare to the same data with native born Minnesotans in order to be able to make fair comparisons.

[Kid Cann]

Originally Posted by marmac

What could a city of 500,000 offer that is lacking in a city of 385,000?

Just curious as some appear to think reaching 500,000 should be a goal or something.

Besides the obvious - Diversity, ethnic festivals, more things to do as there are more people to please.

But more or less just thinking about the phenomenon of 'white flight'. The ending of WWII and advent of 'suburbia', many cities like St. Louis and Minneapolis lost many residents to suburbia.

Now, the trend since about the turn of the century has been younger families and individuals wanting to be IN the city or closer to it. That's why you have seen condos go up in Minneapolis since 2000. The 'city' used to be an unglamourous place. "Why would you live in an 1800s home packed like sardines in the dirty industrial city where people work, when we can live in your picket-fence suburbia split level in Golden Valley or Brooklyn Park?"

Now downtowns and 'cities' really aren't a bad place to live, and young professionals are wanting to live in the city or downtown more and more.

That's why.

[west336]

That's not happening Slig. If you're so adament about this why don't you look it up yourself? What makes you even question that remark in the 1st place? What is your standpoint? Do you even have one?

[gweilo845]

Some parts of the infrastructure of Minneapolis are barely functioning as it is. If you're really desperate for that big city feel, Chicago is close by.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by west336

That's not happening Slig. If you're so adament about this why don't you look it up yourself? What makes you even question that remark in the 1st place? What is your standpoint? Do you even have one?

My only point is that you shouldn't pass off generalizations made from personal observations as fact without any data to back it up. Saying that these small groups (relatively speaking) having very large families could increase the population of Minneapolis by a couple hundred thousand residents is absolutely ludicrous.

[smith21]

minneapolis could reach that someday if they continue to build condos and better transportation throughout the city. minneapolis already feels like a big city to me and i have been to chicago on the northside where it is dense but that still dosent take away the big city feeling in minneapolis to me. just like newyork is more then twice as dense and more then twice as big as chicago but chicago still feels big. i bet with the illigal immigrants in minneapolis and the unaccounted for that minneapolis is over 400,000 right now.