What if Minneapolis and St. Paul Were Closer Together or One Big City?

[MidwestRedux]

If the twins were conjoined at the downtown, the development of the metro area would have probably been different for better and for worse.

If you effectively had one central business district instead of two, the cities themselves would probably be more dense, as would the surrounding inner-ring suburbs. The metro area probably wouldn't feel as suburban as it does. Compared to similar sized northern metro areas, the Twin Cities are somewhat lacking in dense and walkable neighborhoods and suburbs outside of the areas in and around the CBDs.

Its very difficult to speculate because there are so many underlying factors, but you could argue that the cities that grew larger and denser had more urban decay and net population decline.

Sticking with midwestern cities, the CSA of Cleveland is closest in population with 3.5 million vs. 3.8 million in the twin cities. List of Combined Statistical Areas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The population of the city Minneapolis peaked around 1950 at about 520,000. It now stands at about 400,000, which is less than a 25% decrease from peak. Cleveland also peaked around 1950 with a population of about 914,000 but now sits at about 390,000, which is a decrease of about 55% from peak. You would find similar correlative evidence in St Louis (also pretty close in CSA size) which peaked at 856,000 in 1950 with a current population of about 318,000.

Again, I realize there are many differences between these areas including demographics and core industries. However, in the cities that have experienced the most urban decay, it is generally the neighborhoods outside the CBD that had the densest populations at peak that have bared the brunt of the decay. By spreading the population over two cities instead of one, peak density was lower in the TCs as was the extent of urban decay. Just a theory...

[rzzzz]

Minneapolis avoided urban decay by simply razing the parts of downtown where people lived and stuff was happening.

[WoodburyWoody]

Originally Posted by rzzzz

Minneapolis avoided urban decay by simply razing the parts of downtown where people lived and stuff was happening.

"Down on Skid Row" from TPT might give you a peek:

Video: Down On Skid Row, A Tape's Rolling! Special | Watch TPT Documentaries Online | TPT Video

More:
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistor...03p112-115.pdf

[MplsTodd]

If the twin cities just had one major city, I think that would have helped the downtown. As twin cities, our downtowns have to split lots of regional amenities between the two downtowns.
But, having twin cities adjacent to one another does give us a large urbanized area between the two downtowns. I actually think this makes the area more dense. I enjoy making the 9 mile or so drive between the two downtowns along University. Though it ebbs and flows, there is a definite urban character to this whole corridor. Now that there is LRT along University, I would think there will be more mixed-use development in the Midway area further densifying the area. Without another major downtown 9 miles away, I think the density would likely decline and the landscape would be much more suburban.