minneapolis population (Eden Prairie, Lakeville, Richfield: apartment, condo, crime)

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by michael31681

I Saw On Wikipedia That The Twin Cities Metro Has 3,502,891 Is That True? I Didnt Think The Twin Cities Had That Many People.

Somewhere around there. Just over 5 million for the entire state. Makes you think.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by michael31681

I Saw On Wikipedia That The Twin Cities Metro Has 3,502,891 Is That True? I Didnt Think The Twin Cities Had That Many People.

That's about right. It's not a small metro area. Neither is Atlanta (estimated at 5.5 million right now), even though the City of Atlanta itself is only estimated to be around 486,411 as of July 2006.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by michael31681

i was looking for the site that shows minneapolis with a population over 400,000. where can i find that site?

The 1950 Census!

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

Minneapolis is land-locked. It can't forcibly annex, and I don't think Edina is going to submit anytime soon. The city will (and is) growing within its current limits. The Metropolitan Council estimates that it is currently over 400,000 and will reach 430,000 by 2030. While Minneapolis may be attractive for its current size regionally; on a city level it leaves alot to be desired. The ideal urban core has much more density than Minneapolis currently does. It works well now; but it would work best with more people within The City. More support of retail, more transit use, et cetera.
Omaha has annexed land that is undeveloped. While its raw population is larger, everybody will see that for what it is. If Mpls. did the same its population would top 1 million. Kansas City is even worse.
Chicago is physically larger because its historical population is larger. It is bound by the same annexation issues as Minneapolis. Like Minneapolis; Chicago's core is growing and making it a more desireable place to live. The same cannot be said for the growth on either of these cities' periphery.
Saint Paul does get the shaft. The problem lies in downtown and the industrial areas and freeways surrounding it. In Minneapolis; the CBD is surrounded by the city's most dense neighborhoods. You have a strong downtown and people who live in walking distance to it. Saint Paul has a depressed downtown (hardly a new phenomenon in the city, it has been for 70 years). That is only compounded by the fact that it is basically an island. 35E cutoff Summit Avenue. The east side is industrial, I can't even remember what is north. For a large city, Saint Paul is alot more suburban. It is the same geographic size. Give it time. Once Minneapolis fills up, people will spill into Saint Paul. Think San Francisco-Oakland (if Oakland was safe).

I agree. I don't think Mpls needs more land, it needs more people. In 1950, it had lots more people within the same city limits as today. Since then, Mpls, like most other US big cities, has "sprawled" within the city limits. Part of it has to do with smaller family sizes, but much has to do with federal urban "renewal" and "slum clearance" policies of the 50s/60s, ram-rodding of the freeways through the hearts of the cities in the 60s and 70s, buisness owners' constant need for more room for "vehicles" to park, resulting in the conversion of land use from residential and commercial buidlings to parking lots and ramps, and zoning laws that probited for a few dacades the buidling of buildings that have commercial on the first floor and residential on the upper floors, resulting in strip malls.

Perhaps suburbs need to sprawl, but it's a shame that our cities have been doing the same thing. Shouldn't those of us who value city environments have at least one small chunk of the Metro in which we can live?

RE: St Paul, also consider that prior to the 1890 census, it was the bigger of the Twin Cities!

[pepe1]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

I agree. I don't think Mpls needs more land, it needs more people. In 1950, it had lots more people within the same city limits as today. Since then, Mpls, like most other US big cities, has "sprawled" within the city limits. Part of it has to do with smaller family sizes, but much has to do with federal urban "renewal" and "slum clearance" policies of the 50s/60s, ram-rodding of the freeways through the hearts of the cities in the 60s and 70s, buisness owners' constant need for more room for "vehicles" to park, resulting in the conversion of land use from residential and commercial buidlings to parking lots and ramps, and zoning laws that probited for a few dacades the buidling of buildings that have commercial on the first floor and residential on the upper floors, resulting in strip malls.

All of those factors you have listed do have some effect on why many core cites lose population. But, you have neglected the absolute single biggest factor: Aging population. Residences that 20, 30, or 40 years ago were home to Mom, Dad, and their 2, 3, or 4 kids are now home to just Mom and Dad (maybe even just Mom). So the home that once housed 4, 5, or 6 people now houses 1.

[Minnehahapolitan]

1. I hate how metropolitan populations are calculated. They take Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Washington, Scott, Anoka and Carver Counties and add their populations. Belle Plaine is not in the Cities, neither is Watertown or Elko. Yet, all these cities are counted in the 3.5 million figure. They do it for every metropolitan area in the nation. It should be calculated on the number of people living in an area of continual, unbroken development ringing the core cities. However, that would take work.
2. Minneapolis' population loss hasn't hurt it nec., but it makes it harder to have public transportation, et cetera. As long as a unit is occupied, they city will be allright. However, that could hypothetically be 250,000 people. Population loss doesn't kill a city; it just precludes it from being great. You could have everything you have today in the city, and more, if it just were to have been planned and arranged right. Instead of a surface lot, build a ramp. A freeway can move people by taking a straight row of blocks (35W), it doesn't have to have viaducts serving a serpentine interstate (94 or Washington Avenue). Slum clearance is only bad when something better does no replace it. Unfortunately that was not the case in the 1950s. As far as I am concerned, you can take a good five blocks of houses out of Uptown right now. The issue of urbanity v. a hollowed city is not as bad as the issue of planning v. not planning. I would rather have a hollow city that heeds good planning than a decent city that does not. It is the difference between Orlando and Pittsburgh. Which would we rather live in? A city that has the blessings of growth and throws it away wantonly does not deserve to be called a city. Thus, Orlando, Charlotte and Phoenix remain towns in my view. People, esp. suburbanites, need to realize that the livability of their region depends on the state of their core city. Someone from Shaker Heights, Livonia or Metairie knows what I mean.
3. Pepe, or anyone I suppose. If you really want to see what aging can do to a city; Richfield is a much better example. For some reason, people think it is OK for an 85 year old to live in the same house for 60 years. It means that few new families have moved into Richfield for quite a few decades. It hurts schools, promotes population loss, costs the city new tax base and I think it is fairly obvious that alot of the houses in that area are not cared for as well as they should be. Cities need a cycle of people. It has hurt alot of the outlaying neighborhoods in the city, but not as bad when you look at the city as a whole. But Richfield is an independent city which is basically one of those outlaying city neighborhoods; it isn't getting support from another neighborhood in the city.
Sorry to ramble
---Minnehahapolitan

[bighusker]

Originally Posted by michael31681

i was reading about how cities annex some of there suburbs to increase in size. minneapolis is barely in the top fifty in terms of most populated cities in the usa. minneapolis covers only 55 square miles with in the city limits. how can we compete. i was looking at chicago and that city covers over 200 square miles in the city limits. omaha nebraska has more people then minneapolis. will minneapolis ever do this to increase in population? im from minneapolis and im proud of its sucess but i would like to see it hang with the big time cities.

I am from Omaha, originally. The reason Omaha has a bigger population is that there are hardly any suburbs. The ones that get too big generally get annexed by the city if they are in the same county (see Elkhorn as an example). Pretty much everyone in the Omaha metro area lives within the city limits. Many also consider Council Bluffs, Iowa to be a part of the metro, but other than that, there aren't many suburban towns/cities. Land-wise, Omaha is over 2x the size of Minneapolis. It is much less densely populated than the MSP metro area, and once you get out of the city limits, you are pretty much in the boonies. However, it is always fun to see people's reactions when I tell them Omaha is bigger than Minneapolis. Annexation has worked fine for Omaha, but it wouldn't be the answer everywhere. Most of the suburban cities/towns in the MSP metro area seem to be very self-sufficient and stabilized, and I think it'd be very ugly for Minneapolis to try and take them over.

The important statistic is the population of the "metro area", and the MSP metro area has double the amount of people as my home state. Inevitably, it will grow much larger, but I'm not sure that's such a great thing.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

. Pepe, or anyone I suppose. If you really want to see what aging can do to a city; Richfield is a much better example. For some reason, people think it is OK for an 85 year old to live in the same house for 60 years. It means that few new families have moved into Richfield for quite a few decades. It hurts schools, promotes population loss, costs the city new tax base and I think it is fairly obvious that alot of the houses in that area are not cared for as well as they should be. Cities need a cycle of people. It has hurt alot of the outlaying neighborhoods in the city, but not as bad when you look at the city as a whole. But Richfield is an independent city which is basically one of those outlaying city neighborhoods; it isn't getting support from another neighborhood in the city.

---Minnehahapolitan

I have lived in 2 different neighborhoods in Highland Park. In both, when we moved in virtually all of our neighbors were elderly. Their kids had grown and established homes of their own. As the years went by, these neighbors moved to condos, went into nursing homes, or died. Into their homes, young families moved in with plenty of kids. It really has rejuvenated the neighborhood. The old timers talk about when their kids were young, every house on the block had kids there, and they all went to the school in the next block. Now, after decades, the neighborhood is being re-populated.

Just around my house, in the past 10 years, the single middle aged woman moved out of the huge house two doors down, now home to a family of 5. Next door to me, the retired pharmacist passed away a year after his wife. Now we have a family of 6 next door. On the other side, the retired gentleman died and his disabled wife went into a nursing home. Now a family of 6 lives there. Behind us, the semi-retired couple moved to a condo and a single mom and daughter now live there. It is wonderful to see these neighborhoods reborn!

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

For some reason, people think it is OK for an 85 year old to live in the same house for 60 years.

If they own the property, why not? My great aunt lived in her own house on South Cedar Lake Road in Minneapolis not far from Bryn Mawr until she was over 100, and she was fairly active until the last year or so before she died. We always thought it was funny because she'd take a taxi to a retirement home every once in a while to bring the residents food, and she was usually older than they were.

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

Just around my house, in the past 10 years, the single middle aged woman moved out of the huge house two doors down, now home to a family of 5. Next door to me, the retired pharmacist passed away a year after his wife. Now we have a family of 6 next door. On the other side, the retired gentleman died and his disabled wife went into a nursing home. Now a family of 6 lives there. Behind us, the semi-retired couple moved to a condo and a single mom and daughter now live there. It is wonderful to see these neighborhoods reborn!

Ugh! With all of those people moving in, I would think that it was high time for ME to move on out.