minneapolis population (St. Paul, St. Cloud, Carver: living in, store, moving)

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

Minneapolis is car culture.

But only for the past 40-50 years of its history. 100 years ago, it was horse, pedestrian and trolley culture. Just because a place is what it is today, doesn't mean it has to be that way into perpetuity. Minneapolis has been retrofitted for the automobile since its founding, no reason it can't be retro-fitted again with more sustainable forms of transportation!

Ben Around sez: Don't limit your thinking!

[Elle Coolio]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

How do you know the entire population of Minneapolis wants a little space? Do I not live in this city? There are plenty of people who would love to live in a more dense area. It has little bearing on you if you do want to live in a more suburban, or even rural, area. In fact, having more people in the city center makes it easier to have suburban areas. Less people on suburban roads, et cetera.
Having more density does not necessairily imply more expensive prices. That is more regionally based. People pay to live in Manhattan because (while many wealthy people live there, making it desireable) it is in the New York region. There are also many modest (and dense) areas of the New York area. If an apartment ever goes for $2,000 in Minneapolis, they average suburban home will be $500,000. It will have had little to do with densification in the city proper other than that it makes the city core a more desireable area. A million people will move into the metropolitan area if we like it or not. We can put more of those people in the city proper, and have a more vibrant core (which alot of people in the core want) and better preservation of bucolic suburbs. We could house those people in sprawl on the fringes of the city and see how they get to work. The freeways would be congested and the schools overburdened. If they are in the city, they may not need a second (or first) car. Which would you prefer?

No where did I say THE ENTIRE POPULATION WANTS THIS but I have talked to many that have expressed their enjoyment of space and less density than many other cities. BTW, the schools ARE overburdened already in Minneapolis, I'm a 23 year veteran of the district, and MNDOT seems to have no clue as to how to keep up with the continually growing population of this region, thus the roads are already and have been crowded. NO, not to LA standards but crowded nonetheless, especially given the challenges winter brings when it comes to the commute. My basic point was why someone would be wishing for a city to be of a certain density so we can "hang" with other big time cities when they could simply live in one of the cities they so admire. I liked Mpls. when I first moved here in '78 and now find that with all it growing population, so is the crime, the cost, etc., therefore I'm looking for a smaller city instead of wishing Mpls. could hang with the smaller cities.

[Minnehahapolitan]

The space you enjoy as a resident here can only be maintained if people are also willing to move into the core city; otherwise we will have Atlantaesque traffic in only a matter of a couple decades.
The MPS are overburdened from a lack of students. They need more students to have more funding, a twenty-three year veteran of the system should know that all too well. Other districts are overburdened because of too many students which they cannot physically accomodate.
It isn't that MnDOT doesn't know how to make a coherent road system; it is that Mpls. has reached a critical point where it can no longer build its way out of congestion. You will not see another freeway built in the core area of the region, I494 can only get so big. The best option to ease congestion is to promote new means of transporttion; be it public, bicycles or birch-bark canoes. If fewer people are on the roads, there is more room for commerce and suburbanites.
I am wishing for more density because it is the best urban form for a sustainable and coherent style. I don't fancy my city a Manhattan, It never will be and I wouldn't want it. It is silly to try to find alterior motives here when there simply aren't any. Minneapolis is going to have the same national importance if it decides to make good decisions or bad ones. If I wanted to "hang" with larger cities I would make a case to steal the headquarters of a half-dozen Fortune 500 companies and half the MoMA art collection.
Minneapolis is never going to be the same city it was in the Carter Administration. The population growth here is inevitable. It leaves only one question; how does the city best cope with that gain? If you think that answer is to continue to push the geographic boundaries of urbanization, neither of us will get what we want.

[Synopsis]

Why introduce more sprawl? I think Minneapolis and St. Paul are attractive cities as they are. I definitely have a high opinion of the area.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by Minnehahapolitan

The space you enjoy as a resident here can only be maintained if people are also willing to move into the core city; otherwise we will have Atlantaesque traffic in only a matter of a couple decades.

While Twin Cities traffic could certainly get a lot worse, I don't think the Twin Cities will ever get to the same point that Atlanta is experiencing, mainly because the basic secondary road layout in the Twin Cities is gridlike enough that there were always be multiple routes one can take from place to place.

Atlanta's main issue isn't just sprawl, but the fact that the Atlanta metro has both serious sprawl and a road system that looks like a plate of spaghetti. Take a look at the road layout on Google Maps sometime. The interstate layout isn't too bad except perhaps for the "downtown connector" where 75 and 85 join in the middle of Atlanta proper, but the secondary roads are mainly a mess, and most of roads in suburban Atlanta weren't "planned" as much as they were built up from dirt roads and such which were already in place. Roads don't generally go N/S or E/W at all, and sometimes there isn't a direct route at all between two points outside of the interstates. It's really ... crazy.

[Minnehahapolitan]

Without a doubt; I used Atlanta as an example of a city with a slightly smaller core, but with an added million or so people in the suburbs. It isn't like the outer counties are particularly well-planned here either. All of Lakeville, Burnsville, Apple Valley and Savage have two freeways to get into Minneapolis. Scott County has one.

[dubuqueaskme]

Inside the perimeter in Atlanta is where the "core" is, It pretty much makes a circle around the edge of the city... If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 2.5 million live inside the "perimeter," which includes Fulton, Gwinnett, Dekalb, Cobb, Clayton, and maybe Douglas, I am not positive... the suburbs have exploded and the interstates haven't expanded, except in Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas, Gwinnett, and southern Bartow... Areas around Bartow and Cherokee Counties, especially the ladder, have just boomed in population, take a look at Canton, Georgia and see what I mean... to go from 7,000 to 20,000 in FIVE years... and the county to more than double it's population in ten is extraordinary and a surpreme example or urban sprawl...and where do these people who move to Cherokee County work, in Atlanta, GRIDLOCKING the interstates everyday... there is no room to expand on the sides either, because that it where the commercial and residential developments are focused... urban sprawl in Georgia. Cherokee is NOT the only county with this problem, in nearby Euharlee/Cartersville, GA, the population has also boomed... I am wondering when it will end, when will it all come to a screeching halt?

[Minnehahapolitan]

I think it began when the reservoir ran dry and the governor made a press conference/rain dance/public prayer.

[michael31681]

i heard there is a northstar commuter rail in the works is that going to go through? does anybody know what the status of northstar is and also the light rail linking minneapolis and stpaul is?

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by dubuqueaskme

Inside the perimeter in Atlanta is where the "core" is, It pretty much makes a circle around the edge of the city... If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 2.5 million live inside the "perimeter," which includes Fulton, Gwinnett, Dekalb, Cobb, Clayton, and maybe Douglas, I am not positive...

Actually, I would guess less than a million. It's a very small area of the map -- the percentage of the land area ITP which isn't inside the City of Atlanta proper is actually very small, and Atlanta is only 550,000 people or so.

That's why the ITP vs. OTP debate in the Atlanta metro seems to be largely an urbanite vs. suburbanite issue -- that's where the boundaries are drawn, almost literally.



If you look at the map above (and the interactive version at this site), you'll see that Cobb (where I live) is almost entirely OTP (outside of the I-285 loop), and both Gwinnett and Douglas are completely OTP as is the majority of the land area of all of the counties you mention including Fulton.

(The City of Atlanta is the little grey blob in the center, and the roads being shown are all interstates -- I-285, I-75, I-85, and I-20). I see I-575 isn't shown. Strange. And 400 is shown, which isn't an interstate but which is a pretty large freeway in its own right.

Anyway... The 285 loop only encloses perhaps 1/3 of Fulton, the western 1/3 of Dekalb, the NW tip of Clayton County, and the little nip of Cobb around the Vinings/Cumberland area.

Of course, the above only strengthens your general point:

the suburbs have exploded and the interstates haven't expanded, except in Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas, Gwinnett, and southern Bartow... Areas around Bartow and Cherokee Counties, especially the ladder, have just boomed in population, take a look at Canton, Georgia and see what I mean... to go from 7,000 to 20,000 in FIVE years... and the county to more than double it's population in ten is extraordinary and a surpreme example or urban sprawl...and where do these people who move to Cherokee County work, in Atlanta, GRIDLOCKING the interstates everyday... there is no room to expand on the sides either, because that it where the commercial and residential developments are focused... urban sprawl in Georgia. Cherokee is NOT the only county with this problem, in nearby Euharlee/Cartersville, GA, the population has also boomed... I am wondering when it will end, when will it all come to a screeching halt?

All of the above is true. I think it will only end when we run out of resources to drive it all, and I suspect water issues will become a deciding factor unless the local governments here get their ducks in a row fairly quickly...