What do you love about the twin cities? (Minneapolis, Richfield: neighborhood, income)

[Dennis Schroeder]

Originally Posted by millcityleo79

As an example, the highest % of African-American's in any census tract in the Twin Cities is 72%. That is one tiny census tract with only a few others in the 50%s and 60%s. Compare to Chicago...nearly the whole south side of Chicago has 90+% African-American census tracts with many having 0% white population. That is CLEARLY not diversity...and CLEARLY segregation. Again, not to say anything bad about Chicago...I LOVE Chicago. But, on a tract by tract basis, most of our core cities (Minneapolis and St Paul) are more diverse on a neighborhood level than at least 2/3 of the city of Chicago.

That's not because the other census tracts are better integrated though, it's because there aren't as many black people as there are in Chicago. There are quite a few neighborhoods in the Twin Cities that are 85-95% white. There are very few neighborhoods with balanced numbers of black and white people, and even fewer with black, white, asian and hispanics. In fact you only see that in Brooklyn Park.

[StPaulGal]

Saint Paul is roughly 60% non-Hispanic white and 40% who identify as some form of minority. It may not be Sacramento, but it's hardly devoid of diversity.

[millcityleo79]

Originally Posted by Dennis Schroeder

That's not because the other census tracts are better integrated though, it's because there aren't as many black people as there are in Chicago. There are quite a few neighborhoods in the Twin Cities that are 85-95% white. There are very few neighborhoods with balanced numbers of black and white people, and even fewer with black, white, asian and hispanics. In fact you only see that in Brooklyn Park.

Neighborhood balance of races is something rarely found in the US (outside of the major cities like LA, NYC, Chicago, and SF). But, we do have a good amount of diversity (ESPECIALLY FOR A MIDWEST CITY)...you only have to look at our core cities to see that. Of course, there are a few areas within both Minneapolis and St Paul that have a higher white population (namely Highland and SW Minneapolis). But, overall, we are relatively diverse in almost all of our suburbs and certainly in our core cities. PLUS, these maps are from 2010...our Twin Cities are becoming more diverse every day...and, again, most people I know are happy to see such great diversity throughout the metro area.

[StPaulGal]

To the original question:

I love how strong the economy is here, with 6 Fortune 500 companies, 27 Fortune 1000 companies, and 5 of the largest privately held companies (including Cargill, which is the largest private corporation in the US.)

I love the strong focus on education, with great public schools K-12 and scores of well-regarded institutions of higher learning.

I love the comfortable size of the metro--large enough to offer seemingly endless dining/entertainment/shopping/etc. options, but not SO large that going downtown is an ordeal reserved for special occasions. You can visit friends on the far opposite side of the metro without it being a huge and terrible undertaking. (I mean, we still gripe about it, but it's not like NYC where it can literally take hours to get from one end to the other.)

I love how lakes, parks, and rivers are integrated into the city in such a way that you are never far from some green space.

I love the theater and art scene, from traveling Broadway plays to tiny experimental shows; from highly curated museums to grassroots art shanties on White Bear Lake.

I LOVE THE FOOD SCENE! We are in the midst of a food and beverage renaissance here, with more and more nationally-recognized restaurants opening each year. We also have a very wide variety of unpretentious hole-in-the-wall places putting out great, high-quality food and craft cocktails.

I love how friendly people are. This is not utopia, and we certainly have our grouches here just like anywhere else, but I have found people here to be incredibly willing to help their fellow human beings out. For example, I witnessed a guy tip over on his motorized scooter a few days ago. Literally every person who was within sight of him immediately ran over to make sure he was okay, and people helped collect his belongings that scattered, helped him check his scooter for damage, helped him stand up off the pavement, etc. etc. etc. There was not one single individual who just walked on without coming to his aid.

I love the relative affordability of real estate. Interest.com ranked MSP as the top major city for home ownership in their annual Home Affordability Study for the last 2 years running. There are great, highly livable, city neighborhoods that are not out of reach for "normal" people.

I also love the relative safety. Any city is going to have its challenges, but there is nowhere here that I feel unsafe or uncomfortable to drive through at any time of day or night. There are certainly places I wouldn't want to walk alone, but there are no areas that get a blanket "stay out of ___."

[millcityleo79]

Also, go spend some time on the South Side of Chicago and some time on the North Side of Milwaukee...or the suburbs of Milwaukee, for that matter. There is no diversity there! People are separated (for the most part) by race in those areas. We don't have that on a grand scale here. If we do, it's in sparsely populated further out suburbs (or a few very rich city neighborhoods with mansions). It's not in the city, for the most part.

Just a side note...in almost every American city (outside of, maybe NYC and LA), you will have areas within the city that have a 80-90% white...because, currently, white people make up the majority (approx 64% in 2010) in the U.S. That is no surprise. Also, in America, outside of the major cities (top 5, probably), to have a suburb outside of the inner-ring suburbs (and even in some of those) that is less than 85-90% white is definitely the exception, not the norm.

[treemoni]

Minneapolis is "integrated" because historically it doesn't have a large non white population. Most ppl in Minnesota tolerate minorities. You'll see real problems occur as more minorities move in. It's kinda easy to be integrated when white ppl are still a huge majority of the population. Let's see how the Twin Cities handles true integration. I don't think it will go well.

[Dennis Schroeder]

I am from the south side of Chicago. I know what Chicago is like. And pretty much every other city in the midwest (besides Milwaukee, I 've never been there) Minneapolis is diverse enough. But what makes up diversity there is not that much different than other places in the midwest. MSP has Somali and Hmong, St. Louis has Bosnians, Detroit has Arabs and Iraqis, Cleveland has Puerto Ricans, KC has Sudanese, etc. The big difference is Minneapolis never had (and still doesn't have) a large african american population like most every other midwestern city.

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by Dennis Schroeder

That's not because the other census tracts are better integrated though, it's because there aren't as many black people as there are in Chicago. There are quite a few neighborhoods in the Twin Cities that are 85-95% white. There are very few neighborhoods with balanced numbers of black and white people, and even fewer with black, white, asian and hispanics. In fact you only see that in Brooklyn Park.

That's not true. You see huge balance between non-Hispanic whites, black, and Asian-Americans in census tracts across the Northside.

Hispanics and Latinos are mostly confined to the Southside.

At one point a few years ago, Minneapolis had the most diverse African-American population in the United States, outside of NYC, as measured by nation of origin. I will dig up the article for you if you don't believe me.

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by Dennis Schroeder

I am from the south side of Chicago. I know what Chicago is like. And pretty much every other city in the midwest (besides Milwaukee, I 've never been there) Minneapolis is diverse enough. But what makes up diversity there is not that much different than other places in the midwest. MSP has Somali and Hmong, St. Louis has Bosnians, Detroit has Arabs and Iraqis, Cleveland has Puerto Ricans, KC has Sudanese, etc. The big difference is Minneapolis never had (and still doesn't have) a large african american population like most every other midwestern city.

That's due to patterns of the Great Migration. African-Americans from the South tended to move to whatever large cities were least expensive to travel to. This is why (typically, not universally) you will find that African-Americans in the Northeast have familial ties to the Southeast, and African-Americans in the Midwest more typically have familial ties to the South west of Alabama. Minneapolis was more expensive to get to than Chicago or St. Louis, and the flour mills were not any more attractive to potential employees than any of the manufacturing/industrial jobs in the rest of the Midwest. So why bother moving to Minneapolis if the train tick to Chicago is cheaper, and the ride is shorter?

I am going to challenge you on the assertion that every other Midwestern city has the type of diversity in terms of national origin that Minneapolis does. Both of the Twin Cities are somewhere between 15-20% foreign-born.....no other Midwestern city even sniffs that (besides Chicago, which obviously surpasses it).

St. Louis's Bosnian population and Detroit's Arab populations perhaps being exceptions, the sizes of most immigrant/refugee populations in the Midwest are insignificant when compared to the Twin Cities' Somali population, which numbers between 35-50,000 (according to the census), and is more realistically estimated around 80,000. Asian-Americans constitute over 15% of the population of St. Paul; many of them are of Hmong descent. Quick head-math....there are probably at least 25,000 Hmong-Americans, and at most 35,000....JUST in St. Paul. Almost nobody else in the Midwest (again, besides Chicago and probably suburban Detroit) even sniffs immigrant/2nd Gen-American communities of that size and scale.

The Sudanese are more densely concentrated (as I learned it) in Lincoln, NE than in KC...

[srsmn]

According to this link, the Twin Cities have the third highest gross number of foreign-born residents (after Chicago and Detroit) of any Midwestern metro area, the second-largest foreign-born population percentage-wise (outside of Chicago, and discounting two college towns). It is the only Midwestern metro-area with double-digit percentage of foreign-born residents, besides Chicago. Minnesota's metropolitan areas have the second highest percentage of foreign-born residents, after Illinois. Twin Cities' metro foreign-population is over twice the size of St. Louis's, Cleveland's, Columbus's, and Kansas City's, over three times the size of Indianapolis's, and over four times the size of Cincinnati's. Detroit outpaces us by about 40,000 foreign-born residents in a metro with over one million more residents, total:

http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sit...d_June2014.pdf