Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Parks, Minneapolis Public Schools, Density, Zoning, etc.
martykoessel
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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby martykoessel » August 20th, 2021, 1:48 pm

Yes, I’m an inline skater, and despite enjoying Philly a lot, the park trails here were infinitely better for moving along on wheels. Philly often became a sort of obstacle course, even along the Schuykill River.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » August 20th, 2021, 9:00 pm

Yes, I’m an inline skater, and despite enjoying Philly a lot, the park trails here were infinitely better for moving along on wheels. Philly often became a sort of obstacle course, even along the Schuykill River.
Where the heck do you go to find more than several blocks worth of skateable trail in the twin cities? The pavement is pretty badly deteriorated everywhere I go.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Didier » August 23rd, 2021, 11:37 am

I'm a runner, but the biggest things was the parks and our infrastructure. I realized why we rank so high in parks and how glad I am to be near the Grand Rounds and to be able to run around our lakes and the river. I also thought our infrastructure on averaged seemed to be better maintained, but we have some advantages there of being a younger city.
I too am a runner, and I've made a point of trying to run in other downtown areas while traveling for work. Nowhere I've been comes close to what we have here.

A lot of cities have little areas with nice paths etc. Like I was in St. Louis this summer and the new Arch Grounds are very nice, but if you want to do a 4-mile run in downtown St. Louis that doesn't involve city blocks or creepy isolated and unpleasant train corridors, your only real option is to run back and forth across the Arch Grounds.

Kansas City has a nice and newer path by a river, but it's not close to anything, is relatively isolated and not terribly long.

Pittsburgh was overall a neat city but the only real running trail I found was a pretty industrial route across the Monongahela that I recall just kind of ending in a random spot.

San Jose had a linear park that was kind of cool in a "California vibes" kind of way, but also kind of isolated (ie creepy) and not very long.

Anaheim had a trail I considered driving to, but then I found a few online reviews with key words such as "Mad Max" and "man with a whip," so ended up sticking with the hotel treadmill. (Aside, but Anaheim might be the worst major American city I've visited.)

Phoenix (another city I didn't like) had a man-made river with gravel on each side, which was fine for like a day. The trail also had no barrier before a 45-degree hill down to the water, which was a little concerning. Another day I found a random park and ran back and forth like six times. (I suppose neither of these are really "downtown" running, though)

Even Boston I found to be surprisingly mediocre. Staying at the Marriott in the Back Bay area (ie a great location), I ran up Commonwealth Avenue and into Boston Common (because that sounded like it'd be a cool thing to say I did), but that was like a mile. I eventually found my way to the Charles River, where there was a trail that kind of had armpit vibes, tucked behind a larger road and without great access. Looking on Google maps it appears the trail continues on and gets nicer, but I was surprised it wasn't better right in the heart of town like this.

Probably the best running I've found in a different downtown area was in Indianapolis, which had nice enough trails that seemed to go on for a while, but the White River isn't much to look at and is pretty undeveloped. It definitely feels more like you're running in a mid-size college town than in a major city.

I've often wondered to myself when doing a loop from the Franklin Avenue bridge -> East Bank -> Stone Arch Bridge -> Gold Medal Park -> Bohemian Flats -> Franklin Bridge whether there's a better urban running city than Minneapolis. The run I just described really has it all, and while you do have to run briefly in a no trespassing zone I think it otherwise has no road crossings. Or instead of crossing at Stone Arch, going through St. Anthony Main up to Nicollet Island and then Boom Island, then run back through the North Loop. I think that adds maybe one additional street crossing?

If you expand outside of the downtown area, obviously, you find so many more good urban running trails.

Chicago people always like to share pictures of their lakefront paths, which to be sure do look nice. I don't have personal experience running on those trails, but my sense has always been that it might become repetitive to run there everyday. Maybe there are good side paths, though?

So yeah. I guess I've been sitting on this take for a while now, just waiting for somewhere to drop it, and here we are. If this is distracting maybe "city running" can be broken off into a separate thread.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby SurlyLHT » August 23rd, 2021, 2:51 pm

I agree, we should market ourselves as a running destination for tourist. Day 1, Riverfront run with lunch at Waterworks and play at the Guthrie, Day II River and Minnehaha Falls with lunch at Sea Salt. Day III Theo Wirth Trail running with time at The Trailhead for food and some MTB cross training. Day IV Speed training on Victory Memorial Drive with Ice Cream at Dancing Bear Ice Cream Studio. Day V Browns Creek trail into Downtown Stillwater and across their famous Bridge. (Had to add one outside of Mpls), if you want to keep it all in Mpls I would do Hill Training up Lowry Hill going looping from Isles to the Sculpture Garden.

I think these runs show how much we have here in terms of both quantity of places to run and quality places with a diversity...alas we need more people to move here and enjoy these trails!
I'm a runner, but the biggest things was the parks and our infrastructure. I realized why we rank so high in parks and how glad I am to be near the Grand Rounds and to be able to run around our lakes and the river. I also thought our infrastructure on averaged seemed to be better maintained, but we have some advantages there of being a younger city.
I too am a runner, and I've made a point of trying to run in other downtown areas while traveling for work. Nowhere I've been comes close to what we have here.

A lot of cities have little areas with nice paths etc. Like I was in St. Louis this summer and the new Arch Grounds are very nice, but if you want to do a 4-mile run in downtown St. Louis that doesn't involve city blocks or creepy isolated and unpleasant train corridors, your only real option is to run back and forth across the Arch Grounds.

Kansas City has a nice and newer path by a river, but it's not close to anything, is relatively isolated and not terribly long.

Pittsburgh was overall a neat city but the only real running trail I found was a pretty industrial route across the Monongahela that I recall just kind of ending in a random spot.

San Jose had a linear park that was kind of cool in a "California vibes" kind of way, but also kind of isolated (ie creepy) and not very long.

Anaheim had a trail I considered driving to, but then I found a few online reviews with key words such as "Mad Max" and "man with a whip," so ended up sticking with the hotel treadmill. (Aside, but Anaheim might be the worst major American city I've visited.)

Phoenix (another city I didn't like) had a man-made river with gravel on each side, which was fine for like a day. The trail also had no barrier before a 45-degree hill down to the water, which was a little concerning. Another day I found a random park and ran back and forth like six times. (I suppose neither of these are really "downtown" running, though)

Even Boston I found to be surprisingly mediocre. Staying at the Marriott in the Back Bay area (ie a great location), I ran up Commonwealth Avenue and into Boston Common (because that sounded like it'd be a cool thing to say I did), but that was like a mile. I eventually found my way to the Charles River, where there was a trail that kind of had armpit vibes, tucked behind a larger road and without great access. Looking on Google maps it appears the trail continues on and gets nicer, but I was surprised it wasn't better right in the heart of town like this.

Probably the best running I've found in a different downtown area was in Indianapolis, which had nice enough trails that seemed to go on for a while, but the White River isn't much to look at and is pretty undeveloped. It definitely feels more like you're running in a mid-size college town than in a major city.

I've often wondered to myself when doing a loop from the Franklin Avenue bridge -> East Bank -> Stone Arch Bridge -> Gold Medal Park -> Bohemian Flats -> Franklin Bridge whether there's a better urban running city than Minneapolis. The run I just described really has it all, and while you do have to run briefly in a no trespassing zone I think it otherwise has no road crossings. Or instead of crossing at Stone Arch, going through St. Anthony Main up to Nicollet Island and then Boom Island, then run back through the North Loop. I think that adds maybe one additional street crossing?

If you expand outside of the downtown area, obviously, you find so many more good urban running trails.

Chicago people always like to share pictures of their lakefront paths, which to be sure do look nice. I don't have personal experience running on those trails, but my sense has always been that it might become repetitive to run there everyday. Maybe there are good side paths, though?

So yeah. I guess I've been sitting on this take for a while now, just waiting for somewhere to drop it, and here we are. If this is distracting maybe "city running" can be broken off into a separate thread.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby StandishGuy » February 5th, 2022, 11:51 am

The Met Council will release 2021 population estimates for metro cities in May. https://metrocouncil.org/Data-and-Maps/ ... mates.aspx

Do folks here have a guess about whether Minneapolis will continue to grow at a good clip like in the last decade? The City grew by an average of almost 5,000 per year in the 2010s reaching a population density of about 8,000 per square mile. Another 50,000 people would put Minneapolis at around 480,000 by 2030.

Anecdotally, there still seem to be quite a few housing units coming onto the market or under construction. If you believe the Star Tribune, however, everybody moved out of Minneapolis to Elko/ New Market.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Anondson » February 5th, 2022, 12:07 pm

I predict Minneapolis added at least an entire Saint Louis Park-worth of people, if not an entire Edina-worth of people.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby alexschief » February 7th, 2022, 9:38 am

I shared on Twitter a thread about the latest 2021 housing starts data from HUD and what it says about development in the Twin Cities. HUD's numbers for the year are preliminary, and may still be revised, but now that we've got twelve months of data we can make some comparisons.

Key Points:

- 2021 was the best year for new housing production in the seven-county metro region since 1987, a larger peak even than the best years of the pre-recession housing boom. All total, 21,777 housing units began construction.

- The biggest percentage increases came in Dakota, Scott, Carver, and Anoka Counties. The smallest percentage increase came in Hennepin County. The percentage of metro housing starts in Hennepin County has fallen over the past years. In 2018 and 2019, nearly half of all housing was being constructed in Hennepin, and in 2020, it was still over 40%, but in 2021 it was just 36%.

- The amount of housing starts in the two core cities declined slightly but was still the third highest (after 2019 and 2020) in years. Minneapolis has seen a meaningful drop in housing starts in this period, while St. Paul has seen a big increase. But those trends may not continue into 2022, because if you look month-by-month in 2021, they may have reversed. St. Paul's housing starts almost all came in January and February, while they fell significantly in the second half of the year, possibly due to concerns about rent control. Meanwhile, Minneapolis' housing starts started off slow, possibly due to fears about civil unrest from the Chauvin trial, but really picked up to end the year. The early indications that I'm seeing suggest that 2022 might be a big bounceback year for Minneapolis development and a return to lagging behind for St. Paul.

- All combined, the percentage of metro homes started in the two core cities declined in 2021. But the percentage of metro homes in multi-family buildings remained high. So it's likely that a lot of the housing growth is being driven by suburban multi-family buildings. While better than greenfield sprawl, the growth of multi-family housing in places with transportation systems built around mass automobility and single family densities could lead to problems. This is also probably a part of the suburbanization of poverty which has been observed around the US including in MSP.

- Last note is that there have upticks in small multi-family (2-4 plexes) in either core city despite efforts to remove zoning obstacles, but these increases remain small in absolute numbers. 50-75 new units in these types of structures per year is better than nothing, but it's hardly a revolution either.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby StandishGuy » February 7th, 2022, 7:40 pm

Last year I went through 2020 Census results for cities along the Green Line Extension and found they were really the only cities in Hennepin County to grow significantly in the last decade. Perhaps, SLP, Hopkins and Eden Prairie have started to run out of developable land along that corridor where more dense housing was created last decade?

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Anondson » February 7th, 2022, 11:14 pm

As a resident of Hopkins, and grew up in SLP, there is a remarkable about of developable land along this line left still. Just the Blake Road Station, for instance, have about 1,500 units proposed and just starting. Shady Oak is practically ignored so far with many suitable sites. Downtown Hopkins could easily squeeze many more development proposals.

Belt Line still has a bunch of sites ready, including a big one north of the station on city-owned land slowly getting to the starting line.

The Opus business park is full of developable sites left, despite it having already had the most activity so far.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby alexschief » February 11th, 2022, 12:46 pm

The amount of housing starts in the two core cities declined slightly but was still the third highest (after 2019 and 2020) in years. Minneapolis has seen a meaningful drop in housing starts in this period, while St. Paul has seen a big increase. But those trends may not continue into 2022, because if you look month-by-month in 2021, they may have reversed. St. Paul's housing starts almost all came in January and February, while they fell significantly in the second half of the year, possibly due to concerns about rent control. Meanwhile, Minneapolis' housing starts started off slow, possibly due to fears about civil unrest from the Chauvin trial, but really picked up to end the year. The early indications that I'm seeing suggest that 2022 might be a big bounceback year for Minneapolis development and a return to lagging behind for St. Paul.
I want to reflect a little more on this point. Lumping housing starts by individual years is a rough way of splitting the data, but the monthly housing starts data is too volatile to be useful. A better way to see trends and not just totals is to look at the sum of housing starts in the most recent twelve month period, and then to graph this sum every month.

So, as I wrote above, Minneapolis had a decent year of housing production that was still a decline from its recent numbers, while St. Paul had its best year of housing production in decades and decades. So if you look at the data year by year, you might expect that Mpls housing starts will continue their decline into 2022, while St. Paul housing starts will continue their ascent.

But if you look at a chart of the smoothed monthly data, you'll come to the exact opposite conclusion: these trends look to have reversed in the middle of 2021, and that 2022 should be a good year for Minneapolis (maybe even an exceptionally good one, given the city's backlog) and a down year for St. Paul:

Image

While I can't say for sure what drove these trends, I think there are some obvious theories. Minneapolis housing production was probably depressed early last year by the Chauvin trial, which would've provided constraints to building downtown and likely made some builders skittish about the city overall and starting work on big wooden buildings specifically. Minneapolis has a large number of projects going, most of which are unsubsidized, and so the pipeline is more elastic in the short-term but also resilient against long-term trends.

In contrast, St. Paul housing production was probably slowed last year as developers adopted a "wait and see" approach to the rent control ordinance, which got on the ballot in the summer. That may now turn into a longer wait until it is amended. St. Paul has a single big master development at the Ford Site, a few others in the works, and a lot of subsidized housing development, so the pipeline there is much less elastic in the short-term, but also more vulnerable to long-term trends.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby StandishGuy » May 27th, 2022, 12:54 pm

The Metropolitan Council released their 2021 population estimates for cities and townships in the region: https://metrocouncil.org/Data-and-Maps/ ... px#content

It appears Minneapolis continued healthy growth with more than 4,000 new residents to a population of 434,346. St. Paul only gained 513 residents and many suburbs actually lost population according to the estimates.

A recent Star Tribune article discusses how these estimates differ from the U.S. Census estimates, which actually show big declines in both central cities and most inner ring suburbs. The story explains that the Met Council likely has better numbers and the big difference is probably due to the Census now using different data models.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby VacantLuxuries » May 27th, 2022, 1:12 pm

I'd definitely trust the local numbers over a fraught and politically tainted national census for sure. It'll be interesting as other local government equivalents around the country start to shed light on how much truth there actually is to the 'everyone left the cities in 2020' narrative.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby alexschief » August 2nd, 2022, 11:38 am

Yesterday HUD updated their building permits survey (I've been calling these housing starts, which is basically what they are, but there is a difference and I should be more clear) through June, so we've got a half year of data now.

Through the first half of 2022, there were permits for 2,317 homes issued in Minneapolis, of which nearly all (98.6%) were in multi-family buildings. That's on pace for the second most permits in a year (after 2019) basically since the 1940's. But of course, there's no guarantee which way the rest of the year will go, so don't start planning the parade just yet.

Meanwhile over in Saint Paul, things are not looking great. There were only 342 homes permitted, a big fall from the year before and in keeping with the slide we've seen since last summer, when the rent control ordinance made the ballot. I think we can say at this point that the Economics 101 logic held up here and that the ordinance caused a collapse in projects moving forward. I'm still pretty optimistic that much of that backlog is just delayed and not cancelled, but we will see what happens when the city council amends the policy in the fall.

Here's an updated chart, the moving average of permits issued per month for both cities over the past decade:

Image

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Anondson » August 2nd, 2022, 3:36 pm

I suppose it would be an epic undertaking to gather and include the same from inner ring suburbs.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby SurlyLHT » August 3rd, 2022, 3:11 pm

It's mind bongling that two sibling cities can be so different.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » August 16th, 2022, 7:35 am

Intriguing observation from Sean Sweeney

Minneapolis market update…

Renter demand still strong.

Development pipeline slowing due to construction costs, threat of rent control & inclusionary housing requirements.

Prediction - far fewer units delivered 2024 - 2026 thus strengthening the operations of existing projects

https://twitter.com/seandsweeney/status ... 8608290817

He says they're done in developing Minneapolis for "quite some time," which is too bad because they do great work.

That said, is there any real threat of an actual rent control policy happening? I just don't see anything coming forward with the current mayor and council. Same thing with IZ, policy has been on the books for a while (and has undoubtedly influenced projects/prevented some from happening), but it's not going to get any stricter, right?

What's different? Are construction costs enough to push things out of whack with IZ/specter of rent control? Curious what others think.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Silophant » August 16th, 2022, 8:10 am

Yeah, I saw that thread and had similar questions. There's no way anything more than some really light-touch rent stabilization gets through the existing CC, and IZ isn't going to change either. And... I don't know. The decade+ of twice-yearly "developers are done with Minneapolis, it's the suburbs' game now" articles from the Strib (and Kelly Doran's repeated "I'm never building in this town again" tantrums) have kinda immunized me against believing that development is over until such time as I actually see empty CPC agendas.
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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby mplsjaromir » August 16th, 2022, 8:23 am

It sad when developers state they can only make it if they can raise rents on single mothers without restriction.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby VacantLuxuries » August 16th, 2022, 8:55 am

For every local dev that throws a performative "I'm done with developing here," it seems we get a new developer from Chicago who looks at the potential in our market like it's Christmas in July.

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Re: Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Postby Blaisdell Greenway » August 16th, 2022, 9:18 am

I tend to ignore/discount this type of prognostication but Sean's whole thing is "Minneapolis is the best, y'all are missing out." So I wonder if he's in the midst of a bunch of frustrations that are piling up? Or if there's really something bigger going on. It does seem that a lot of the low-hanging fruit (empty lots) are now accounted for.


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