Minneapolis Population / Density - General Discussion

Parks, Minneapolis Public Schools, Density, Zoning, etc.
twincitizen
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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby twincitizen » May 23rd, 2014, 8:46 am

Back on topic, it would seem that the population of the two central cities has probably now exceeded 700,000.
^This. While it is super exciting to us Minneapolitans that we cracked 400k, I'm not sure that's the number we want to be broadcasting.

400k is still really small by national standards, for a major metropolitan core and largest city in a state.

When talking about population numbers, we really ought to broadcast the combined Mpls-StP number. At 700k, now you're talking about a pretty damn big city. Instead of ranking 46th, just surpassing Tulsa in 2013 population, we'd be ranked 18th or 19th, just about even with Detroit. At 700k, we're solidly in the big leagues with the central cities of many metropolitan areas, and actually come out ahead of Seattle, Denver, Portland, and company. The 700k number is much more in line with a typical core city population for a metro of our size.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby MNdible » May 23rd, 2014, 10:01 am

Yes, because at 700,000, we're nipping at the heels of that mighty metropolis of Jacksonville, FL.

These figures are only useful for internal consumption -- did your city grow or shrink. Comparing them to anywhere else, where they happened to draw the arbitrary municipal boundaries differently, is utterly useless.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby twincitizen » May 23rd, 2014, 10:06 am

Yes, municipal boundaries are completely arbitrary. Comparing Minneapolis to Jacksonville or Houston, or a merged City-County like Indianapolis or a large City with minimal burbs like Omaha is pretty damn useless. To say that boasting a 700,000 core city population, which moves us into the realm of peer cities I specifically mentioned, like Portland, Seattle, and Denver, I don't think that figure is 100% useless. Both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, taken individually, are vastly undersized for our >3,000,000 metro population. The combined figure is much more "accurate" for a core city population number, do you not agree?

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby EOst » May 23rd, 2014, 12:44 pm

I think it starts with schools. Have good (or even better) inner city schools and the working class families and immigrants with larger families will choose to locate in the core and not the suburbs.
Isn't that sort of a chicken-and-egg thing, though?

Think about the Downtown/North Loop school situation; there are plenty of schools much closer to the North Loop than the Webster building in St. Anthony, but they don't want to send their kids to those because they're bad (read: poor, minority) schools. Which is fair enough, of course, but how are schools like Bethune going to get "better" when they're 92% FRPL?

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby ECtransplant » May 23rd, 2014, 1:50 pm

Given Seattle's recent rejections of transit and of density, I'm not sure it's a city we should be looking to
What are you talking about? They're expanding their transit MUCH faster and to a much larger extent than we have, especially lately. Also, the city is growing like gangbusters, ergo the population density is increasing. They've also been very successful of luring their largest companies downtown, something that Minneapolis could also improve upon (I'm looking at you, UnitedHealth Group).

I'm not sure where the basis of your comment was coming from.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/ ... otxml.html

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepoliti ... fromhomecp

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby exiled_antipodean » May 23rd, 2014, 2:39 pm

40 % - moderately maintained homes that need some serious improvements. Amateurish "upgrades" over the years quickly show their age and feel cheap. As referenced above, many in this class are too small for most contemporary families to consider adequate.
20% - Poorly maintained and need heroic work to be considered desirable.
10% - Nearing the very end of useful lifespan.
As the SW Minneapolis teardown moratorium shows there's a bit of denial about this fact that many structures need to be replaced. Long-time neighbors look around, remember the houses in good condition, extrapolate to the rest of the neighborhood, and claim nothing can change.

I worry about this in respect of the Conservation Districts which have been proposed for areas like Prospect Park. The top 30% are not always contiguous, but "conserving" them would make it harder to knock down the houses in poor condition.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby MNdible » May 23rd, 2014, 3:00 pm

95% of the teardowns in SW Minneapolis weren't because they were in poor shape -- it was because they weren't "big enough". I understand that expectations have changed, but the idea that 2 people need 2500 sf or more to live in seems, frankly, bizarre.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby min-chi-cbus » May 23rd, 2014, 9:58 pm

95% of the teardowns in SW Minneapolis weren't because they were in poor shape -- it was because they weren't "big enough". I understand that expectations have changed, but the idea that 2 people need 2500 sf or more to live in seems, frankly, bizarre.
Agree. I think the housing stock CONDITION in Mpls is very solid compared to most cities in the Midwest at least. AND well maintained.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby MplsSteve » May 23rd, 2014, 10:21 pm

MNdible wrote:
95% of the teardowns in SW Minneapolis weren't because they were in poor shape -- it was because they weren't "big enough". I understand that expectations have changed, but the idea that 2 people need 2500 sf or more to live in seems, frankly, bizarre.
Exactly - People have become incredibly spoiled in terms of what they expect for housing.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby exiled_antipodean » May 24th, 2014, 6:04 am

I would venture a lot of the teardowns fell into that 40% category, hence the structure wasn't as expensive, making the whole buy, demolish, build thing a bit cheaper.

But I'm just surmising from anecdatal walks in the area.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby talindsay » May 28th, 2014, 2:08 pm

They [Seattle] also have one of THE most effective bus systems in this country , so I stand by my original sentiment that Mpls could learn from Seattle when it comes to growth and transportation.
Anecdote is not the singular of data, but I will say that my experience with transit in Seattle has been quite different - they have a very large and complex bus system, but I was struck at how ineffective it was. People complain that our system isn't very good at getting you where you want to go when you want to go there, but Seattle struck me as much, much worse - for all the buses running all over the place it still took a shockingly long time to get from the east end of the International District (Chinatown) to the center of downtown - like embarrassingly long. Their bus routes necessitate a lot of transfers, and because of the large *number* of routes the service intervals on many are worse than you would expect, which makes those transfers maddeningly time-consuming. Add to that the issue of when buses are or aren't using the transit tunnel, and their system lacks transparency or efficiency. The new light rail line is very efficient at getting people from the airport to downtown, however.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby min-chi-cbus » May 28th, 2014, 8:17 pm

Listen, the point is that as good or bad Minneapolis' transit system may be, it STILL lags behind our closest peers -- including Seattle, and (anecdotally) I've heard they're better than we are.

The one indisputable fact I can bring to this (seemingly endless) debate is average daily ridership:

Seattle: 400,457 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County_Metro)
Minneapolis: 270,900 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Transit_(Minnesota))


Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear anecdotal experiences that portray Seattle in a negative light, since it seems that lately there is almost nobody on Earth who has anything bad to say about Seattle (I clearly have a case of schadenfreude!)

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby VAStationDude » May 28th, 2014, 8:36 pm

I agree the Seattle bus system is even more confusing than ours.

I'd argue Seattle's geography lends itself to transit ridership. Their downtown is surrounded by water, a steep hill and industrial land. The regional transportation system relies on numerous long water crossings which is conducive to transit. Our metro is surrounded by flat farm land where they have mountains and water to keep sprawl at bay.

I liked Seattle but it's overrated.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby MSPtoMKE » May 28th, 2014, 9:01 pm

Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear anecdotal experiences that portray Seattle in a negative light, since it seems that lately there is almost nobody on Earth who has anything bad to say about Seattle (I clearly have a case of schadenfreude!)
I love Seattle, it is kind of a second home for me now that my parents and much of my Dad's family lives there, but almost everything relating to transportation in the region is basically a nightmare.
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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby EOst » May 29th, 2014, 10:43 am

Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear anecdotal experiences that portray Seattle in a negative light, since it seems that lately there is almost nobody on Earth who has anything bad to say about Seattle (I clearly have a case of schadenfreude!)
I love Seattle, it is kind of a second home for me now that my parents and much of my Dad's family lives there, but almost everything relating to transportation in the region is basically a nightmare.
Agreed. I think transit gets more love there in part because driving anywhere in town is an absolute nightmare.

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby mattaudio » May 29th, 2014, 11:08 am

Agreed. I think transit gets more love there in part because driving anywhere in town is an absolute nightmare.
As it should be everywhere. Well, either that or tolled!

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby mister.shoes » August 13th, 2014, 8:41 am

I'm happy to announce that mrs.shoes and I are doing our part to help MPLS reach 500k by increasing the density of our household by 50%. baby.shoes was born on July 30 and we couldn't be happier to be raising him in the city. We've already taken him on half a dozen walks along the creek.
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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby David Greene » August 13th, 2014, 8:42 am

Congratulations!

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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby Silophant » August 13th, 2014, 8:43 am

Congratulations, mister.shoes!
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Re: Minneapolis Density and Population Growth

Postby TommyT » August 13th, 2014, 8:47 am

Congrats! In true Minnesota form, "Oh Fer Cute!"


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