urbanMSP

Does anyone have a map with the historical borders of Minneapolis and how they've changed from annexation? I wonder if it's possible to annex any of the suburbs, Minneapolis has a tiny footprint compared to most major U.S. cities and it would be nice for that to grow a little. We don't need to be Omaha (which practically has no suburbs), but Mpls can at least be a little larger! Any cities that people think would be willing?

Some of the most obvious targets (St. Anthony) are going to be among the most hostile. For example, St. Anthony maintains full-time paid fire department (ie, not volunteer, don't know exactly the proper term) basically solely to avoid any attempts to consolidate it with Minneapolis' fire protection. If there were a suburb bordering that happened to be in an especially bad municipal financial state, perhaps, but I don't know that anyone is going to come willingly. If you look at the case of Toronto, a massive annexation didn't go over well there recently (and now they're stuck with Rob Ford as a mayor due to the formerly-suburban vote).

It'd be interesting to read a big dry piece on the history of annexations. Because you've got cities like us that haven't grown in nearly 100 years, and then you've got cities in the south that are still annexing. It'd be nice to know why some places do and some places don't annex.

I think I have an entire book on annexation, somewhere... possibly in a pod. From what I remember, Minneapolis' possible annexations were already incorporated by the time they even thought of it.

Remember that Minneapolis city government was a horrible corrupt mess at the dawn of the 20th Century. I can't blame people for wanting to incorporate separately.

I was paging through a compendium of annual reports of the Planning Commission from the 20s in the stacks at the downtown library a couple years ago, in which I came across a paragraph about a study they did of annexing Columbia Heights. It seems that enough of the suburb had been built without sidewalks by that point that it would be too expensive to bring it up to Minneapolis sidewalk standards.

I guess Richfield had better sidewalks or was less developed at the time. Btw, it was the airport that annexed a couple neighborhoods in Richfield in the late 90s, not Minneapolis. If I remember right, the residents put up a minor kerfuffle, but of course we're allowed to grind up the sacred cow of homeownership when it's something that benefits rich people like air travel.

Richfield does not have residential sidewalks (for the most part) and did not develop in earnest until the late 1940s - 1950s.

Southern Columbia Heights, by comparison, is rich with sidewalks.

Regarding the airport expansion, if you Google "Richfield, MN", using old/classic Google Maps you'll see the dashed-line municipal boundary showing the former neighborhoods that are now the north-south runway. It was at least a dozen city blocks, in two separate neighborhoods, New Ford Town and Rich Acres (including golf course).

I'm just repeating what I read in a yellowed old book. But you have to remember that what we're discussing is not Richfield now but was Richfield then. In this map most of the area annexed in 1927 was undeveloped, but Columbia Heights appears to at least have been largely platted along its border with Minneapolis:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... p_1914.jpg

Of course a lot changed in the 10-15 years after this map.

Lake Hiawatha and Nokomis are named Rice and Amelia on that map. Anyone know when the names were changed?

Downtown population climbs to 37,526
http://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/do ... s-to-37526

As long as we're cool with Downtown Council's definition:

DEFINITION OF DOWNTOWN
The boundaries of Downtown reflect its evolution
beyond the traditional CBD. For purposes of this plan,
Downtown is bounded by I-35W on the east, I-94 on
the south, and I-94/I-394 on the west. On the north it is
bounded by Plymouth/8th Avenue NE, Main Street
and University Avenue.

That description is confusing, so just look at the map. Read the plan while you're at it if you haven't already.

Page 22 & 23 of the 2025 Plan: http://assets.ngin.com/attachments/docu ... opti-1.pdf

The south, east, and west boundaries are all the logical, post-expressway boundaries. I think most of us would think of the river as the north boundary, and Plymouth seems awfully far north but I do like the idea that St. Anthony Main and the northeast portion of downtown are included. They are looping in a small but significant number of single-family homes on the other side of the river in that definition, however.

University and Main are parallel, though. How do they both form the northern boundary?

So this is what Steve Berg has been up to.

Anyone else think it's weird this is hosted on a sports website (assets.nign.com) ?

As long as they're consistent (and I think they have been), and as long as they're only comparing past downtown populations to future downtown populations, the boundaries don't matter a bit.

It's been noted before that comparing one city's downtown population to another's is notoriously difficult. Our downtown boundary might feel a little bit generous, but it's not way off. The only part that I'd bicker about is the tail piece that reaches across Lyndale to grab the Walker area.

Why didn't the Downtown Council just use the Central Community definition (North Loop, Downtown West, Downtown East, Loring Park, Elliot Park, and Stevens Square/Loring Heights? I would imagine that the legal definition of "downtown" would be the simplest and have the most easily comparable series of data to use?

Thought this might be of interest.
The "Nay-sayers" have their say.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/edit ... 23391.html

I will say that if we reach 500,000 via luxury apartments we are going to be a much blander city. Try listing all of the great newer local places in Mpls located on the 1st floor of a mixed-use luxury apartment building. The Dock Street Flats ,for example, have a Dunn Bros chain that moved in, but not an indie coffeeshop like Caffetto. On Hennepin a chain grocery store moved into the retail spot, not a downtown co-op. Then the ones without without a retail component or very little seem to put pressure on the area for chains to move into existing commercial spaces: the dense riverfront residential developments near University & Hennepin for example where chains have congregated in more recent years to a limited degree (hopefully it stays that way).

edit: Ha! OK, umm I guess someone agrees with me: the "l" word is a bad word.

Upscale apartments are all that the market can build right now, because (thankfully) our rents are pretty low here. The only real alternative is to allow ADUs to increase density in single family neighborhoods.

And I have to say, everything that's old was once new, and was probably upscale or luxury when it was first built

Also, the chains to which you refer are all local businesses. I support Dunn Bros and Lunds over Starbucks and Sam's Club when I can.

*My bad! A friend correctly pointed out that you probably meant Whole Foods. Thats legit. I would stand firm on my thoughts on Dunn Bros though. Despite being a chain, since it was founded here, I think of it more as a local business that has done well than some corporate giant.