University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

Northeast, Near North, Camden, Old St. Anthony, University and surrounding neighborhoods
EOst
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Re: University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

Post by EOst »

MNdible wrote: January 27th, 2025, 1:39 pm So, I after looking at the Nicollet Mall redesign options, I had to look up what a TEP score was. To save you all some googling, it stands for Transportation Equity Priority and is a way to direct transportation investment based on the demographics of the population living in different areas.

What struck me was that the heart of the East Bank UofM campus is shown as a Tier 1 zone, showing that it has the same population needs as the poorest and most historically disadvantaged parts of north Minneapolis. Which feels, frankly, like a bad misreading of some basic census data. When will we get smarter at realizing that college students look very poor on paper because they're not working full time but, in most cases, are not actually poor? This is definitely not the first time I've seen data like this warping analyses.
Isn't that actually the Glendale Townhomes section of Prospect Park? I could be misreading the map, but the East Bank campus area appears to be Tier 3 to me.
Wezle
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Re: University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

Post by Wezle »

Whether or not college students are poor, they're also a population in Minneapolis that has much lower car ownership rates and much higher transit reliance than average. In terms of equity, they probably don't need it, but in terms of transit usage, there's a big need there. All you have to do is look at the annual September spike in transit ridership (especially on the Green Line) to see how much the students there utilize it.

Edit: Spot on with the Glendale townhomes, that's definitely it.
LakeCharles
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Re: University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

Post by LakeCharles »

Yeah that Tier 1 segment is bordered by Oak St on the west, Williams on the east, Franklin on the south, and University on the north. It certainly contains a decent amount of college students, but all the big dorms are not in that section.
MNdible
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Re: University of Minnesota - News & General Topics

Post by MNdible »

EOst wrote: January 27th, 2025, 2:37 pm Isn't that actually the Glendale Townhomes section of Prospect Park? I could be misreading the map, but the East Bank campus area appears to be Tier 3 to me.
Good catch.

Still, Glendale is only 184 units of housing. Excluding the new Greystar building with over 600 units by itself, there are at least 10 high density student apartment buildings in that sector. So very much dominated by the student population.

Remind me again why we're not adding more density to Glendale? [Please don't remind me again.]

Obviously the TEP score doesn't really matter, because the area is and will remain very well-served by transit, but I'd still argue that the underlying conflation of student population and poverty is still something that should be ferreted out of data sets like this.
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