Expo 2023 / 2027

[VacantLuxuries]

I was really skeptical about the competitiveness of a few empty lots near MOA, but apparently because of the strict limits on the size of site you can build on for a Special Exposition, having MOA directly next door allows them to take direct advantage of that extra retail and entertainment space and create a larger expo as a result.

Hopefully that's a competitive advantage that can overcome a few decades of Americans snubbing their noses at the whole affair.

[COLSLAW5]

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-li ... world-expo

we came in 3rd

[Mdcastle]

Thank goodness. Didn't the last one we had in New Orleans wind up losing something like $300 million in today's dollars?

[twincitizen]

Apparently Serbia's victory is coming as a total surprise to those who were involved in the MN-US bid. All along this was thought to be a close contest between the US and Spain (Malaga), but that the US would prevail.

[Bakken2016]

Apparently Serbia's victory is coming as a total surprise to those who were involved in the MN-US bid. All along this was thought to be a close contest between the US and Spain (Malaga), but that the US would prevail.

oh wow, I do wonder if we will try again for 2031.

[VacantLuxuries]

Losing to Spain would be understandable.

Losing to Serbia feels more like a pointed "you can't just snub us for decades and then come back and get an Expo" message that should be carefully considered before investing more time and money into these efforts.

[Mdcastle]

I wonder if the recent nationalist, anti-globalist sentiment in America had anything to do with it too?

[nBode]

It does seem that the US' reputation abroad has plummeted in the last decade or so.

[Korh]

Or more likely the rest of the world still views Minnesota along with the rest of the Midwest scratch Chicago as a flyover state.

[NickP]

Or more likely the rest of the world still views Minnesota along with the rest of the Midwest scratch Chicago as a flyover state.

Potentially. However, I don’t believe the rest of the world would view us as any more “flyover” than Belgrade, Serbia, or Bariloche, Argentina.

[Korh]

I disagree, trying to compare a state to a country is ridiculous. Whenever I here someone from California or Texas say they would be in the top 10 countries if they were independent, I can feel my eyes start to roll. Plus most of the world cares more about US cities rather than states when they bother, and let's be honest a suburb of a mid sized city isn't going to be that attractive over the world famous ones like New York, LA, Chicago, Vegas, etc.

Also has anyone looked into Serbia's bid and what's going on in the country? Want to guess it might be EU politics or to try and promote and or showcase development in the region but that's just a blind guess.

[Tom H.]

If the supra-national EU is comparable to the United States in terms of population, economic power, and international politics, then why are the EU "states" (countries) not comparable to US states?

For example, Norway has almost the same population as Minnesota (5.4m vs 5.7m), similar GDP ($480b vs $350b), and our primary metro is twice as big (3m Twin Cities vs ~1.5m Oslo). Sure, Bloomington is a suburb, but the location proposed is squarely within the urbanized area of the Twin Cities. (And before anyone fact-checks me, I know Norway isn't in the EU proper, but I think the comparisons still stand.)

If Oslo was competing for the Expo on behalf of Norway, I don't think anyone would argue that it's bid would be hurt because it's a "flyover country". Heck, wouldn't Serbia be considered a European "flyover country" compared with the likes Germany, France, UK, etc.?

All of which is to say - we probably just lost on the merits, not because of some supposed snub or international passive-aggression that we Minnesotans would secretly love to be the victims of.

[VacantLuxuries]

I don't think Minneapolis is any less unknown to the world than Seattle and San Antonio were in the 1960s, or Spokane and Knoxville continue to be, and they managed to win their bids. However, the unique part of our bid is that it was Minnesota's bid, not Minneapolis.

This comes back to an issue that frustrates me - Minneapolis is never allowed to have it's own identity, unless that identity is that it scares suburbanites. The city is often forced to share its identity, either with the MSP region, or the state at large.

Whether winning or not would have been a positive is beside the point - we suck at putting competitive bids together because we can't submit a great site in Minneapolis without Arden Hills or Bloomington complaining that nobody is talking about their brownfield sites. This happened with the World Expo bids, but also our Amazon HQ2 bid. And likely other event bids over the years that haven't been as highly publicized. Our successful bids are all sporting events - the only events where we actually promote Minneapolis on its own merits since that's where most of the stadiums are.

And our regional structure, the same one that makes it difficult to justify a billion dollar transit tunnel downtown because they won't have enough regional stakeholders to stand around and take credit for it at the groundbreaking, not only perpetuates this problem, it crows loudly about how successful it is while we get passed over again and again.

As for Serbia, I'd be very interested to see which countries voted for them and which ones didn't. If geopolitics are a factor here, they're one of the few European nations standing on the opposite side of the EU position on Ukraine, and I can't imagine a lot of EU countries would be interested in rewarding them for that position right now.

[Korh]

If the supra-national EU is comparable to the United States in terms of population, economic power, and international politics, then why are the EU "states" (countries) not comparable to US states?

For example, Norway has almost the same population as Minnesota (5.4m vs 5.7m), similar GDP ($480b vs $350b), and our primary metro is twice as big (3m Twin Cities vs ~1.5m Oslo). Sure, Bloomington is a suburb, but the location proposed is squarely within the urbanized area of the Twin Cities. (And before anyone fact-checks me, I know Norway isn't in the EU proper, but I think the comparisons still stand.)

If Oslo was competing for the Expo on behalf of Norway, I don't think anyone would argue that it's bid would be hurt because it's a "flyover country". Heck, wouldn't Serbia be considered a European "flyover country" compared with the likes Germany, France, UK, etc.?

All of which is to say - we probably just lost on the merits, not because of some supposed snub or international passive-aggression that we Minnesotans would secretly love to be the victims of.

Again there is a vast difference between state and country that includes more than just population and GDP ( If it was I could name several unsavoury people as an excuse to claim some developing countries aren't really countries) and as closely linked as the EU member states they are still countries and have a few powers and privileges that gives them an edge (also wouldn't label as flyover because there has been a push in Europe for less short haul flights between members but that's besides the point).

With regards to the expo specifically, Serbia has embassies for pretty much all the BIE member countries inside Belgrade (and vise versa) and probably have stronger ties to sway a few of them to vote in their favor, meanwhile MN has a total of 6 consulates, and one of them (Canada) lost it's BIE membership. Can maybe blame DC for not trying to push for it more because I swear it was mainly local officials pushing for it. Although doing some digging other people may be right about the organization being annoyed with the US but for different reasons. We actually lost our membership in 2001 because Congress didn't pay the fee for 2 years and didn't officially rejoin until 2017.

I'm actually a little impressed we got 3rd all things considered.