Is Minneapolis a giant sprawling suburb compared to other cities?

[Ban my account ffs!]

I voted no.

I agree that the entire metropolitan area is pretty much a huge sprawling suburb... but it's not really any different than almost every other American city in that respect.

That said, Minneapolis has a much denser core than most American cities.  First, you have two major urban cores (Minneapolis and St. Paul), putting the urban population to about double that of Atlanta's while Atlanta's metro area is much larger than the twin cities.

But I guess I shouldn't go on here... you're just trying to bait BRTD and it's quite immature.

Perhaps I should make a thread with the question:  Is Canada just a frozen tundra full of self-important eskimos?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Dude, what the f**k are you talking about? Almost the entire city is on a grid layout, no cul-de-sacs or the type of thing present in the "village clusters" you speak of.

Uh, by village cluster, I mean an organized downtown area (not strip malls).  Which the Minneapolis suburbs, as far as I know, lack.  No?

Yes, the Minneapolis suburbs. Not Minneapolis itself.

I'm looking at Minneapolis right now.  Where are the highly urban clusters outside of downtown?  I see density but suburban density.  Looks a lot like Portland that way to me.

The warehouse district, the University area, Lake Street, Uptown, Dinkytown, St. Paul...

Many suburbs also have their own downtowns as they established well before they ever became suburbs.  These include Shakopee, Osseo, Hopkins, and Wayzata.

The development of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area occurred differently than many other cities because there were two major urban cores, hence the "Twin Cities"... and a reason why St. Paul is not a suburb of Minneapolis or vice versa.

The population of the cities exploded beginning in the 1850s, but they weren't completely filled in until about 1950.

The villages and townships around Minneapolis and St. Paul began to absorb the major growth after WWII and the grid was built well outside of the main cities.. something you don't find in many other cities.  Richfield, Edina, and Bloomington (which is actually a "2nd ring" suburb, not bordering the main cities at all) are all on the grid pattern.

You also have to keep in mind that Minneapolis/St. Paul have always been forward thinking.  When electric streetcars were the way to get around, the Twin Cities had one of the most extensive networks in the nation.  When buses and cars became the norm, it was one of the first to dig up the tracks and switch completely over rendering the landscape unrecognizable with new freeways being put in every year... vast tracts of houses built only a few years before being demolished to make way for the freeways..

Now with new urbanism becoming popular, it was the first American city to reach its WWII peak downtown population exploding from just 19,000 in 1990 to around 35,000 today.

So, you can call it "suburban" to spite BRTD, but it still remains one of the more urban cities in the country, and Minneapolis and St. Paul haven't seen the flight and blight that other cities have so they don't have to relinquish the title of entertainment/labor center out to the suburbs.


Oh, and I don't have to fcuking impress you. 

[Ban my account ffs!]

London and Hong Kong will trounce anything in North America in terms of urbanity, barring the official part of NYC.

The urbanized area of Toronto is denser than anything in North America barring Montreal and NYC. But it's unique in having oceans of cookie cutter suburbs with archipelagos of highrises. So it's more "urban" than any other city on the continent of comparable size. It's still a huge sprawling suburb compared to Hong Kong.

I doubt it.  Hong Kong is actually quite sparse in some areas (I've been there).  It is very spread out due to a lack of developable land so they have built it densely out of necessity.

Tokyo is by far the most impressive and urban city in the world (and don't even come at me with the whole "OMG TOKYO ISN'T A CITY IT'S A CONGLOMERATION" crap)

Sorry for the image size.

Removed the picture.. it was too big.  Just type in "Tokyo Aerial" in the Google Image search.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Oh, and I don't have to fcuking impress you. 

OK, I was going on what I've read elsewhere and saw on a five-minute Google Maps trip.  You can feel free to drop my head from the clasp of your jaws now. 

I'll look up some density distribution stats when I get home and we can prove this either way.  Sound good?

Sounds good.

But I have to admit that much of the Twin Cities are suburban and sprawl makes up the vast majority of the new growth.

If you look at the growth patterns, however, you will see that the urban areas that suffered population losses from the '50s-80's have turned around and are growing again.

Richfield, a 1st ring suburb bordering south Minneapolis, is growing at a fast clip and births in the city limits have more than doubled in the past 8 years as new immigrants become more successful and move out into the suburbs.  Denser growth is accompanying this.

Bloomington is projected to grow to 90,000 residents and 165,000 jobs by 2030 as young people move into the city in droves in new mid-rise condo developments.

The city of Minneapolis itself is expected to reach about 430,000 residents from a low of 368,000 in 1990, and St. Paul is expected to grow to 315,000 from 270,000 in 1990.  Much of that growth will be downtown and along new transit corridors.

There is currently one light rail line with one ready to start construction and the next (southwest corridor) in the works.  Commuter rail is also ready to start from the NW suburbs and the next will likely serve the Southeast metro.

The metro also has one of the most extensive bus networks in the nation.. not the best form of public transit, but you can pretty much get anywhere from anywhere by bus in the Twin Cities.

REgional high speed rail is also planned from the Twin Cities to Duluth and to Rochester, and the tracks between Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago are being upgraded to allow trains to travel at 110mph with 6 daily trains in both directions between the cities planned compared to the 1 currently offered which only reaches 80mph.

The pressure to increase dense development is only increasing as oil increases in price.

But you also have to look at the other aspects that make Minnesota one of the leaders in the nation for renewable energy.

We are 4th in Wind energy production behind Iowa, Texas, and California.  New windmills are being put up every day along the Buffalo Ridge area of southwestern Minnesota and a company from Europe is building a windmill manufacturing plant in Pipestone County, MN which will provide a couple hundred jobs to a county with only 5,000 residents.

DFLers from the state house and senate passed a bill that Gov. Pawlenty signed last year which set into law the nation's most intensive Renewable energy requirements which states 25% of all energy produced in teh state must be from renewable sources by 2025.  Excel Energy, the largest energy producer in MN and provides about half the state's electricity must derive 30% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020.  Excel approved and encouraged this proposal.

Also, by 2013 gasoline must be 20% ethanol based, the most of any state in the nation.  We also have more E-85 gas stations than any other state.


So go ahead... bait BRTD with your silly "Minneapolis is a giant SUBURB OMG".. but be reminded that we're quite committed to a clean, secure energy future that puts many other states to shame.