Minneapolis Growth

[Minneapolitan]

This is great news. According to the article, Minneapolis officials believe Minneapolis' growth in households is running 20 years ahead of schedule. They expect the citys's population to beat the Met Council's projections for 2030 (465,000) within the next five years! The growth can be attributed to affluent empty-nesters, young white-collar singles and immigrant families.

All the growth the city has been experiencing since the late 1990s has been insane. What's nice is both Minneapolis and St. Paul will prove again just how inaccurate the U.S. Census Bureau's yearly estimates can be. Also, MPLS. hasn't had to annex its suburbs to show positive gains.

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/175562.html

[Snowguy716]

They said Minneapolis has 353,000 in 2000.. and it came in at over 382,000.. an increase 19,000 from 1990. Now they're saying it's around 373,000...

If you were to graph the U.S census estimates and pop figures.. it'll end up looking like 9 years of falling population with a massive spike in the 10th year and then 9 more years of falling population... Ugh.. frustrating. We're paying these people to get everything wrong.

[MrSmith]

Anyone know what the highest population for Minneapolis was? and in what year?

[Snowguy716]

It peaked around 520,000 in 1950 (I think it was level at this time before freefalling).. by 1970 it was 434,000 and by 1980 370,000

But while most cities in the country continued their freefall, Minneapolis only lost 2,000 (not 7,000 like in my previous post...) and then grew about 15,000 during the '90s to 382,000.

Compare this to Saint Louis which was at 330,000 in 2000 compared to 850,000 in 1950 or Detroit that was over 2,000,000 in 1950 and is now at 900,000.

[Minneapolitan]

It peaked around 520,000 in 1950 (I think it was level at this time before freefalling).. by 1970 it was 434,000 and by 1980 370,000

Minneapolis' peak population was 521,718 in 1950 and St. Paul hit its peak in 1960 with 313,411.

[sushisimo]

Minneapolis' peak population was 521,718 in 1950 and St. Paul hit its peak in 1960 with 313,411.

Part of me wonders where 520k fit into this town. Even at 380k it doesn't seem like there is a lot of vacancy (apartments healthy, houses sell quickly, new development). Maybe more families and bigger househoulds?

[Minneapolitan]

Part of me wonders where 520k fit into this town. Even at 380k it doesn't seem like there is a lot of vacancy (apartments healthy, houses sell quickly, new development). Maybe more families and bigger househoulds?

Exactly. You have to remember that most, if not all, of the old, larger homes in both MPLS. and STPL. had families with 5 or more people. These same homes now have 2 or 3 people occupying them. It's pretty sad to know that a majority of those 830,000+ (both cities) were children (18 and under). Now days, the majority are those who fit the 25 - 35 range.

[Snowguy716]

The number of people in a household has decreased dramatically since WWII.

In 2000, MInneapolis had 382,613 residents in 162,363 occupied housing units. That equals out to 2.35 persons per household.

In 1940, Minneapolis had 492,370 residents in 85,922 housing units. That equals out to 5.72 persons per housing unit. In 1950 there were 521,718 in 105,817 housing units equaling to 4.93 persons per housing unit.

1960: 482,872 people in 122,096 housing units: 3.95 persons/house

1970: 434,400 people in 137,875 housing units: 3.15 persons/house

1980: 370,851 people in 153,932 housing units: 2.41 persons/house

1990: 368,363 people in 164,432 housing units: 2.24 persons/house

2000: 382,613 people in 168,624 housing units: 2.27 persons/house (used for comparison because previous dates included all housing units, including those that were vacant.)

Here are Minneapolis' population figures prior to 1940 starting in 1880 when Minneapolis made it into the top 100.

1880: 38 Minneapolis city, MN............... 46,887

1890: 18 Minneapolis city, MN............... 164,738

1900: 19 Minneapolis city, MN............... 202,718

1910: 18 Minneapolis city, MN..... 301,408 50.1 6,016

1920: 18 Minneapolis city, MN..... 380,582 49.7 7,658

1930: 15 Minneapolis city, MN..... 464,356 55.4 8,382

[aTorridGustOfSun]

I read an article about a year ago that said St Paul's growth rate is even faster than Minneapolis'!

[Snowguy716]

It'll be interesting to see if we start having a denser population growth trend in the Cities.

I was talking with my Grandparents not too long ago (who lived in Minneapolis from 1949 to 1951 and then Bloomington from 1951-1990) and they told me how my grandmother used to take the streetcars to work when my Grandfather was in the service. They lived downtown in a small apartment and then, you guessed it, moved to the suburbs in '51.

They showed me pictures of the area (88th and Colfax Ave.), and it looked sooo much different back then. There wasn't really a tree in sight. This is in contrast to now where there are full-grown trees everywhere and the area is quite nice looking.

Anyway, then my Grandfather (who worked at NSP) told me about how he used to have to navigate city streets to get to work downtown and he knew several families that had to move out a few years after they had moved into their new houses so they could build the freeway (35W). he told me how they tore down hundreds of brand new houses and then waited nearly 10 years to actualy build the freeway.

It's so weird hearing about this stuff. When you drive on 35W you kind of feel like it's been there forever.

[City_of_Lakes]

My grandparents told me a few years back how completely different it was commuting across the metro area before the freeway expansion came along, however, with the vast street car system in place within the urban core and more centralized development it's hard to imagine what it must have been like. That is all simply foreign to me and maybe that's why I long for something similar to it.

[nickmgray]

The population of the city seems to shift too often. It's surprising to me how fast the numbers change. I belive that the city needs to try to diversify the new projects as to attract varios residents.

I'd love to see more large projects for low income housing replacement.

[MrSmith]

My father (72) tells me that before the highways it could take an hour to get from North Minneapolis to South Minneapolis. He also remembers in the early years, lots of people were afraid to drive the highways so they were wide open.

I'm not that old --37-- and i rember living in Soth Minneapolis and going to visit family in Noth Minneapolis. We would take the highway to about where the farmers market was --and then the highway just ended....it must have been the mid-to-late seventies before 94 from the West and 94 from the East actually connected to one another.

I also remember taking Hiawatha --which was suppossed to be a freeway-- and seeing the bridges that were built in anticipation of the highway the highway. Personally, i think they should have built it ---35 can't handle the volume of traffic.

[MrMojangles]

It's so weird hearing about this stuff. When you drive on 35W you kind of feel like it's been there forever.

For me, it's just the opposite. I've been driving on 35W for years and I've never known the city any other way. But now that I live in Minneapolis, 35W feels really out of place. It is a huge physical barrier and it breaks up the very practical grid street system. Having multi-lane, highspeed highways through the heart of the city has been a huge contributor to suburban sprawl and the decades long decline of/disinvestment in mass transit, but cheap suburban development along freeways has also helped this region grow and prosper.

I know many European cities don't have limited-access highways cut through their middles, but I wonder if there are American examples of keeping freeways on the fringes. I guess the point of Snowguy716's comment is that for better or worse we now take for granted this type of freeway development.

[City_of_Lakes]

Thanks MrMojangles, it is always good to hear about other peoples stories and specific experiences about growing up in the Twin Cities metro area.

Europe, yup I think of many cities that are less car friendly. For example a recent article in the Rake Magazine highlights how Copenhagen, Denmark went from more of a car centered culture to that of a pedestrian focused one (plus, I enjoyed how the author wrote on walking out 'n' about in Mpls for a year). Yes it took decades to change the culture in Copenhagen, but that's how it almost always seems to go with how the current status quo holds things up.

[Snowguy716]

The culture in Salzburg, Austria is definitely pedestrian, at least in the city center. There are only 4 main roads for traffic to drive on. Otherwise you can only drive on the streets if you have a permit, are a taxi, live there, or are delivering something.

This encourages walking. It's so nice. This weekend the street outside where I live is mostly blocked off as all the street-side seating for the restaurants is set up and they have a big wine tasting festival going on with things like home-made fired bread with fresh toppings (A sort of pizza, I guess)... it's so great. 70*F, sunny, and lots of people just milling around. The ultimate urban experience.