End of the Twin Cities

"The future of work lies in either the home office, or a work place which is located in the burbs. The big tall glass and metal monoliths downtown, have seen their day. There is not enough tea in China, nor pixie dust in Disneyland to fix things - to make downtown look like it once did."

I worked downtown for a while in my career. Can't say much good about it. Expensive. Much traffic. Panhandled. But that was yesteryear. And today, downtown Minneapolis is nothing like it was before the Floyd incident and the pandemic. Truthfully, when working folks got the chance to work from home, thereby saving transit issues, time and money, that is all it took. We have long ago ceded the downtown areas to the drugs, the crime lords, and the low life's. Who needs that?

Jacob Frey is on revision number 35 to try and make Minneapolis livable again. To get people back downtown working. Here is the secret. If there is to be any chance what-so-ever, of a future for Minneapolis, it involves getting people to happily return downtown. Work downtown, eat downtown, shop downtown, and maybe even live downtown. Frey wants to take the buses off the Nicolette Mall, like that will help. How about taking the thugs off the Mall first? That would help even more. Until that happens - no thanks.

I can't imagine what it will take to make either downtown vibrant again. Other than paying people to work downtown, I don't know what it will take. Most people I know who have never worked downtown, look at venturing downtown as a high risk maneuver. Recently, a survey was done to see how many folks would welcome working downtown once again. The results - not many.

The future of work lies in either the home office, or a work place which is located in the burbs. The big tall glass and metal monoliths downtown, have seen their day. There is not enough tea in China, nor pixie dust in Disneyland to fix things - to make downtown look like it once did. Did not want to get too political, but I will say this anyway. The big blue Democrats have ruined these cities. Now they can have them.