"Is there hope for the folks in the City of Minneapolis? Not a bit. They don't want to change. They just want to travel down the rabbit hole even deeper. Thus, that is where they will stay."
Bird! Why, why do you keep picking on the once great City of Lakes? Why? Because you just answered your own question. The "once great" speaks volumes. It is as if the city leaders (boy, is that an oxymoron!) get together every morning and try to figure out ways to make this city more unlivable. So far, they are doing an excellent job.
Of all the bone headed things Minneapolis has done recently, the most recent one took the cake. Getting rid of as many parking places as possible to keep those fire breathing, horseless carriages out of town. This is social engineering, behavior modification at its best. Does this make sense at all? Only in the mind of a Euphorian. And if you are not a Euphorian, don't even try to understand.
On Sundays, I like to read the expanded version of the editorial pages. Why? Good fodder for the Bird. Today, the editorials were full of people opining on what a dumb a** thing the City of Minneapolis is doing by getting rid of all those parking places. One writer brought up and excellent point. Our mass transit system, although very expensive to build and maintain, is not up to the task of getting people from point "A" to point "B" more conveniently than an auto does. That has been the rub of mass transit for years. If mass transit can be better and cheaper than driving one's own car, if might work. If it doesn't, it won't.
Anyone been downtown as of late? It is the city which does not work well any more. The Far Left has coopted just about everything and everyone. Retail downtown is all but dead. Besides, who wants to shop in a place where parking is scarce and expensive, crime is NOT under control, and shopping options have become very limited. How about movie theaters, like I went to when I was young? Forget about it!
But don't worry - the power elite is also trying to get rid of as many businesses as possible. Make it very expensive to do business while operating in a regulatory hell. Five years from now, we will have been forced to build even more LRTs which terminate downtown. Why? Most of the businesses will be located elsewhere.
Rent downtown is obscene. If you are a Yuppie, the North Loop is okay. However, if you are not a person of means, good luck. Gentrification has become the word of the day in downtown Minneapolis.
So what then, is left in Minneapolis? The pan handlers. The avant-guarde. The bohemians. The artsy-crafty class. The counter culture. The Antifa and Resist! crowd. Oh yes - I almost forgot. The thugs who would love to separate you from your cell phone and/or wallet.
I addressed this a few days ago. Only 8% of all Minneapolis cops make Minneapolis their home. 92% live in cities other than Minneapolis. Why? Nobody knows the underbelly of a city better than the police who patrol there do. Get the message?
For those who have the means to do so, get out of Minneapolis now. This is not going to get any better. How do I know? Look at the crop of loons who are running for Mayor. Look at the City Council. Look at the Hennepin Commissioners (that is, except for Jeff Johnson). The bench of loons is deep and wide in Minneapolis.
Is there hope for the folks in the City of Minneapolis? Not a bit. They don't want to change. They just want to travel down the rabbit hole even deeper. Thus, that is where they will stay.
So what happened?
ReplyDeleteWell, choice happened. When it became cheaper and easier to live elsewhere, that’s what people did. When it became easier to shop elsewhere, they took their dollars elsewhere.
One by one, the big downtown stores closed. Some were the victims of changing tastes. Some, including department and variety stores such as Daytons, Macys, Kresge and Grant, all longtime Nicollet staples, got tired and shabby, and faded away.
City planners, having laid waste to the Gateway, fixed their eyes on the block next to Dayton’s. They gave us City Center with its narrow indoor mall. They thought that would bring downtown retail back. It didn't work well.
Downtown will never be the shopping destination for the entire Twin Cities again. But that doesn’t meant downtown can’t provide for the people who live and work there. Imagine if George Draper Dayton paid a visit to the corner in 2017. He’d ask:
“What do people need? Furs, dresses, spats, perfume?”
Actually, no. They need vegetables, socks, coffee, bread.
It turns out that the downtown retail scene isn’t all bad news.
There are now four different grocery stores in downtown Minneapolis. Twenty years ago there weren’t any. And the difference is the new residential population.
There are 40,000 people now living in the greater downtown area, and they want to shop. They want to have a place to have their health care needs met, to drop off their dry cleaning, and it’s helped fuel the service and retail economy.
We will see the new Nicollet mall. We’ll see a very active pedestrian-oriented mall, along with other public aspects that will draw people to the street.
We’ll have a renovated Peavey Plaza, as an example, on the South End of the mall. As a result of that, we’ll have additional retail offerings, additional restaurants that bring activity to the street. And we’ll recognize that Nicollet Mall has become a different kind of street.
It won't happen overnight, but in time, the residents of downtown will take back the night from the thugs you speak of.
It might not be the vibrant downtown like Miami or San Francisco, but it will be a very livable place.
ps
The avant-guarde. The bohemians. The artsy-crafty class, the counter culture deserve a nice place to live, and they are willing to pay for it, and invest their time and energy into making it a place in which to thrive. Besides, they wouldn't be welcomed in Andover or Green Acres or wherever the birthers and deplorables chose to live.
Welcome to the 21st century, even if you wish to remain in the 20th.
the ever-present, enlightened and emboldened snowflake;
David Gjerdingen