The Miracle of Minneapolis

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/?single_page=true

by r2b2 • 11 years ago

82 43 11 years ago

m.theatlantic.com

joshjkim2• 11 years ago

Very interesting article. I've actually been kicking around the idea that the midwest will see a braindrain-reversal in the next 20 years, similar to China + India + etc. (where elite educated foreign professionals/entrepreneurs who historically sought the US market are actually realizing equal/better opportunity back home, and also a more comfortable/familiar lifestyle).

Cities like Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis and Pittsburgh still can't necessarily compete with tier 1 finance/law/tech opportunities and gross compensation in NY/SF/LA/etc., but more and more they are offering a solid job market (particularly within the healthcare industry) and more affordable living to the point where net compensation may be the same, if not greater than in the "elite" coastal markets (corporate lawyers in Manhattan feel less rich than corporate lawyers in Cleveland, I'm pretty sure - who knows).

I think the other key is that these cities not only offer good jobs and affordable housing, but also offer a true "city culture", including a good food/bar scene, farmers markets, art galleries, a strong local music scene + music venues that are on the national act rotation, all with a more casual vibe than NY or SF offers (subjective statement: last time I was in Cleveland it felt more like Brooklyn than Brooklyn). Whether it's better or worse is a matter of opinion, but I guess my point is that those factors exist in many mid-western cities, and these are the things that professionals moving into cities really want (and pay higher rent for) and really miss when they move to the suburbs.

Unlike the folks returning back to China or India however (who often times work even harder for an even greater potential upside back in their motherland), the choice to return/remain in a more regional city may often be driven by a lifestyle choice - a mid-level manager working in Pittsburgh will likely work less, make the same/more and, in the immediate social environment, hold higher status than the mid-level manager in Silicon Valley who is slaving away 80 hours a week to make an IPO happen for a 35 year old soon-to-be billionaire founder (the big/small fish/pond concept) - of course the big draw in SF is that YOU could be that founder, and there's less of those opportunities in Pittsburgh (at least in theory, and for now). I think this also ties into the relative wealth equality and socioeconomic integration when compared to NY/SF/etc., which was well-described in the article.

Anyhow, just a thought - to be honest, much of my conjecture is driven by my own desire to move to Cleveland for a lot of the reasons above, but at the end of the day I have not and probably won't (I tell myself it has at least a large part to do with the fact that I was born/raised in the Bay Area and all my family/friends live here, but I have to admit that part of me still wants to be in the big pond at the end of the day, as chill as it looks in a smaller one - of course that could change haha).

shas32• 11 years ago

Aren't you using 'technical talent' too narrowly to only refer to CS? There are some pretty solid non-CS science/tech companies in the mid-west that employ a large number of elite talent in the respective areas: mechanical engineering in Detroit, food/bio/chem in MN, health-care in Pittsburgh (UPMC), etc. (Anecdotally) I know highly talented people in the top of their respective fields who consider working in companies in these cities to be highly desirable because of how good these companies are in their respective fields.

mark-r2• 11 years ago

There's a lot of med tech in MN too.

joshjkim2• 11 years ago

Totally agreed - I think especially with healthcare, cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and St. Louis have nationally elite medical centers (Cleveland Clinic, University of Pittsburgh and WSL, respectively) along with all the healthcare service industries that surround such centers, and therefore are able to attract and retain top talent at all levels of the healthcare industry.

Since this is HN, I guess the question is when will the developer / VC ecosystem develop, but I personally think it's just a matter of time before successful "tentpole" startups will pop up in each market, and after that when your significant other gets into a 7 year residency at WSL you don't break up because you want to do a start-up in NY/SF/SEA - you just move too and hopefully are able to bootstrap more efficiently than you would be paying $3,000 for a studio =)

adventured• 11 years ago

Minneapolis also has a serious crime problem the article completely ignores.

It has about a 10 murder rate (per 100k people). Which is over twice the national average, higher than SF, twice that of Salt Lake City and 50%+ higher than NYC (but lower than Pittsburgh).

It has over five times the rape rate of SF or NYC.

It has twice the robbery rate of NYC, Salt Lake (and higher than SF or Pittsburgh).

An assault rate higher than those other cities, and twice that of SF.

And a burglary rate three or four times higher than NYC, and twice that of SF.

tacojuan• 11 years ago

There's a reason we call it "Murderapolis". However I don't hear the term as much as I used to.

mml• 11 years ago

Murderapolis was 20 years ago. Back then, even southwest was dicey. Much better these days (with the notable exception of north side).

jedc• 11 years ago

MN native here. While those stats do seem to be right (citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...) they are for the city of Minneapolis only.

The article focused on Minneapolis, but talked about the history of the whole Twin Cities region. And when you consider St. Paul and the whole region, I think it's a pretty safe area.

coldpie• 11 years ago

Cities in Minnesota also don't annex neighboring cities, even if it makes sense. That results in a lot of small cities making up the metro area, as opposed to one large city. That can skew statistics, as Minneapolis proper makes up only a small part of our metro area.

VLM2• 11 years ago

Its a midwest thing. I grew up in the MPLS/MKE ish region and its definitely a midwest thing based on my Army travels around the country.

Half the people in the new york metro area live in the city. There is some diversity.

A quarter of the people in the Milwaukee metro area live in the city. Almost no middle class people live in the city, as a percentage. Its all dirt poor in the slums and a couple rich folks along the lake shore areas, thats it.

In MPLS, I kid you not, less than a tenth of the people in the metro area live in the city. Nobody lives downtown but the skyscrapers and some poor people, and as you note, poor people always have amazing high crime stats, so you guess the results. Detroit is pretty much the same way although I haven't spent much time there.

Basically on the coasts, there are middle and upper class people living in cities, which NEVER happens in the midwest. "the city" is a couple soulless skyscrapers, maybe a public uni, and invariably a giant crime filled slum. In the midwest all the cultural and entertainment stuff happens like a quarter mile away from the city or more, in one of the burbs.

If you see a skyscraper, on the coasts its probably a fun place to be, and in the midwest its always the opposite, if you can see a skyscraper, run...

There are two cultural / social effects that really confuse discussions between midwesterners and coasties.

1) Our cities are cultural wastelands with nothing to do except bar hop with fake ID carrying college students. All the cultural stuff happens in the burbs, music, art, parks, most festivals (makerfaire, etc), almost all our sports teams except basketball, all the bars that aren't entirely full of kids with fake IDs or need bullet proof vests to enter, all the good restaurants, all the good or upscale or specialty stores, none of that stuff is downtown in the midwest. My impression of the coasts is ALL the burbs have on the coasts is houses, if you want to buy a pop-tart or a bottle of pepsi you need to drive into the coastal city to shop, etc. So "new urbanism" and all that confuses the hell out of midwesterners. So the coasties say if I move downtown I'll have vibrant cultural activities but there's nothing to do downtown and any time I want to do something I'd have to jump in a car and drive out to the burbs.

This also confuses coasties who get imported. So they think our downtown is like Manhattan but a little smaller, and are mystified that its possibly the most boring four square miles of office buildings on the planet, and tell everyone there's nothing to do in Milwaukee but get drunk, get drugs, and get shot at... but drive out to the burbs, like maybe Brookfield, and we have concerts in the park every summer weekend, and symphony and other music in the amphitheater maybe every other weekend, at multiple sites, and festivals and fairs and street parties and parks and great shopping and great food stores and ... But you gotta drive out to the burbs to have any fun, cities are dead.

The imports have a really rough time, property developers have made these million dollar condos for california people to move into because "all the fun is downtown" back home and condos are supposed to cost a million bucks. But it doesn't work that way in the midwest, so the get all depressed / freaked out that there's nothing to do outside their million dollar downtown condo but get drunk, get drugs, get robbed, or get shot. Could buy a great house in a great school district in a great lifestyle area for a quarter mil, but no, the imports all get a million dollar downtown condo and complain there's nothing to do but get drunk.

In the midwest the cities are empty and soul-less, whereas I'm told on the coasts its the burbs that are empty and soul-less. This confuses the heck out of everyone when coasties and midwesterners talk to each other.

2) On the coasts if someone says they're from NY its over 50% odds they are literally living at a postal address in NYC. In contrast, in the midwest, most people you meet are not from the closest downtown office building city but they WILL say they are. 90% of the people who claim to live in Minneapolis do NOT live in MPLS but in a burb in the greater metro area. I tell people I'm from Milwaukee and people who know MKE feel sad for me and the coasties humorously think I grew up in an office building or in the north side slums, but I actually grew up three burbs to the west (about 15 miles?) in something of a paradise.

Some girls I dated a long time ago were "from Minneapolis" or "from Detroit" but what that really means in midwestern speak is they lived in a burb and the closest skyscraper was maybe 2 miles away in Detroit, for example.

kjell• 11 years ago

There's a kernel of truth to this, but 'city == wasteland + cesspool' is ridiculous. I've lived in south minneapolis most of my life, and never spent any significant amount of time in the burbs. (The last time I made it outside the MSP/St. Paul limits was last november to have my wisdom teeth out, at my local dentist's referral.)

There's plenty of culture here, and I haven't been mugged/shot/raped yet. North minneapolis is essentially a different city, with its fair share of crime and other problems, which I can't speak to.

The big difference between here and a "big coastal city" is that things are a lot more spread out per person. I think this leads to everything being on a smaller scale and more distributed. Most of minneapolis isn't downtown, but mixed use residential. My peers (25-30 year olds) mostly rent houses and live with roommates. Small (3 story max?) apartment buildings are the norm.

will_work4tears• 11 years ago

I grew up in the KCMO area, and can confirm a similarity there. Actually, as you mentioned, I didn't actually LIVE in KC, I lived right outside in a town called Independence, but nobody really knew that town very well, so we all just said KC. Downtown was something you tended to avoid, at least until relatively recently where there's been a lot of stuff added to do, but now I live out West. People live in Seattle, but I live south of that, in Tacoma. Still say I'm from "Seattle" or "The Seattle Area." I wonder if that's a carry over from when I was in MO.

logfromblammo• 11 years ago

To be fair, the suburbs are full of bars, too.

michaelochurch2• 11 years ago

In the midwest the cities are empty and soul-less, whereas I'm told on the coasts its the burbs that are empty and soul-less.

Many Midwestern cities are great, but some downtown areas (meaning the business district, not the whole city) are what you describe. They feel like New York's FiDi. It's changing, but there are blocks in the Chicago Loop that basically close down at 5:00, even though nearby neighborhoods are still active. That said, there are plenty of neighborhoods in Chicago and Minneapolis and Pittsburgh that are vibrant. There just isn't the convex, contiguous block of them that you get on Manhattan (plus parts of Brooklyn and Queens) minus FiDi.

Midwestern suburbs are even more soulless than on the coasts-- suburbia sucks everywhere-- but many Midwestern small towns are nice-- if that's the scene you want. People who live in, say, Northfield, MN will argue vehemently that they're not in suburbia, and they're right. There's a sense of community that you don't get in some California strip mall. Small towns still exist out there. The public schools are good and people go ice fishing or cross-country skiing on the weekend, but you're 40 miles from the theaters. There's a main street with good coffeeshops and pedestrian traffic... but 5 miles out is suburban crapola or woods or cornfields. Like I said, it's not for everyone, but it's a different lifestyle than the suburban one.

Also, what you're describing doesn't seem to apply to the under-35 set. Young people, even in the Midwest, favor cities and, over time, that's reviving them. But it doesn't happen quickly. It's true that there's no shame in living in suburbia in the Midwest, because people are less focused on the social status of one's neighborhood, whereas moving to Jersey if you work on Wall Street can hurt your professional future. I consider that a virtue of the Midwest (even though I dislike suburbia and personally would not want to live there).

Finally, the Midwest is more suburb-centric than New York and Boston, but it's not really any worse than California or even DC/Baltimore.

yequalsx• 11 years ago

Most of the culture in the Minneapolis metro area is in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Downtown Minneapolis is not in any way a slum area. There are lots of luxury condos and apartment buildings on the Minneapolis skyway. The same for downtown Saint Paul. Downtown Saint Paul is nowhere near as vibrant as downtown Minneapolis but that is slowly changing.

Your information about Minneapolis is wrong.

kaitai• 11 years ago

As a MSP-ian with a pretty heavy classical & jazz & random stuff habit, I never go to the suburbs unless I'm visiting my grandparents. Ever. Even in quiet and boring downtown St Paul it is easy to rotate through the opera/the chamber orchestra/the Baroque Room/Studio Z/Bedlam Theater/the Amsterdam and match that with drinks at any number of establishments. Minneapolis has many more choices and more beautiful people, all downtown, including one of the most vibrant theater scenes in the country. And our city farmer's markets kick ass. The suburban ones are small and in a church parking lot.

Why would you go to a suburb for culture? I seriously don't understand. There is nothing in the MSP suburbs unless the orchestra drives out there for an outreach concert. And my friend who likes country music drives out of town to a country bar...

michael_h• 11 years ago

Basically on the coasts, there are middle and upper class people living in cities, which NEVER happens in the midwest. "the city" is a couple soulless skyscrapers, maybe a public uni, and invariably a giant crime filled slum. In the midwest all the cultural and entertainment stuff happens like a quarter mile away from the city or more, in one of the burbs.

That is incredibly inaccurate. Pick any mid-sized midwestern city as a counterpoint.

uxp100• 11 years ago

Since a few others have said you're wrong about MPLS, I'll say you're wrong about MKE. In my experience, you're wrong, I can't imagine going to the suburbs for "culture," (except perhaps Wauwatosa) I don't know anyone who does regularly, including people who live in the suburbs.

But Downtown is fairly empty, you're not incorrect. It's Offices, and lunch for office workers. For "Culture," or rather events, I go to the neighbourhoods. Bayview, Riverwest, lower East side.

justinph• 11 years ago

Having grown up in Milwaukee (the city proper) and now living in Minneapolis (the city proper), I couldn't disagree more. Milwaukee may be very racially segregated, and Minneapolis may have a high achievement gap, but neither city is all slum the way you portray. Far from it.

projectileboy• 11 years ago

Interestingly, crime is much less of an issue across the river in St. Paul, even though both cities have approximately the same number of police officers per capita (according to Wolfram Alpha). Housing is also generally cheaper in St. Paul.

bovermyer2• 11 years ago

I live in Minneapolis, in one of the "less safe" neighborhoods. Compared to the house I lived in in Philadelphia, which had bars on the first-story windows, it's perfectly fine from a crime proximity standpoint.

The house is 2500 sq.ft., with four bedrooms and three stories (not counting the basement), and we pay about $1200 a month for it. The neighbors are quiet and there aren't too many break-ins in the area.

Cost of living is wonderfully low here. Being smack in the middle of the country, and close to Canada, we have access to a ton of stuff that other areas just don't get. As a major transport hub, we also get extremely fresh seafood, which makes the local sushi scene vibrant.

Music, art, and entertainment are huge here. If it's a day ending in y, there's something going on somewhere in the metro.

There are a number of tech meetups in the area. I go to a few, like GoMN, AWS MN, and PHPMN. I'm thinking of swapping out GoMN for RubyMN - we'll see. There's a handful of tech conferences here, too.

The Twin Cities definitely feels like a Millennial city. Like there's a ton of potential, and it's not just on its way to greatness, it's starting to achieve it.

That is not to say it's flawless - like any place inhabited by humans, it has its problems. But the benefits vastly outweigh the drawbacks.

javiramos• 11 years ago

Wow. I pay $1250 for my studio in Boston.

simonebrunozzi• 11 years ago

But you get the snow! (I'm visiting Boston at the moment. Crazy).

voodoomagicman• 11 years ago

what neighborhood is that?

redidas• 11 years ago

From their description I'm guessing Northeast Minneapolis. It is an old blue-collar area currently being revived, and has quite a few older 3-story houses.

A lot of the old warehouse buildings have been gutted and renovated, turned into office spaces, breweries, lofts, restaurants, and coffee shops. Its also considered the arts district of Minneapolis.

I think the crime used to be worse than it currently is, but I'm not certain of that. I started working in the area a few years ago, and I haven't witnessed anything unpleasant. It feels quite safe here.

If you go across the river to North Minneapolis, you'll run into a rougher neighborhood with bars on windows and stuff like that. But even then I've heard things are improving over there too.

bovermyer2• 11 years ago

The Central neighborhood, just south of Lake St. It's not as ...hmm... exciting as North, granted, but I can still point out the leader of the local gang if I see him and his compatriots driving around.

toddgardner2• 11 years ago

Considering talent, you also must consider the culture of the region. Minnesotans are generally very understated and humble. I have met many people here who at first blush consider themselves average, but are amazingly talented.

There are truly amazing people here. They just aren't broadcasting it--and their not looking for work.

toddgardner2• 11 years ago

I believe most Minnesotans are a little uncomfortable by this attention, and we'd like to go back to quietly making lots of money now.

michaelochurch2• 11 years ago

Agree. There are a lot of semi-offensive comments about "brain drain" and talent level. It's more subtle than that.

There is a lot of talent in the Midwest. What you don't get outside of the Bay, at the highest levels of specialty, is a continuous rather than discrete/illiquid market. (New York has a continuous market, but you're competing with Wall Street for anyone good.) This is a pain point for job-seekers and companies looking for talent. If you're looking for someone with 5 years of Clojure experience, production experience with three specific NoSQL products, and an extensive knowledge of the Javascript world... you can find that in SF at some price. In the Midwest, you might have to train up into the role... or, if you're a job seeker, accept an 80% match on the tech stack.

It's a quantity rather than quality issue (pound for pound, the talent levels in Minneapolis and San Francisco aren't very different) but this allows employers and job seekers both to be very finicky ("purple unicorn" searches) in the Bay. It also makes it possible in the Bay, if you're adept at this game, to double your comp in a bidding war. It's much harder to start a bidding war in a Midwestern city of 500,000.

This "bidding war" effect is also why you see some not-that-talented engineers making a lot of money. In the Bay, you have Haskell engineers at $125k and Java engineers making $300k. Why the inversion? The Java engineer can get 3 employers into a bidding war at the same time; that's nearly impossible to do if you're a Haskell engineer.

sjg007• 11 years ago

java 300k where? and yes please!

robodale• 11 years ago

LeadPages is based out of Minneapolis...and they kick as much or more ass than any startup San Fran can produce.

ianbicking2• 11 years ago

I come from Minneapolis and moved back here as an adult. A few observations:

1) Of course lots of stuff still sucks, this is a low bar for miracles ;)

2) The region of influence is huge – going west the next real city is Seattle. This has always been an important part of the city, first for lumber, then agriculture, and now medicine and education.

3) Sure there's a brain drain, but we also have that large region draining into this city. Rural areas produce smart and interesting people as well.

4) Government is quite competent. I get a broad and consistent sense that people who work in government, elected or not, see it as a form of service.

5) Government is generally fiscally conservative. Not bullshit fiscal conservatism, but the kind that keeps expenditures low AND taxes high. As a result the squeezes we have had (the same everyone has had lately) haven't been too destructive.

6) Minneapolis is embedded in a quite large county, that includes a lot of suburbs and even some rural areas (even if those are dwindling). Minneapolis is not the majority of the county, population or area. I know many urbanists get excited about unified governments like Indianapolis where county and city take on the same boundaries. I think that's unsafe – you can get shit done, but shit can also fall apart. St. Louis is a good counterexample.

7) We're even less unified than that, because Minneapolis and St. Paul make up one metro area, the two being largely indistinguishable from each other. I liked this opinion piece on the problems with city government: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/19/urban_malgove... – specifically the problem with a lack of political competition in core cities. Like most big cities Minneapolis is almost one-party (there's a Green Party that manages to just barely hold on to relevancy), but the competition between Minneapolis and St. Paul I think helps keep both of them honest. It's a friendly competition, but it helps moderate things. For instance, a useful critique lately has been that St. Paul Public Schools manages to spend considerably less and has better outcomes, for a student body that looks largely the same. I'm hoping we explore that further.

8) Cost of living isn't that low. Lower than San Francisco, sure, but everything in the U.S. is cheaper than that. We don't have the bursts of speculation that drive prices up in weird ways, and we have the naturally suppressive power of our weather, but it's not cheap.

9) There are many criticisms of the disparities here – that Minnesota generally and Minneapolis along with it have a greater difference in outcomes for whites and minorities, across many measures. Some of these are problematic (I'm very unhappy with our policing), but some of the criticism I think is unwarranted. We have a large Somali population, for instance. They are struggling. But they JUST MOVED FROM SOMALIA. Families torn apart, no background in an educational or economic system like here, I'm certain many people hold trauma from their experiences in Somalia. Of course they aren't doing awesomely. But they are doing okay, and all considered that's kind of incredible. And that population is in Minnesota ENTIRELY because of our social services. And I'm glad this community can use its wealth to help these people, but the talk of disparities is just off. I think this is largely true for many of the minorities here who are fairly recent immigrants, we could do better but we're also doing good by them. (The same assessment doesn't really apply to Native Americans, that's a sad situation where this community is not living up to its obligations.)

maxerickson• 11 years ago

Which side are you counting St. Louis as an example for? It isn't clear to me from your phrasing, but I think you probably mean that it is split up.

For those that haven't seen it, Saint Louis county has 90 municipalities with 81 court systems:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/h...

ianbicking2• 11 years ago

Huh, I had been under the impression St. Louis had a combined county and city government. I stand corrected!

shas32• 11 years ago

I think the refugee policy is a very important plus for Minnesota. As a foreigner, I get nervous in places where there isn't enough diversity in the police force or other governmental services, for example. But in Minnesota, it is very common to see Hmong, Somali, and Nepali police officers, etc. It is a reality that immigrants who come to the US for employment are usually better off, and their children are less likely to become police officers, etc. whereas refugees and their children are more likely to take up such jobs. (Caveat: this is an observation of facts a posteriori, not a comment on the innate abilities of refugees vis a vis skilled immigrants, etc.)

johnjackamend• 11 years ago

Lived in MN for 18 years now in Southern California. If and when you can afford to leave MN, you do it. I pay the same amount that I would for an entire house per month in MPLS for a single in Santa Barbara and that would put people off. But to me, I get to scrap that whole 5-9 months worth of Siberian weather and inevitable seasonal depression and have an inspiring environment.

People who have never lived in MN and read these articles with even the slightest interest in moving to the state are simply out of their minds. My opinion of course.

80% of my peers are MPLS millennials working for Target Corp., Best Buy, and slew of start-ups and marketing firms and there isn't one person I know that would even blink at the price difference if they had the opportunity to move to a coastal region. If you have the chance to leave MN you do.

Tax me out the ass, increase my rent, and inflate my prices, I do not care, as long as I get to see blue skies for more than 2 months a year (If you're lucky).

I am simply an MN ex-pat hater but I find that the coastal cities are bustling and expensive because the $$ is worth your sanity.

bGriz• 11 years ago

I lived in Mpls for about 28 years, recently moved to Seattle and don't regret it. It doesn't mean I won't come back, my family is there and I love northern Minnesota (cabin country!).

The cold didn't bother me much.

Things that bother me on the coast are the insane traffic, the seemingly lack of aid and/or housing for large homeless populations, yes the high cost of living. But it's mostly awesome.

I'm missing a lot of useful points here, just some ad-hoc thoughts.

The Miracle of Minneapolis

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