Strong Local Economy : Buzz

The New York Times recently featured Minnesota's statewide “museum month,” which is coming up in May.

It’s the first celebration of the sort to spring up nationally, according to the newspaper.

Several local museum administrators came up with the idea, the story states.

“The rich history of Minnesota’s museums invites such a focus,” says the Times, citing the 1849 founding of the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul.

The Walker Art Center’s chief of operations, Phillip Bahar, is quoted saying, “There are stories that we each try to tell individually, whenever a special exhibition is happening,” but “What we want to do is tell the stories that we don’t have the opportunity to tell very often, about the broader community of museums across the state.”

An episode of the Food Network TV show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” this week spotlights Pizzeria Lola, a popular pizza joint in Southwest Minneapolis.

Pizzeria Lola, which features wood-fired artisan pizzas, is known for a creative menu that includes everything from a Korean barbecue-style pizza to the “Sunnyside” pizza, which is topped with an egg.

The neighborhood eatery is a favorite of chef and TV/radio personality Andrew Zimmern, according to a summary on the show’s website.

Another part of the episode takes viewers to a destination diner in Georgetown, Texas, with actor Matthew McConaughey.

National Public Radio (NPR) recently ran a story about how low-income Americans are finding paths to home ownership, despite financial disincentives. As an example of a family that's benefiting from owning their home, NPR highlighted the story of the Rhodeses, a couple living in St. Paul with their three children.
 
"Our main goal of owning a home is a place that we can really call our own--a place that we feel safe and secure," noted Tamika Rhodes in the story. "Just a place where we can be free."
 
The news program continued by detailing how the family bought a home with a subprime mortgage just a few years before and lost it to foreclosure. But through intensive credit repair, they were able to buy their home in St. Paul. 

The Huffington Post includes the Twin Cities in its recent list of top 10 places for bicycling.

It recognized cities of over 100,000 residents that “feature an abundance of great rental shops, municipal bike racks, exciting trails, and dedicated bike lanes,” the story states.

“The Twin Cities' emergence as a bike-friendly superstar coincided with a general plan to make the area more livable,” according to the story.

In Minneapolis, the Nice Ride bike-sharing program has seen plenty of use, while bike-friendly events are abundant.

Last year the city “added 37 miles of bikeways, installed hundreds of bike-specific street signs, and created a citywide bike map," says HuffPo.

Minneapolis is among the top 10 U.S. cities to make a comeback in population terms after the recession, according to Forbes.

The magazine used IRS data to draw its conclusions.

It looked for “counties that were losing population in 2005 but that were either gaining in 2010 or losing far fewer people,” the story states. “Every city on this list saw more people move in 2010 than in 2005, so we aren’t merely recognizing cities that have already lost all of their mobile population.”

Demographer William Frey says in the story that places such as Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Washington, D.C., have a strong group of people he calls “windfall stayers” or those “who otherwise would have moved out either to their own suburbs, or to more economically vibrant places,” plus others making a return move to the city.  

In Minneapolis, “inbound migration has grown, attracted to a region whose diverse economy has kept unemployment low throughout the recession, and to a vibrant city center.”

St. Paul came in at number one on a national ranking of health care systems, particularly when it came to dental visits, low breast cancer fatalities, and heart care treatment.
 
Reported by the Commonwealth Fund in its first-ever scorecard on the quality of health care, St. Paul beat out other Minnesota communities on the list like Rochester (no. 3), Minneapolis (no. 4) and St. Cloud (no. 7).
 
The report looked at performance in 306 communities nationally, and found that health care access, cost, quality, and outcomes can vary greatly from one community to the next, even within the same state.
 
The executive summary noted: "The findings show that local health system performance is linked across all dimensions. Better access to care [is] associated with higher quality and better outcomes."
 

According to figures released by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the state's companies set a fourth-quarter export record. In that time period, $5.1 billion worth of manufactured, agricultural, and mining products were shipped out of state.
 
DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips noted that strong markets in Asia and North America are driving the growth, and the Minnesota Trade Office is seeing increased interest from state companies in exporting strategies.
 
The largest export market was Canada, which bought nearly $1.5 billion worth of products during the quarter. Other major customers included China, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Singapore.
 
In terms of products, machinery was the top export, followed by optical and medical products, vehicles, plastic, meat, food waste, and aircraft.
 

A recent Men’s Health study finds that St. Paul drivers are among the safest across the country.

The magazine analyzed accident rates in 100 of the country’s biggest cities, tallying up fatal and nonfatal crashes along with how many of those involved speeding, alcohol, or a hit and run. Numbers for seatbelt use and cell phone law observance also came up.  

St. Paul is the sole city to get an A+ safety grade. Lincoln, Nebraska, follows with an A-. Next in line are Boston, Buffalo, and Reno. At the bottom of the list is St. Louis.    

Minneapolis received a B-.  
 

In a review of the film's release on DVD, Pop Matters points out that Minneapolis is one of the stars in “Stuck Between Stations,” which stars Josh Hartnett.

The couple upon whom the film centers “may or may not love each other, but they clearly love their city,” it says.   

Minneapolis becomes a character in the movie, and its “signature characteristics are on display: its art, its architecture, even its bicycling culture,” while local bands are also featured.

The author also praises the film’s cinematography, which shows “visually stunning” views of the area.

Director of photography Bo Hakala, who lives in Minneapolis, demonstrates his “love for his home city and its visual appeal manifests itself gloriously on screen.”  

 

A recent USA Today story highlights the makeover of the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Minneapolis.

As a part of a $25 million project that started in December 2011, the hotel charged its designers with creating a “sleek, new look with an eye towards all things “local”--including Red Wing Pottery,” the story states.

Michael Suomi, design chief for Stonehill & Taylor, which came up with the architectural and design plans, is quoted saying "We had a specific goal of bringing as much of the manufacturing and sourcing back to America to promote job growth, increase speed to market and celebrate American craft"--adding that this way, “we saved money!"

A local couple who were facing foreclosure got help from comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, according to a Star Tribune story.

DeGeneres presented them with a $25,000 check from Fujifilm Medical Systems on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which aired last Friday.

Carrie Agnew had written to the show about the dire situation she and her partner, Rebecca Johnson, were facing.

When the show offered to fly them in to watch a taping, Agnew had no idea that the visit would involve financial help.

"It's such a relief," Agnew says in the story, adding, "Our lives are changing."

As noted in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, and compiled by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the state's employers reported nearly 50,000 job openings during the fourth quarter of 2011. That's an increase of nearly 48 percent compared to the same period of 2010.
 
Another significant number: there were 3.2 unemployed people per job opening in the recent fourth quarter, compared with 5.8 per vacancy in the year before.
 
About 11 percent of employers surveyed by DEED planned to hire more people in the next six months, and 83 percent noted that they didn't expect staffing levels to change.

Four local eateries landed on a list of restaurants that provide the best service in the United States.
 
Compiled by restaurant reservation service OpenTable, the list is based on reviews submitted by users of the website.
 
The quartet that rose above the others locally: Acqua Restaurant and Wine Bar in White Bear Lake, Capital Grille and La Belle Vie in Minneapolis, and Joan's in the Park in St. Paul.
 
"A huge part of what makes many of these restaurants great are the people themselves, working tirelessly to delight their patrons," OpenTable noted about the list.

The Walker Art Center blog features artist Aaron Draplin’s graphic map, called, “100 Things I Love About Minneapolis.”

The image shows a map of the state, which is filled in with words and illustrations that touch on everything from the iconic Grain Belt Brewery sign to the common phrase, “You betcha.”

It includes landmarks along with bits and pieces of pop culture. Among the destinations it pictures are the Ideal Diner in Northeast Minneapolis, Ax-Man Surplus store in St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis skyways.

A number of Twin Cities-based businesses are highly respected, according to Fortune magazine.

Four local enterprises made it into Fortune’s top 50 list of the “most admired” companies around the globe, notes the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

The magazine asked businesspeople to weigh in on everything from innovation to management practices in picking their favorite companies.

The list included 3M Corp., Target Corp., St. Jude Medical Inc. and General Mills Inc., while six others were contenders for the list. Several others that have a significant local presence were also named.   

Apple, Google, and Amazon.com secured the top spots in the list.