Regionalism : Buzz

Minnesota now ranks 7th in CNBC's annual ranking of the top places to do business.

For the past five years, the news firm has ranked all 50 states based on categories such as cost of doing business, workforce, transportation and infrastructure, education, access to capital, and quality of life.

Minnesota improved its rankings for cost of doing business and access to capital, and came in 8th for its quality of life. The state came out ahead of Iowa and Nebraska, which also placed in the top 10.

Overall, Virginia was the highest-ranked state, and Rhode Island was the lowest-ranked.

Saint Paul beat out hundreds of competitors to become a "top 10 city" for its quality of life and business-friendly environment.

The rankings were put together by FDi Intelligence, a division of the Financial Times Ltd., which tracks global business and investment trends.

The Cities of the Future process compares over 400 cities in North and South America, examining economic potential, human resources, cost effectiveness, quality of life, infrastructure, and business-friendliness.

In a comment on the Financial Times results, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman cited significant infrastructure investments like the Central Corridor Light Rail Line as well as a revitalized bar and restaurant scene in Lowertown. He noted, "[W]e are focused on making Saint Paul a destination for living, working and playing."

When it comes to global warming, the Twin Cities is more resilient than other U.S. cities.

In response to the Resilient Cities 2011 Conference and Grist.org's list of the 10 most "climate-ready" cities, Nature Conservancy blogger Jeff Opperman compiled his own ranking of cities and climate change that addresses "how vulnerable or resilient a city is to climate change based on the city's environmental context," writes Opperman.

While Minneapolis did not appear on the Grist list, we were number five in terms of the "most resilient/least vulnerable" to climate change, behind Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago.

"Rust Belt" cities rank high for their sustainable water supply (like the Great Lakes), low heat-stress rankings, and low vulnerability to natural disasters, he writes. 

The Republic, a newspaper in Columbus, Indiana, recently published an Associated Press story about a celebratory bike ride from Minneapolis and St. Paul mayors R.T. Rybak and Chris Coleman.

The two mayors jointly participated in their cities' Nice Ride public bike-sharing program.

Along with a number of other local bicyclists, the mayors started pedaling at the Seward Coop in Minneapolis and ended at a St. Paul Dunn Bros coffee shop.

Their ride was a nod to the program's expansion, which involves adding another 43 bike stations to its 73 in Minneapolis last year. This time around, the bike stations are popping up in both cities. 

Proponents of such bike-sharing programs say that they can "help cut down on obesity, traffic jams and auto emissions," the story states.

Travel and Leisure magazines gives the Twin Cities high marks for cleanliness. The Twin Cities come in second nationwide, just after Salt Lake City, Utah and before Portland, Ore., out of a handful of U.S. cities. 

New York City is on the opposite end of things, according to the magazine's survey, which separately looks at various quality of life factors. 

City Pages has a piece about the distinction that mentions that Travel and Leisure's readership determined the rankings.

How much trash a city seems to have had a lot to do with the results, it states.

"A hipster is just a Brooklynite who wishes they were from Minnesota because it's 'more real,' while genuine Minnesotans are exempt from the label," writes Chris Menning in Buzzfeed on "the most hipster state in the U.S."

They are strong words, stated tongue-in-cheek and a with a good amount of data behind them: Menning cites the frequency of regional searches for the term "hipster," and he backs up Minnesota's crowning with our "lumberjack look," thriving theater scene, plethora of co-ops and farmer's markets, favorite musical sons (from Dylan to Atmosphere), bike-city status, and the movie Juno.

A group of five students from Normandale Community College in Bloomington embarked on a road trip March 31 with a modest plan: save Detroit, writes Christine MacDonald in the Detroit News.

The plan, which came out of an assignment for a city politics class, involves "rebuild[ing] from the core," increasing the size of Wayne State University, and making it an "education epicenter," with Midtown Detroit modeled after Dinkytown, according to the article.

Calling Detroit a "laboratory for urban reformers," MacDonald notes that the five students are not the only ones bringing their visions to the motor city: The American Assembly public policy forum will "discuss proposals" there April 14–17.

Corporate Responsibility Magazine (CRM) has released its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List for 2011.

Six of the 100 companies listed are from Minnesota, including number-three ranked General Mills, Inc.

The list is compiled using publicly available data in seven categories: climate change, employee relations, environment, financial, governance, human rights, and philanthropy.

The six Minnesota companies included are (ranking in parentheses):

General Mills, Inc (3)
Xcel Energy, Inc. (30)
3M Co. (32)
Hormel Foods Corp (40)
Mosaic Company (45)
Medtronic, Inc. (77)

The list includes a "yellow card" category for companies that appear on the list "despite some self-caused reputational damage," according to CRM--usually a "pending or completed administrative or official legal sanction."

Minnesota was represented in this arena as well; CRM notes a December 2010 suit filed against 3M by the State of Minnesota "for contaminating the state's waters."

When it comes to public transportation, the Twin Cities are working hard to improve options, according to U.S. News and World Report.

In its recently compiled list of top ten U.S. cities for public transportation, the Twin Cities came in fifth place, after Boston and ahead of San Francisco. Portland topped the list.  

The Twin Cities made the list in part for its work on the Central Corridor Light Rail line that will link Minneapolis and St. Paul. It'll build on the already-existing Hiawatha Light Rail line that brings people between downtown Minneapolis and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Also noteworthy is its Northstar Commuter Rail that runs between downtown Minneapolis and the northwestern suburbs.  

Last year ridership increased 2.3 percent. 
 

In a recent column in the Huffington Post, local author Jay Walljasper describes winter bike-riding in the Twin Cities while also providing some practical tips for others who want to do the same. 

For Walljasper, winter biking is good exercise and it provides a "mental lift that comes from feeling the wind in my face and blood pumping through my body," he says.

He's not alone. Information from Bike Walk Twin Cities, he says, shows that 36 percent of summer bike commuters persist on "clear, warm winter days," while 20 percent brave the elements even when it's cold and snowy. 
 
For others looking to start winter biking, he suggests investing in a good light and snow tires and wearing layers, among other things.  

Dave Van Hattum, who is the policy and advocacy program manager at Transit for Livable Communities and Jim Erkel, the land use and transportation program director at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, co-wrote a recent Star Tribune editorial urging the Twin Cities to pull together as a region to stay competitive.  

Van Huttum and Erkel, along with Ann Canby of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, are the authors of a report about regional governance titled "Planning to Succeed?"

In their editorial, they state: "Today, we hear from some quarters that we don't need a strong regional vision, that local control is the key to success." They argue that that kind of thinking could put the metro area behind others across the country while also shortchanging its ability to respond to changing needs.

The market is shifting to more walkable, transit-friendly neighborhoods. "To compete with other regions, we need to ensure that the money we spend on transit, roads, airports, and sewers maximizes efficiency."  

While the Twin Cities' population declined in the early 2000s, it's been steadily increasing in recent years, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.

For starters, both cities have attracted more residents over the past year: Minneapolis went from 385,378 to 388,123 while St. Paul increased from 281,253 to 282,038, the article states, citing data from its sister company, Buffalo Business First. 

Those figures appear to be part of a longer-term trend for incremental growth in the urban areas. Since 2004, Minneapolis has gained over 10,000 city dwellers. And, across the river, the population has been on the rise since 2006, when it had 276,237 inhabitants.

What constitutes local food in the Twin Cities? Lenny Russo, "a de facto leader in the local and sustainable food movement," argues at his Star Tribune's Your Voices blog that it's not as restrictive as farmer's markets might have it, nor as broad as California growers want:

"Heartland is a Midwestern regional restaurant , and as such its food shelf extends as far east as Ohio, south to Missouri west to the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska and north to Canada and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  In other words, we draw products from the entire Midwestern portion of North America. While the vast majority of our ingredients are sourced within a 200 mile radius of the restaurant, there are some who would not consider much of what we serve to be local food. We certainly wouldn't pass muster with the St. Paul Farmers' Market whose members define local food as that which is grown and produced within 75 miles of the market."

Read the entire article here.

St. Paul topped a new list as the city where residents enjoy the fastest Internet speeds in the nation. Minneapolis came in seventh. But the Star Tribune reports there are local skeptics:

"Ookla, a well-known Seattle company that measures the speed of Internet connections, says St. Paul has recently become No. 1 in the nation in residential Internet download speeds. Minneapolis is no slouch either, coming in seventh in the current Net Index report.

"But some local experts say Ookla's numbers are questionable. They point out that 18 months ago the state-sponsored Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force found that average residential broadband speeds in Ramsey and Hennepin counties averaged 6 million to 10 million bits per second, also called megabits.

"But Ookla's average speeds -- 14.5 megabits in St. Paul and 12.3 in Minneapolis -- were significantly higher."

Read the rest of the article here.

It started as a one-room school house before Warren Burger's grandfather expanded it into a humble residence. The future chief justice of the United States Supreme Court lived there from the time he was seven years old, sleeping on the porch. Now the house on the East Side of St. Paul stands vacant, but there's an effort afoot to give it its due, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports:

"Local preservationists hope someone steps forward to buy it and prevent further deterioration.

"'I kind of thought some attorney might want to live in the home that Warren Burger was in,' Trimble said.

"'Someone from such a simple house on the East Side of St. Paul rose to such prestige and power,' said Matt Mazanec, a member of the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission. 'It is such an important structure. We want to make sure it's available for future generations.'

"But at least some people in the area don't see it as much of a landmark.

"'Who's Warren Burger?' said Cindy Rowan, who lives across the street from the house.

"Things turned out differently for the Minnesota childhood homes of Judy Garland, Charles Lindbergh, Sinclair Lewis, Wanda Gag and Maud Hart Lovelace. They're all museum sites.

"Typically, that has happened because local fans decided the place where their hero carved his initials in the woodwork deserved to be enshrined and they found a way to raise the money to do it."

Read the full article here.