More evidence that Minneapolis residents—even the Mayor—don’t know where the neighborhoods actually are

A few weeks ago I posted about the negatives we found behind our kitchen wall during renovation. We figured out that they are from the family who lived in our house in the 1940s and 50s. Well well just got the negatives developed and the photos look so good for being buried in rubble for 70 years!

Each time I go to a quirky Minneapolis event, I think to myself “This is amazing, it can’t get better than this!” But the May Day Parade tops it all, especially after the winter we had here. I love this city so damn much.

Bike capital of North America

The biannual appearance of “Whoa look at what you can afford for cheap in Minneapolis” in the New York Times www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Great cities deserve great things. I would love to hop on the 18 instead of driving to Golden Valley.

We’re renovating our kitchen in South Minneapolis and found some photo negatives in the rubble under the stairs—these two are taken in front of our house. After some sleuthing, we’ve determined that this is the family who lived here in the 1940s and 50s!

The four quadrants of Minneapolis, as distinguished by their typical non-roadworthy cars in the alley South Minneapolis: It's a 1980s car and its Gen X owner hopes to restore it one day, either to drive themself or for their teenage kid to drive to hockey practice

Wow, this seems like a pretty big deal.

This is...just terrible. My husband is really good at coming up with clever names for trivia teams and I'm 100% sure he could have branded our university WAY better than this.

I still feel like Uptown's primary issue is that it used to be the center of urban development demand in the region and that center has shifted to include more places (North Loop, Mill, Northeast etc). Combine that with the fact that demand is only so high (we're not Seattle) and you get cycles

Gotta show the whole distribution. It’s all good biking weather

Many workers have missed shifts without jobs being destroyed making it challenging to measure labor impacts with conventional sources. We use real-time daily data from Homebase to measure impacts. Thanks to UChicago and Homebase for making the data available. #EconSky #NumbersDay

Minnesota natives/long-time residents, is this something? Here we experience many different stages of winter (chilly, snowy, frigid, snowy, chilly etc.) while on, say, the east coast there’s only one winter with varying temps.

Impossible not to tear up reading this absolutely beautiful essay about the Minneapolis grassroots resistance from the talented Will McGrath. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

The Luminary Loppet: far superior to Groundhog Day as a middle-of-winter celebration event.

You should absolutely visit. And if you’re like me, you might just want to move here.

I wrote a song for our immigrant neighbors here in Minnesota. Pardon my rusty guitar skills—it’s been over 10 years since I wrote my last song, but this moment called for music. youtube.com/shorts/B7Csu...

My home city of Santa Barbara taking my current city’s lead www.noozhawk.com/federal-ice-...

From a friend who works at an MPS school with hundreds of families in hiding: "The thing REALLY needed is money for rent/utilities/cell phone bills. It looks like there is a lot of money raised but across 5 schools it’s not enough with February rent coming due." givebutter.com/rent4mplsfam...

I grew up in California and knew little about Minneapolis until I visited for a conference in 2015. I immediately knew it was my place, and it took 8 years to finally get here. I truly believe it is America’s greatest city, all things considered. People are starting to see why.

Tired: City of Lakes Wired: the City that De-Ices Inspired: Woke Hoth

Since 1950, only 1 state has ranked in the top 5 for life expectancy every year

How much of this Greenland thing can be blamed directly on the Mercator projection?

The Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota (@minnpop.bsky.social) is hiring a postdoc in Population Health. Happy to chat about the MPC, UMN, and the Twin Cities, which are all awesome in my humble opinion! pop.umn.edu/training/pos...

A tornado comes in a whirlwind and tears apart a community - I can think of no better metaphor for ICE upon hearing the siren

Me on January 1st 2025 vs. me on December 31st 2025. It’s been a long year.

In my past life (read: pre-kids and tenure track job), I sang in a band. We recorded this 10 years ago for npr’s Tiny Desk contest. youtu.be/LaW64S85gBI?...

Rode the E Line today with my three-year-old for the opening. Great line and I could see it rivaling the B and D ridership

First real winter bike commute.

While we wait to see what is going on, please note that you can still get most of what is in MEPS microdata from IPUMS: meps.ipums.org/meps/

I moved to Minnesota in June 2023 during a day when the air smelled like a campfire. When I’ve asked longtime Minnesotans about the increasingly severe smoke during our summers, they all say it was never a problem until a few years ago. And wow, this graph has got the receipts.

Just occurred to me: Fall has the same hours of daylight as Winter, and Spring has the same hours of daylight as Summer

Trend that seems like it would have a simple explanation, but I'm not sure does - pedestrian deaths among US children: 1970 - ~2,400 deaths (4.2/100K) 1990 - ~950 deaths (1.8.100K) 2005 - ~380 deaths (0.6/100K) 2023 - ~260 deaths (0.4/100K)

This is great - the federal government supports both homeowners and renters. But support for low-income renters through rental assistance is a direct expenditure always on the budget chopping block. In contrast the homeowner support is hidden in the tax code and people think it's just the default.

The coveted 60 degree bike commute during peak foliage.

Flagship state universities with urban campuses in large cities* HI CA WA AZ NM NE TX MN OH KY Flagships that are in the state’s largest city: WA HI UT NM MN OH VT Did not expect it to skew so heavily west of the Mississippi *subjective

A list of reasons for this in order of importance: 1. Even density. Few high-density neighborhood centers. 2. Streetcar corners. Fewer long main drags. 3. Ease of parking. You’d think this would be #1, but it’s downstream of 1 and 2 4. Winter (minor) But I think we have the bones for walkabillity

Was in Northeast by the river and North Loop and both were *hopping*. It’s like I say about Uptown: it was once an epicenter but if you look at all the new smaller epicenters that have sprung up in the last 15 years, it explains a lot of the falloff beyond “someone fucked something up.”

This weekend, my son and I took the B-Line to Downtown St. Paul to the Science Museum. It took about 40 min from Nicollet. On the way back we took the Green Line. To my surprise, it took about the same amount of time - 43 minutes to downtown MPLS. Why? The Green Line waited at several red lights.

We in Minnesota have not shrugged and moved on. And we in Minneapolis are still reeling from the school shooting at Annunciation, which I assume is already long gone from the news cycle. America.

Circling back on this, I think I’m vindicated! Attendance this year topped both 2024 and 2023 despite only one record day and rising entry fees. The beautiful weather just spread it out. www.mnstatefair.org/about/attend...

But seriously Portland Airport, what is up with this signage?!?!

Fair Transit!

Granted I’m often an over enthusiastic booster of the cities, but I wonder if MSP has underlying structural characteristics that hinder a transit recovery. More job sprawl, more remote-potential jobs, cheaper parking? I don’t know, I just don’t want to quickly lay this at the feet of metro transit.

Three South Minneapolis public schools of the past that closed and are now housing. 1. Louis Agassiz - 38th and Harriet. Closed in 1981 after sustaining tornado damage. Now the site of a few dozen townhouses.

The Berry Budget! Berries happen to be the only food at the union of ‘healthy’ and ‘things kids will reliably eat’

Milwaukee Ave. Minneapolis. More pedestrian streets!

“Seemingly every diverse cultural facet in the city can be found riding the B Line, and it’s the kind of thing that makes you fall in love with cosmopolitanism.” Beautifully said by @blindeke.bsky.social www.minnpost.com/cityscape/20...

A reprise: some insights after 2 years in Minneapolis. 1. As a Minneapolis and Minnesota booster, I appreciate the local spirit and enthusiasm. But I can see how it would get tiresome. However, I think knowing nothing about Minneapolis is far more common than being annoyed at the boosterism.