Minneapolis
—  City  —
250px City of Minneapolis
Flag of Minneapolis Flag Seal
Nickname(s): City of Lakes, Mill City, Twin Cities (with Saint Paul), Mini Apple
Motto: En Avant (French: 'Forward')
Location in Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota
Minneapolis Location in the United States
Coordinates: 44°59′N 93°16′W / 44.983°N 93.267°W / 44.983; -93.267Coordinates: 44°59′N 93°16′W / 44.983°N 93.267°W / 44.983; -93.267
Country	United States
State	Minnesota
County	Hennepin
Incorporated	1867
Founder	John H. Stevens and Franklin Steele
Named for	Dakota word "mni" meaning water with Greek word "polis" for city
Government
• Mayor	R. T. Rybak (DFL)
Area
• City	58.4 sq mi (151.3 km2)
• Land	54.9 sq mi (142.2 km2)
• Water	3.5 sq mi (9.1 km2)
Elevation	830 ft (264 m)
Population (2010)[1]
• City	382,578 (US: 48th)
• Density	7,019.6/sq mi (2,710.1/km2)
• Urban	2,849,567
• Metro	3,317,308 (16th)
• Demonym	Minneapolitan
Time zone	CST (UTC-6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP codes	55401 – 55487
Area code(s)	612
FIPS code	27-43000[2]
GNIS feature ID	0655030[3]
Website	www.MinneapolisMN.gov

Minneapolis (pronunciation: ⁱ/ˌmɪniːˈæpəlɪs/), nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City", is the county seat of Hennepin County, ^[4] the largest city in the state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, the Dakota word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.^[5]

As of the 2010 Census, the population of the city of Minneapolis is 382,578.^[6] Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with approximately 3.3 million residents.^[7] The city is abundantly rich in water, with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Among cities of similar densities, Minneapolis has the most dedicated parkland.^[8] It was once the world's flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing the fifth highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies.^[9][10] It has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. The community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs and VOLAGs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.^[11][12]

History[link]

Taoyateduta was among the 121 Sioux leaders who from 1837 to 1851 ceded what is now Minneapolis.^[13]

Loading flour, Pillsbury, 1939

Dakota Sioux were the region's sole residents until French explorers arrived around 1680. Nearby Fort Snelling, built in 1819 by the United States Army, spurred growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the east to settle there. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present day Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank in 1856. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.^[14]

Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C.,^[15] but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen."^[16] In early years, forests in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber industry that operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood.^[17] The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills where Pillsbury and General Mills became processors. By 1905, Minneapolis delivered almost 10% of the country's flour and grist.^[18] At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for twelve million loaves of bread each day.^[19]

Minneapolis was rated as the most anti-semitic city in the United States up until the 1970s (sometimes attributed to the large number of Lutherans in the city and the anti-semitic history of Martin Luther). Jews were not allowed to attend the University of Minnesota or to work in local hospitals or law firms. This gave rise to Mount Sinai Hospital being formed. Catholics were also originally precluded from attending the University of Minnesota until the early 20th century when under Johnston the university deigned to allow a small number of Jews and Catholics to attend pending a review of their grades.^[20]

Minneapolis made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers.^[21] When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights.^[22] A lifelong civil rights activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities by 1946.^[23] In the 1950s, about 1.6% of the population of Minneapolis was nonwhite.^[24] Minneapolis contended with white supremacy, participated in desegregation and the African-American civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement.^[25]

During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal, the city razed about two hundred buildings across twenty-five city blocks—roughly 40% of downtown, destroying the Gateway District and many buildings with notable architecture including the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with jumpstarting interest in historic preservation in the state.^[26]

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall. In the foreground to the right are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

Geography and climate[link]

Lake Harriet frozen in winter. Ice blocks deposited in valleys by retreating glaciers created the lakes of Minneapolis.^[27]

The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city's defining physical characteristic, which was sent to the region during the last ice age. Fed by receding glaciers and Lake Agassiz ten thousand years ago, torrents of water from a glacial river undercut the Mississippi and Minnehaha riverbeds, creating waterfalls important to modern Minneapolis.^[28] Lying on an artesian aquifer^[9] and otherwise flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km²) and of this 6% is water.^[29] Water is managed by watershed districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks.^[30] Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.^[31]

The city center is located just south of 45° N latitude.^[32] The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point^[33] and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation, but a spot at 974 feet (297 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.

Lake Calhoun

Minneapolis has a continental climate typical of the Upper Midwest. Winters are cold and snowy, while summers are hot and humid. On the Köppen climate classification, Minneapolis falls in the hot summer humid continental climate zone (Dfa) and has a USDA plant hardiness of zone 5a/4b.^[34] As is typical in a continental climate, the difference between average temperatures in the coldest winter month and the warmest summer month is great: 60.1 °F (33.4 °C).

The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, heatwaves, and fog. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Minneapolis was 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936, and the coldest temperature ever recorded was −41 °F (−41 °C), in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983–84, when 98.4 inches (250 cm) of snow fell.^[35]

The average annual temperature in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area is 45.4 °F (7.4 °C).^[36]

Demographics[link]

As of the 2010 U.S. census, the racial composition was as follows:^[40][41]

• White: 63.8%
• Black or African American: 18.6%
• American Indian: 2.0%
• Asian: 5.6% (1.9% Hmong, 0.9% Chinese, 0.7% Indian, 0.6% Korean, 0.4% Vietnamese, 0.3% Thai, 0.3% Laotian, 0.2% Filipino, 0.1% Japanese, 0.2% Other Asian)
• Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: <0.1%
• Some other race: 5.6%
• Two or more races: 4.4%
• Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 10.5%^[42] (7.0% Mexican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.4% Puerto Rican, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran, 1.3% Other Latino)

American Swedish Institute. Immigrants from Scandinavia arrived beginning in the 1860s.

European Americans make up about three-fifths of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian American population is primarily Norwegian and Swedish. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans are not nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish (11.3%), English (7.0%), Polish (3.9%), French (3.5%) and Italian (2.3%) descent.^[43]

The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic White,^[44] has declined from 92.8% in 1970 to 60.3% in 2010.^[45]

There are 10,711 multiracial individuals in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.^[46]

Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls.^[14] New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England, New York, and Canada, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland and Scandinavians (from Sweden, Norway and Denmark) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America also interspersed.^[47] Later, immigrants came from Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Southern and Eastern Europe. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s.^[48] Asians came from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia.^[49] The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.^[50]

U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2007 show the population of Minneapolis to be 377,392, a 1.4% drop since the 2000 census.^[51] The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.

Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta).^[52][53] In 2012, The Advocate named Minneapolis the seventh gayest city in America.^[54]

Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.^[50][55][56]

Economy[link]

White U.S. Bancorp towers reflected in the Capella Tower

The economy of Minneapolis today is based in commerce, finance, rail and trucking services, health care, and industry. Smaller components are in publishing, milling, food processing, graphic arts, insurance, education, and high technology. Industry produces metal and automotive products, chemical and agricultural products, electronics, computers, precision medical instruments and devices, plastics, and machinery.^[59] The city at one time produced farm implements.^[60]

Six Fortune 500 corporations make their headquarters within the city limits of Minneapolis: Target, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy, Ameriprise Financial, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and PepsiAmericas.^[61] As of 2009 the city's largest employers are Target, University of Minnesota, Allina Hospitals & Clinics, Fairview Health Services, Wells Fargo, Hennepin County, Ameriprise, U.S. Bank, City of Minneapolis, Capella Education Company, Xcel Energy, Macy's, RBC Wealth Management, TCF Bank, Star Tribune, Thrivent, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and ING Group.^[62][63]

Target Corporation's 351,000 employees operate 1,767 retail stores in all U.S. states except Vermont.^[64]

Foreign companies with U.S. offices in Minneapolis include Coloplast,^[65] RBC^[66] and ING Group.^[67]

Availability of Wi-Fi, transportation solutions, medical trials, university research and development expenditures, advanced degrees held by the work force, and energy conservation are so far above the national average that in 2005, Popular Science named Minneapolis the "Top Tech City" in the U.S.^[68] The Twin Cities ranked the country's second best city in a 2006 Kiplinger's poll of Smart Places to Live and Minneapolis was one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.^[69]

The Twin Cities contribute 63.8% of the gross state product of Minnesota. The area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product and its per capita personal income rank thirteenth in the U.S.^[70] Recovering from the nation's recession in 2000, personal income grew 3.8% in 2005, though it was behind the national average of 5%. The city returned to peak employment during the fourth quarter of that year.^[71]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, serves Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan. The smallest of the twelve regional banks in the Federal Reserve System, it operates a nationwide payments system, oversees member banks and bank holding companies, and serves as a banker for the U.S. Treasury.^[72] The Minneapolis Grain Exchange founded in 1881 is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat futures and options.^[73]

Arts[link]

With a collection of more than 100,000 objects, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has free admission every day.^[74]

The region is second only to New York City in live theater per capita^[75] and is the third-largest theater market in the U.S. after New York and Chicago, supporting the Illusion, Jungle, Mixed Blood, Penumbra, Mu Performing Arts, Bedlam Theatre, the Brave New Workshop, the Minnesota Dance Theatre, Red Eye, Skewed Visions, Theater Latté Da, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts, and the Children's Theatre Company.^[76] The city is home to Minnesota Fringe Festival, the United States' largest nonjuried performing arts festival.^[77] French architect Jean Nouvel designed a new three stage complex^[78] for the Guthrie Theater, a prototype alternative to Broadway founded in Minneapolis in 1963.^[79] Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres vaudeville and film houses on Hennepin Avenue now used for concerts and plays.^[80] A fourth renovated theater, the former Shubert, joined with the Hennepin Center for the Arts to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, home to more than one dozen performing arts groups.^[81][82]

The Walker Art Center, one of the big five modern art museums in the U.S., sits atop Lowry Hill, near downtown. It doubled its size with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron and is continuing its expansion to 15 acres (6.1 ha) with a park designed by Michel Desvigne across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.^[83] The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1915 in south central Minneapolis is the largest art museum in the city with 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. New wings designed by Kenzo Tange opened in 1974 and Michael Graves in 2006 for contemporary and modern works and more gallery space.^[78] The Weisman Art Museum, designed by Frank Gehry for the University of Minnesota, opened in 1993. An addition which doubled the size of the galleries, also designed by Gehry, opened in 2011.^[84]The Museum of Russian Art opened in a restored church in 2005^[85] and exhibits a collection of 20th century Russian art as well as lecture series, seminars, social functions and other special events.

Prince studied at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Minneapolis Public Schools.^[86]

The son of a jazz musician and a singer, Prince is Minneapolis' most famous musical progeny.^[87] With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records,^[88] he helped make First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry venues of choice for both artists and audiences.^[89] Other prominent artists from Minneapolis include Hüsker Dü and The Replacements who were pivotal in the U.S. alternative rock boom during the 1990s. The Replacements' frontman, Paul Westerberg, went on to a successful solo career.^[90]

The Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall under music director Osmo Vänskä who has set about making it the best in the country^[91]—a critic writing for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 thought that that day they were "the greatest orchestra in the world".^[92] In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.^[93]

Tom Waits released two songs about the city, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (Blue Valentine 1978) and 9th & Hennepin (Rain Dogs 1985) and Lucinda Williams recorded Minneapolis (World Without Tears 2003). Home to the MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment, the city has garnered notice for rap and hip hop and its spoken word community.^[94] The underground hip-hop group Atmosphere (natives of Minnesota) frequently comments in song lyrics on the city and Minnesota.^[95]

Minneapolis is America's third-most literate city.^[96] A center for printing and publishing,^[97] Minneapolis was a natural place for artists to build Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the U.S., made up of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions, sometimes called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher.^[98] The center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.^[98]

Sports[link]

ESPN called Target Field, the Minnesota Twins' new home, "the #1 stadium experience in major league baseball".^[99]

Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis Millers baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets.^[100] During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles.^[101] The American Wrestling Association, formerly the NWA Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.^[102]

The Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins arrived in the state in 1961. The Vikings were an NFL expansion team and the Twins were formed when the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota. Both teams played outdoors in the open air Metropolitan Stadium in the suburb of Bloomington for twenty one years before moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in 1982, where the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. The Twins moved to Target Field in 2010. The Minnesota Timberwolves brought NBA basketball back to Minneapolis in 1989, followed by the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team in 1999. The Lynx play in the Target Center and won the WNBA Championship in 2011.^[103]

Tribal Nations Plaza at TCF Bank Stadium, a gift of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community who donated $14.5 million to the University of Minnesota, the largest gift in Gopher athletics history

The downtown Metrodome, opened in 1982, is the largest sports stadium in Minnesota, with one major tenant, the Vikings. The Metrodome is the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four. Runners, walkers, inline skaters, coed volleyball teams, and touch football teams all have access to "The Dome". Events from sports to concerts, community activities, religious activities, and trade shows are held more than three hundred days per year, making the facility one of the most versatile stadiums in the world.^[104]

The state of Minnesota authorized replacement of the Metrodome with three separate stadiums that estimates in 2007 totaled at about $1.7 billion. Six spectator sport stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena.^[105] The new Target Field is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer.^[106] The Gopher football program's new TCF Bank Stadium was built by the university and the state's general fund.^[106] Several plans were advanced for a new Vikings stadium.^[107] In 2012, the Minnesota Legislature agreed to build a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome, possibly with a retractable roof, giving the Vikings a 30 year lease. The agreement costs $975 million: of this, the Vikings share is $477 million and the public's share is $498 million — the state of Minnesota is to pay $348 million, and Minneapolis must pay $150 million.^[108] Including interest and operating costs, the city's share over 30 years is $678 million.^[109][110]

Major sporting events hosted by the city include Super Bowl XXVI, the 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, the 2001 NCAA Men's Division 1 Final Four and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships.^{[111][112][113]}

Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, De La Salle, and Marshall high schools.^[101] Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.^[114]

Cityscape[link]

Panorama of the Minneapolis skyline

Parks and recreation[link]

Minnehaha Falls is part of a 193-acre (78 ha) city park rather than an urban area, because its waterpower was overshadowed by that of St. Anthony Falls a few miles farther north.^[115][116]

The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America.^[117] Foresight, donations and effort by community leaders enabled Horace Cleveland to create his finest landscape architecture, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards and parkways.^[118] The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (84 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway.^[119]

Theodore Wirth is credited with the development of the parks system.^[120] Today, 16.6% of the city is parks and there are 770 square feet (72 m²) of parkland for each resident, ranked in 2008 as the most parkland per resident within cities of similar population densities.^[121][8]

The 2006 Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon.

Parks are interlinked in many places and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area connects regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary is located within Theodore Wirth Park. Wirth Park is shared with Golden Valley and is about 60% the size of Central Park in New York City.^[122] Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 500,000 visitors each year.^[116] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha, a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem.^[123]

Runner's World ranks the Twin Cities as America's sixth best city for runners.^[124] Team Ortho sponsors the Minneapolis Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K which began in 2009 with more than 1,500 starters.^[125][126] The Twin Cities Marathon run in Minneapolis and Saint Paul every October draws 250,000 spectators. The 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race is a Boston and USA Olympic Trials qualifier. The organizers sponsor three more races: a Kids Marathon, a 1-mile (1.6 km), and a 10-mile (16 km).^[127]

In other sports, five golf courses are located within the city, with nationally ranked Hazeltine National Golf Club, and Interlachen Country Club in nearby suburbs.^[128] Minneapolis is home to more golfers per capita than any other major U.S. city.^[129] The state of Minnesota has the nation's highest number of bicyclists, sport fishermen, and snow skiers per capita. Hennepin County has the second-highest number of horses per capita in the U.S.^[75] While living in Minneapolis, Scott and Brennan Olson founded (and later sold) Rollerblade, the company that popularized the sport of inline skating.^[130]

Government[link]

Spring art party, North Commons Park, Willard-Hay, one of the eighty one neighborhoods of Minneapolis

Minneapolis is a stronghold for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party. The Minneapolis City Council holds the most power and represents the city's thirteen districts called wards. The council has twelve DFL members and one from the Green Party. R. T. Rybak also of the DFL is the current mayor of Minneapolis. The office of mayor is relatively weak but has some power to appoint individuals such as the chief of police. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards and levy their own taxes and fees subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits.^[131]

Citizens had a unique and powerful influence in neighborhood government. Neighborhoods coordinated activities under the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), which ended in 2009.^[132] Minneapolis is divided into communities, each containing neighborhoods. In some cases two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are commonly known by nicknames of business associations.^[133]

Minneapolis City Hall

The organizers of Earth Day scored Minneapolis ninth best overall and second among mid-sized cities in their 2007 Urban Environment Report, a study based on indicators of environmental health and their effect on people.^[134]

Early Minneapolis experienced a period of corruption in local government and crime was common until an economic downturn in the mid 1900s. Since 1950 the population decreased and much of downtown was lost to urban renewal and highway construction. The result was a "moribund and peaceful" environment until the 1990s.^[135] Along with economic recovery the murder rate climbed. The Minneapolis Police Department imported a computer system from New York City that sent officers to high crime areas. Despite accusations of racial profiling; the result was a drop in major crime. Since 1999 the number of homicides increased during four years.^[136] Politicians debated the causes and solutions, including increasing the number of police officers, providing youths with alternatives to gangs and drugs, and helping families in poverty. For 2007, the city invested in public safety infrastructure and hired over forty new officers and a new police chief, Tim Dolan.^[137] Citing police use of predictive analysis, Dolan and Rybak announced during December 2010 that violent crime in Minneapolis had dropped to 1980s rates.^[138]

Education[link]

Minneapolis Central Library, part of the Hennepin County Library system, formerly of the Minneapolis Public Library system

Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter schools. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and Somali.^[139] About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities.^[140] Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute.^[141] Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.^[142]

Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes.^[143] The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management.^[144] A Big Ten school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the fourth largest campus in the U.S. in terms of enrollment.^[145]

Northrop Mall in the University of Minnesota

Augsburg College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges. Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the private Dunwoody College of Technology, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business, and Art Institutes International Minnesota provide career training. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. Capella University, Minnesota School of Professional Psychology, and Walden University are headquartered in Minneapolis and some others including the public four-year Metropolitan State University and the private four-year University of St. Thomas have campuses there.^[146]

The Hennepin County Library system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008.^[147] The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885,^[148] faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to temporarily close three of its neighborhood libraries.^[149] The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli opened in 2006.^[150] Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection.^[151] At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.^[152]

Transportation[link]

Hiawatha Line LRT near Cedar/Riverside station.

Half of Minneapolis-Saint Paul residents work in the city where they live.^[153] Most residents drive cars but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto.^[154] Alternative transportation is encouraged. The Metropolitan Council's Metro Transit, which operates the light rail system and most of the city's buses, provides free travel vouchers through the Guaranteed Ride Home program to allay fears that commuters might otherwise be occasionally stranded if, for example, they work late hours.^[155]

On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.^[156]

Minneapolis currently has one light rail and one commuter rail line. The Hiawatha Line (Blue Line) LRT serves 34,000 riders daily and connects the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and Mall of America in Bloomington to downtown. Most of the line runs at surface level, although parts of the line run on elevated tracks (including the Franklin Ave. and Lake St./Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport. The 40-mile Northstar Commuter rail, which runs from Big Lake through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at Target Field, opened on November 16, 2009.^[157] It utilizes existing railroad tracks and will serve a projected 5,000 daily commuters.^[158]

Minneapolis' second light rail line, the Central Corridor (Green Line), will share stations with the Hiawatha Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East/Metrodome station, travel east through the University of Minnesota, and then along University Avenue into downtown St. Paul. Construction began in November 2010 and expected completion is in 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line (Green Line extension), will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected in 2017.^[159]

Pedicab drivers ready to ride.

Minneapolis ranks second in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle,^[160] and was named the top bicycling city in the 2010 "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking.^[161] Ten thousand cyclists use the bike lanes in the city each day, and many ride in the winter. The Public Works Department expanded the bicycle trail system from the Grand Rounds to 56 miles (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway, the Light Rail Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 34 miles (54 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps.^[162] Many of these trails and bridges, such as the Stone Arch Bridge, were former railroad lines that have now been converted for bicycles and pedestrians.^[163] In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city.^[164] By 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota launched with about 60 kiosks for bicycle sharing,^[165] and 19 pedicabs were operating downtown.^[166]

A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.^[167]

Seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, the Minneapolis Skyway System, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurants and retailers connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.^[168]

Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) sits on 3,400 acres (1,400 ha)^[169] on the southeast border of the city between Minnesota State Highway 5, Interstate 494, Minnesota State Highway 77, and Minnesota State Highway 62. The airport serves three international, twelve domestic, seven charter and four regional carriers^[170] and is a hub and home base for Delta Air Lines, Mesaba Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines.^[171]

Media[link]

WCCO-TV on the Nicollet Mall

Five major newspapers are published in Minneapolis: Star Tribune, Finance and Commerce, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the university's The Minnesota Daily and MinnPost.com. Other publications are the City Pages weekly, the Mpls.St.Paul and Minnesota Monthly monthlies, and Utne magazine.^[97] In 2008 readers of online news also used The UpTake, Minnesota Independent, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Downtown Journal, Cursor, MNSpeak and about fifteen other sites.^[172] The New York Times said in 1996, "Now there are T-shirts that read, 'Murderapolis,'" a name for the city that members of the local media have mistakenly attributed to the paper.^[173]

Minneapolis has a mix of radio stations and healthy listener support for public radio but in the commercial market, a single organization Clear Channel Communications operates seven stations. Listeners support three Minnesota Public Radio non-profit stations, the Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota each operate a station, the networks broadcast on affiliate stations, and religious organizations run two stations.^[174]

KFAI radio in Cedar-Riverside is a public access station.

The city's first television was broadcast by the Saint Paul station and ABC affiliate KSTP-TV. The first to broadcast in color was WCCO-TV, the CBS affiliate which is located in downtown Minneapolis.^[97] The city and suburbs are also home to affiliates of FOX, NBC, PBS, MyNetworkTV, The CW and one independent station.^[175]