Few top 30 metros have withstood the bad economy of the last few years as well as Minneapolis-St. Paul. Unemployment there is just 6.8%, it's on the verge of becoming the second largest metro economy after Chicago, surpassing Detroit, and a new baseball stadium is bringing 3 million pedestrians downtown every year. Moreover, its economy is rooted in an industry, agribusiness, which is a net exporter and not in the process of being crushed by outsourcing.
Yet somehow a consultant's report is claiming the region isn't on many relocation short lists, and that a regional economic development group will somehow fix this. In DC, we've had regional efforts, most notably the Greater Washington Initiative, that really do little other than provide a way for members to network. Moreover, exactly who do the consultants want to bring to Minneapolis? Another software company with 35 people but 50 press stories about its relocation? Another solar manufacturer who will stay for nine months before heading off to the Philippines? More pictures of lab coat techs staring at test tubes?
All I ask is if this thing gets created, they spare us the "cool city" crap we've gotten from Michigan and that Louisville has picked up on. Rather than attracting new businesses, that's the sort of thing that tells people it's time to leave.
How Technology Advances Transform Places
Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Friday, September 17, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Farm Fresh Fun
I've come to believe that the best city and state promotional campaigns don't come from cheesy economic development brochures, but homemade YouTube videos. Now I've made the point here many times that with all the ridiculous talk of being "cool", it seems like the economic development industry is being run by teenage girls. Well, today I found out I was right!
More informative and entertaining than anything put out the Positively Minnesota campaign from that state's Department of Employment and Economic Development is a video called "Minnesota Gurls", created by three of the state's teenagers. A parody of Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg's "California Gurls", it's catching up to the original song's YouTube views.
Minnesota girls
Our Spam in fry-able
Farm fresh fun we’re workin’ every plot
More informative and entertaining than anything put out the Positively Minnesota campaign from that state's Department of Employment and Economic Development is a video called "Minnesota Gurls", created by three of the state's teenagers. A parody of Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg's "California Gurls", it's catching up to the original song's YouTube views.
Minnesota girls
Our Spam in fry-able
Farm fresh fun we’re workin’ every plot
Monday, June 7, 2010
Minneapolis About to Surpass Detroit as Midwest's #2 Metro Economy
The Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers are battling this year for the AL Central division lead, and last year the Twins beat the Tigers in a one game playoff. But the showdown between these two regions extends beyond baseball.
Minneapolis-St Paul is about to surpass Detroit as the midwest's #2 metro economy. In 2001, Detroit's metro GDP was $183 billion, more than 25% higher than Minneapolis' $142 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. By 2008, only $7 billion separated the two regions, with Detroit at $200 billion, Minneapolis at $193 billion.
Unlike Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas, Minnesota is not a right-to-work state, yet like other midwestern cities west of Chicago, its largest metro area is doing far better than those east of Chicago. Like Kansas City and Omaha, the Twin Cities have always been stronger in agribusiness than the traditional manufacturing that has defined Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.
While agriculture has had to deal with the same productivity-created job losses as industrial manufacturing, the physical production never moved - Iowa still produces corn, wheat, and soybeans, while Minnesota and North Dakota still grow the Hard Red Spring Wheat that has been the primary commodity traded at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange since the 1880s.
The economy of food is still highly important to the midwestern cities west of Chicago, and the region's largest metro area is about to become more economically significant than the metro that used to be the car capital of the world.
Minneapolis-St Paul is about to surpass Detroit as the midwest's #2 metro economy. In 2001, Detroit's metro GDP was $183 billion, more than 25% higher than Minneapolis' $142 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. By 2008, only $7 billion separated the two regions, with Detroit at $200 billion, Minneapolis at $193 billion.
Unlike Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas, Minnesota is not a right-to-work state, yet like other midwestern cities west of Chicago, its largest metro area is doing far better than those east of Chicago. Like Kansas City and Omaha, the Twin Cities have always been stronger in agribusiness than the traditional manufacturing that has defined Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.
While agriculture has had to deal with the same productivity-created job losses as industrial manufacturing, the physical production never moved - Iowa still produces corn, wheat, and soybeans, while Minnesota and North Dakota still grow the Hard Red Spring Wheat that has been the primary commodity traded at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange since the 1880s.
The economy of food is still highly important to the midwestern cities west of Chicago, and the region's largest metro area is about to become more economically significant than the metro that used to be the car capital of the world.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Wind Power City
Up until 1870, St. Paul looked like it would be the largest city in Minnesota, which had become a state right before the Civil War. As the region began exporting timber and grain, St. Paul was poised to become another St. Louis or Cincinnati, a regional center located near a waterway intersection.
During the 1870s, Minneapolis boomed, growing from 13,000 to 46,000, right past its neighbor to the east. While St. Paul had the proximity to the Minnesota/Mississippi intersection, Minneapolis had St. Anthony Falls, the largest waterfall on the Mississippi.
Because the Midwest is fairly flat, no other major city in the region is built on a fall line. Minneapolis' unique access to water power made it an 1870s boomtown, during a time when every other high growth city - Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland - was benefiting from access to rail lines.
The first hydroelectric plant in the world was built in 1870 in England, and the first such plant for electricity in the U.S. was built in Grand Rapids in the 1880s. With no large scale production of turbines, hydropower was extremely expensive, and Minneapolis' ability to produce such power for industrial use at a much lower cost than any other large city overwhelmed transport costs that otherwise would have sent everyone to St. Paul to exchange goods.
Once companies like GE were formed, and more R&D was put into turbine technology, the cost of producing hydropower dropped dramatically, and the milling business that established Minneapolis shifted to towns further east, most notably Buffalo, that were closer to consumer markets, because transport costs began to account for a higher share of total production and shipment.
Wind power today is a lot like hydro 140 years ago, a natural resource with a declining cost. While often lumped together with solar in feel good news stories about alt energy, wind's capital costs are under $2,000 per kilowatt, compared to over $4,000 for solar. As a result, it has grown from just three tenths of 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation four years ago to about 1.2 percent now.
One of the biggest users of industrial wind is Google, which recently built a massive data center in The Dalles, Oregon, which is to wind generation what Minneapolis was to hydropower in the 1870s. Accessing that wind at low prices overrode typical data center connection costs that put most facilities near major Internet POPs in large metro areas.
But The Dalles is in no position to become any kind of regional hub, because Google hired just 200 people to work there, while spending $600 million to build its facilities there. This is the reverse of the late 19th century, where projects like the Pillsbury Power Canal and Tower Mill were built in Minneapolis at capital costs of less than a million dollars, while requiring thousands of workers to operate the mills that took advantage of the nearby hydro power. 21st century employee productivity simply won't allow a renewable energy center like The Dalles to become another Minneapolis.
During the 1870s, Minneapolis boomed, growing from 13,000 to 46,000, right past its neighbor to the east. While St. Paul had the proximity to the Minnesota/Mississippi intersection, Minneapolis had St. Anthony Falls, the largest waterfall on the Mississippi.
Because the Midwest is fairly flat, no other major city in the region is built on a fall line. Minneapolis' unique access to water power made it an 1870s boomtown, during a time when every other high growth city - Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland - was benefiting from access to rail lines.
The first hydroelectric plant in the world was built in 1870 in England, and the first such plant for electricity in the U.S. was built in Grand Rapids in the 1880s. With no large scale production of turbines, hydropower was extremely expensive, and Minneapolis' ability to produce such power for industrial use at a much lower cost than any other large city overwhelmed transport costs that otherwise would have sent everyone to St. Paul to exchange goods.
Once companies like GE were formed, and more R&D was put into turbine technology, the cost of producing hydropower dropped dramatically, and the milling business that established Minneapolis shifted to towns further east, most notably Buffalo, that were closer to consumer markets, because transport costs began to account for a higher share of total production and shipment.
Wind power today is a lot like hydro 140 years ago, a natural resource with a declining cost. While often lumped together with solar in feel good news stories about alt energy, wind's capital costs are under $2,000 per kilowatt, compared to over $4,000 for solar. As a result, it has grown from just three tenths of 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation four years ago to about 1.2 percent now.
One of the biggest users of industrial wind is Google, which recently built a massive data center in The Dalles, Oregon, which is to wind generation what Minneapolis was to hydropower in the 1870s. Accessing that wind at low prices overrode typical data center connection costs that put most facilities near major Internet POPs in large metro areas.
But The Dalles is in no position to become any kind of regional hub, because Google hired just 200 people to work there, while spending $600 million to build its facilities there. This is the reverse of the late 19th century, where projects like the Pillsbury Power Canal and Tower Mill were built in Minneapolis at capital costs of less than a million dollars, while requiring thousands of workers to operate the mills that took advantage of the nearby hydro power. 21st century employee productivity simply won't allow a renewable energy center like The Dalles to become another Minneapolis.
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