I agree there is little reason for Minneapolis to have far more restrictive permit regulations on common things such as furnace and hot water heater installation than cities like Bloomington. What possible valid reason could there be for a wide disparity? It's not like houses are blowing up and burning down left and right in Bloomington because of lax regulations. It's not like Bloomington is some tiny town where such regulations would be too hard to enforce -- last I checked they were the 5th largest city in the state. Driving up the cost of ordinary, recurring property owner maintenance and repair is shooting ourselves in the foot. Likewise with restricting product usage, such as Dyna's example regarding the efficient, long-lasting Bosch water heater versus what one can actually get in Minneapolis (if true -- I've not verified this).
On the other hand, I doubt the city of Minneapolis has much to do with or much say in the regulation of the utilities. It's the state of Minnesota which regulates monopolies and utilities, not the city (except in the case of cable franchises). Minneapolis may have "chosen" Excel's predecessor but Minnegasco, as Dyna points out herself, grew up in Minneapolis as the Minneapolis Gas Company. Maybe other cities should complain about that instead? We can criticize the level of Minneapolis' fees aka taxes on utilities (they are high), but other than having Excel deliver out natural gas like they do in St. Paul, or building city owned providers, there is next to no choice for electricity and gas, regardless of what the city chooses.
Minneapolis is not, however, limiting residents to US West/Qwest for telephone service. You can get telephone service in Minneapolis from a variety of providers.
In "Killing the Libraries Slowly", Vicky Heller writes about the future of libraries and technology. While I agree with her that the new downtown library can rightly be derided as the "glass palace," as a computer expert I strongly disagree her on the idea that cheap internet access is both going to be wide spread or as cheap as she imagines. One might be able to buy an internet terminal for less than $300 but there are two big flaws with that argument. First, reading a book on such an inexpensive piece of equipment would be akin to a nightmare. Top-end computer displays are still not nearly as easy to read as printed text in a book, and at $300 one is currently more than $500 away from the best display technology. Secondly, the real cost is not in purchasing the terminal or display. It is in the on-going access or connection to the services which provide the information that you want.
Until technology advances to the point where a computer display looks better or indistinguishable from a printed book page (resolution, contrast, etc.), and is as cheap as say the price of half-a dozen paperbacks, books will retain their superior place as a source of reading material. I spend 40 hours a week reading a high-end computer display as part of my job, so I know whereof I speak.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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