Vicky Heller wrote > The 2000 census shows a population of 382,618, yielding a net loss of 9,430 > since then. Keep in mind that 100,000 Minneapolis residents are under 19 > years old. > > Can anyone else see a trend here? Have you noticed all of the "for sale" > and "for rent" signs around town?
The trend that people are seeing are smaller families, not some great fleeing of people from the core cities. Minneapolis had almost 600,000 people at one point. It now has slightly less than 400,000. This is because the average family size has been declining all across society since around 1950. For example, my house had a husband and wife and five kids and grandma in it in the 1950's. Now there is me. Statistically it breaks down like this: In 1970, the average family size in the region was 3.27 persons and in 2000 it was 2.59 persons. By 2020, the average is projected to be 2.44. Because of this, it is expected that Minneapolis population will decline, unless a substantial net increase of housing units occurs. The slight uptick that Minneapolis had seen was due to immigrent families moving in who had larger family sizes. This is what has driven the fluctuation in population in Minneapolis much more than any "fleeing" of the City. There is no "exodus." There never has been. Minneapolis, if anything, is suffering from the opposite of what Ms. Heller alleges in her post. Property values are shooting up because suburban people have "rediscovered" the urban core. If you wanted to make money in real estate over the last ten years, the place to have invested would have been in the urban core and not in the suburbs as property values here have been increasing much faster than in the suburbs. For example, I talked to an assessor who said that housing units in some of the poorest areas of town were valued at about $5000 per unit about seven or eight years ago are now at $40,000 a unit and still climbing. Investment in Minneapolis is booming, not declining. Carol Becker Longfellow REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
