I had a role in the management of this affair and must say that there were few food fights. I missed most of the floor action - credentials is way behind the lines - but there countless conversations and ever so many familiar faces. What remains true now in a broad band of real estate in south Minneapolis is the absence of clarity in the collective opinions of our dominant political party.
North of Lake St., this DFL country ranges from the Uptown area over to Phillips with a spot of local color in the inter-party contest between CMs Lilligren and Zimmermann in new Ward 6. It also takes in a band of settlement south of Lake St. from Lake Calhoun and the Lyndale Farmstead eastward, including most of Kingfield for the first time and the balance of the old 8th ward east of 35W from Powderhorn Park jogging southward until it meets Minnehaha Creek. Within this broad area, there are many interesting demographic variations. Closest to the lakes, one finds lots of settled homeowner blocks. Moving eastward, one comes upon a hugeconcentration of rental real estate to the north and outliers of rental settlement along the main north-south thoroughfares west of 35W. East of the freeway, the pattern persists of rental to the north and homeownership to the south, generally speaking, although the density of rental population is not as pronounced as is the case north of Lake St. To be sure there are plenty of what my Dakota friend Malcolm Bisson calls the "pigmentally challenged", plenty of African-American folks, and plenty of the GLBT folks I call my own. But - and it's a big, big "but" - there are also many thousands of Latino/Hispanic- and East African-American households who are also living in this neck of the woods on either side of Lake St. extending several blocks to the north and south in a broad buffer that eventually runs up against the Native American settlement in east Phillips and percolates southward everywhere south of Lake St. These were not familiar faces in the four Ward conventions involved this spring in this part of town. Their day in the civic sun is dawning along the commercial corridors but their significance in the public life of the area is still nascent. Not to worry - immigrant waves have come through south Minneapolis since the days of the French and the English who were so very abrasive to the original indigenes, our Native American neighbors who are, incidentally, celebrating Indian Month all through May. We experience traditional assimilation episodes in the area I'm describing. One just needs to step back bit to see how this plays out over the generations - chunks of quarter-centuries rather than mere decades. In this year's dialogues we get to evaluate the more settled candidates and four years from now there will be more new "kids on the block" to meet and greet at our ward conventions. I rather think the pace of assimilation is picking up a bit and suggest that education, communications technology and entrepreneurial energy have their influences here. Enjoy the show, folks, it's what we do. Fred Markus, West Phillips, Ward 6 --- http://USFamily.Net/dialup.html - $8.25/mo! -- http://www.usfamily.net/dsl.html - $19.99/mo! --- REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact 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 Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
