I think Josh is exactly right.
I could come up with a very similar list of infill housing for St. Paul. Through Mayor Kelly's initiative, I can tell you in the last four years we will have added 5,000 units by the end of 2005. Minneapolis has added even more.
The most significant trend is the addition of housing to our downtowns - our transit hubs. Downtown Saint Paul alone will has added something like 1,000 new units over the last few years, and the construction continues. Downtown Minneapolis has seemingly limitless potential for housing growth. Something in the range of 10,000 extra residents have arrived there in the last five years. This "urban infill" trend is expected to continue, albiet not at the red-hot pace of the last three years.
And notably, even in the suburbs, growth is increasingly oriented toward varying degrees of old-style downtowns. St. Louis Park's Excelsior and Grand, Burnsville's Heart of the City Project (think Excelsior and Grand x5), even Maple Grove's not-too-successful attempt at a downtown. And older suburban downtowns continue to evolve and add new housing - downtown Robbinsdale, for example, only gets better, having added some sort of new housing recently, and downtown Chaska has seen major multi-unit housing construction nearby. These areas will go back to their origins as suburban transit hubs.
The good news is that the demographic trends (aging baby boom generation) point toward increased demand for housing mainly in these urban areas. As people age, they are more interested in being near cultural attractions, and other people, stores and restaurants; and less interested in mowing the lawn, shoveling the sidewalks, and finding kid-focused recreation. And the younger generations are responsible for a shift in trends as well. Increasingly, younger (under 40) people are choosing to live and stay in truly urban areas, where multi-unit housing is the norm, rather than the exception.
Minneapolis and St. Paul are comparatively healthy cities. I expect transit will be an easier and easier sell here, as urban life again returns to its natural pedestrian and transit oriented scale.
And in some small way, this will all be making a contribution toward reducing our use of fossil fuels. That, in turn, will decrease the scale of the impending global environmental crisis.
Bob Spaulding Downtown Saint Paul resident.
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