Planning Framework
The Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan region has a planning council (Metropolitan Council) that emphasizes a regional approach to planning and community issues. However, cities often to act in their own best interest and often oppose regional planning initiaves.
The
Metropolitan Council was created in 1967. In the early 1980s,
the council's performance and understanding of metropolitan affairs
began to decline rapidly. By the mid 1990s, however, a newly
reinvigorated national agenda helped to revitalize the Met
Council. It was forced to consider such issues
as:
- housing
- land use
- transportation
in context of what is hapenning at the
region's core. Its progress, though unspectacular, has
been a major improvement (Orfield, 195-196).
What has changed in the 1990s?
Market Value: Comparison of the trends in housing value between 1980-1990 (Metropolitics Map 4-1) and 1990-1998 shows:
- Market values of property in the outer suburbs continue to increase at a faster rate than the inner ring suburbs and central city.
- However, this rate of change is much lower in the 1990s than it was in the 1980s.
- As in the 1980s the Minneapolis and the some of the inner ring suburbs saw an increase in market value equal to or less than the change in inflation (consumer price index). However, several inner ring suburbs saw property value increases greater than the rate of inflation:
- Brooklyn Park
- Osseo
- Crystal
- St. Louis Park
- Hopkins
- Richfield
Population Trends:
- Minneapolis and about half of the inner ring suburbs saw a small decrease in population.
- Approximately half of the inner ring suburbs saw a small increase in population (up to 4%).
- One inner ring suburb (Brooklyn Park) saw an increase in population of 11.5%.
- Most outer suburbs had increases in population. About half of the outer suburbs saw population increases greater than 15%.
Household Trends:
- All cities except three saw increases in the number of households.
- The number of households in Minneapolis and Fort Snelling was relatively unchanged.
- Richfield experiences a slight decrease in the number of households.