As a resident of Minneapolis, I believe one of my duties is to bash suburbs at any opportunity. I think there is something in the city charter about this, but I am not certain. This is especially true of Edina (Every Day I Need Attention). This is a city full of people with craploads of money who live in huge houses, who allegedly look down their noses at everyone else. Now, I don't know if that last part is true, being that I have met only one Edina native in my life, and he was pretty cool. But, there is a reason Edinans are referred to as "cake-eaters."
The title of this post stems from the tone taken by a lot of the residents quoted in this article. Edina, like many suburbs, especially of the first-ring variety, is fully developed. And, like all cities in the metro, Edina is putting together a ten-year plan (a five-year plan would be Communist, you know) for planning and managing growth. The city council is planning for things such as affordable housing and more dense development, particularly in one area by I-494 and MN-100. As you would suspect, many Edinans are up in arms. It's understandable. In the Twin Cities area, Edina has a certain cachet. Preserving that seems to be pretty important to them. However, Edina has to recognize that they don't have the final say on this; the Met Council has it. They can ask Lake Elmo about how that works. I think they are going to have to plan for some affordable housing and some denser development. If you believe in a regional development strategy, like the Met Council does, you know that cities are going to have to accept some things that may be undesirable. I think the Edina city council may have a better understanding of that than the citizenry. Also, I don't think that some denser development and cheaper housing is going to destroy what makes Edina the city it is. But, the people of Edina have a point. People move to Edina because of what Edina is. Wanting to preserve that is entirely understandable. Plus, there is the very valid argument of cities controlling their own destiny.
I am torn on this. Cities should be able to control their own destiny. And, in the Twin Cities, the fact that the regional planning commission has a lot of power (and taxing authority) while not being elected is troublesome. However, I think a lot of suburbanites feel they can simply throw the larger cities that made their suburb possible under the proverbial bus. It's almost like people think, "Sure, we need people to work as cops, teachers, service employees, and the like in our town. But at the end of the day, those people can go right back to Minneapolis or St. Paul where they belong."
I try to not be anti-suburb. I have calmed down considerably on this over the years. I don't care much for what is popularly known on the right as class warfare. But, reading articles like this really make it difficult to not relapse a bit.
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6 comments:
'affordable housing' is actually subsidised housing that forces somebody else to pay the bill.
totally against it, but also because it is a lie.
the cost of building a new dwelling far outweighs the cost of an older pre-existing one.
you want affordable housing? creat a housing surplus, and the lessor,older homes people with means dont want will become affordable to the poor.
we didnt have a need for below market low end housing until govts started adding housing restrictions. check the history of the cities.
Gino's right, of course. I'm pretty sure you've encountered the history of housing controls in NYC and some of the cities out Gino's way (Santa Barbara is a particularly notorious example). And you know well what happened in Chicago. Horrible stuff, all artificially created at the behest of the powers that be.
The reason what Gino suggests never happens is that such older housing is usually referred to as "slums." But it doesn't have to be so.
And for a useful corrective on Edina and people from Edina, I'd strongly suggest you visit Kathy the Cake Eater - there's a link at my place.
i'm gonna add to this a bit, please indulge me.
last yr i spent a week in ft smith,AR.
a two bedroom liveable dwelling can be purchased for about 40k.
or, you pay 150k for a newer nicer one. a trailer on an acre: 20K.
there are little to no restrictions that could tell.
in dowtown, just blocks from all the hub bub, there are stately 300k historical homes, and right next door could be a 800sf beater shack.
and there is no slum in ft smith.
crime is low, the streets clean, though very racially diverse, there is no 'black neighborhood', white neighborhood, chinatown or barrio.
its a nice city.
and proves what a city can be if govt changes its housing attitude.
Gino - I agree about "affordable housing." I think the government getting involved in the housing construction business has been pretty disastrous. I don't know of one major housing project subsidized by the government that has not had major problems. So, I see why people in Edina are worried about the specter of "affordable housing." But, despite its residents protests, the very powerful regional planning group up here will likely overrule the city if the city doesn't play ball with them. To me, the city council knows the rules of the game and is planning accordingly. So, while I do agree with you on how to get more affordable housing out there, I think people who do this for a living are doing it their way, which is via government subsidy. And, they aren't going to concentrate it in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Also, Fort Smith, AR is an interesting example. A smaller city, but big enough to be a magnet for people in the surrounding areas. I have never been to Arkansas, but that would be an interesting case study.
Mark - I have read Cake Eater Chronicles. It's a good read, but I fail to see how that is a corrective on Edina. If the point is that not everyone in Edina is rich, well I know that. But, the prima facie evidence going through there is a pretty good indicator that I am correct in my assertion that Edina is full of people with craploads of money. Perhaps I am missing your point?
Quick aside vis-a-vis Edina, an old roommate of mine in college made a prophecy. That was his term, not mine. He made a prophecy that I would eventually live in Edina, and my neighbor would be Lou Nanne, who I find especially annoying...he is the Dick Vitale of MN high school hockey because they both have their preferred teams. And, big shock, Lou loves the Edina Hornets, much like Dickie V loves Duke. This came from a rant of mine about how Edina sucks, and Lou Nanne sucks for almost rooting for them. That prophecy shut me up real quick.
"People who do this for a living are doing it their way..."
The problem is, their living comes from government salaries, not from market realities where they actually have to have skin in the game. Thus they get to enact whatever utopian (really more distopian) "vision" they have, unencumbered by the laws of supply and demand and further insulated from the public because they aren't elected.
It was the same brilliant thinking behind the "urban renewal" planning of the 60s and 70s that contributed heavily to the inner cities becoming so undesirable that it turbo-charged the suburban boom.
There is an underlying question here, and that is how much government involvement should there be in development? Should there be none, and the market should decide? Or, is there a small role for government in shaping how cities and towns develop? Or, does government dictate terms? I do know that the government has messed things up in a lot of cities in this country. But, I don't know that building everything around the automobile is necessarily a good thing either, like what is done in the burbs, in accordance with what the market apparently wanted and wants now. But, my perspective is skewered because I don't own a car.
Night Writer - Thanks for reading, I appreciate it. Just for that, you are now on the blogroll. Not that I can send you much traffic as of now, but still.
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