Duluth: A Tacoma Sister City?

What does Duluth, Minnesota, have to do with Tacoma? A lot, I think. It's about half our size, but is a major Great Lakes port. Its downtown is built on the same kind of sloping hill as Tacoma's, the have their equivalent of the Esplanade, and it has a cool historic and industrial lift bridge at the base of its downtown (seen above) ... plus their newspaper is called The News Tribune (confusing right?).

Having been there this week, I will also add that it feels a lot like Tacoma too. The old brick architecture, the industrial history is very evident, as it is here.

They have a couple things going for them: where Tacoma's slope levels out on just one street--Pacific Ave--Duluth has a couple of streets at the base of their hill. Their lift bridge is also still functioning ... so much they even shut it down for a day every year for a big party mid-span. I also noticed a core of hotels in downtown. Duluth does have pretty good tourism from what I can tell, a lot of it is from Midwesterners going north to Lake Superior and the Boundary Waters on vacation--Duluth is a good stopping point for that.

They have plenty of disadvantages to Tacoma, of course. Starting with the weather, of course. Not only is it damned cold, but when Lake Superior freezes over all the port traffic stops, which isn't that convenient. And they are a long ways from anything else, whereas Tacoma is pretty well connected--thanks to Sea-Tac and our proximity to a major metropolis...

Anyway, it's interesting to see other cities around the country similar to Tacoma.

Link to Duluth on Wikipedia

(Flicker photo of Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge from rrazor)