It's not just Duluth, as I blogged about earlier this week. St. Paul, Minnesota, has a lot of similarities to Tacoma as well.
It's growing up in the shadow of its more prominent, more artsy neighbor Minneapolis, very much like us. It's downtown core has been hurt in recent years (actually more recent years than Tacoma). Their urban malls closed and now getting businesses back in to the core is a challenge. Like Tacoma they are worried about departing businesses: 3M in their case, which just announced today that they are leaving St. Paul). They also have the random famous person who grew up there that they now idolize (Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts).
I do appreciate that St. Paul has given substantial power to their neighborhoods. The district councils have a fair say over land use issues. All the times I've stayed in the City, both downtown and out of downtown, I've had a good time. There's a lot going for it, and they are really self-consciously pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, just like Tacoma. The same city pride that exists here most definitely exists there.
It's a cool place.
Link to St. Paul, MN on Wikipedia
Flickr photo from user Clairity
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1 comments:
St. Paul rocks! I especially like up on the hill west of downtown. We won the 2004 College Curling Nationals at the St. Paul Curling Club there, so I will always have fond memories of the place
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