Quote(https://photos.smugmug.com/Cities/Minneapolis---July-2026/i-zS3p559/0/KbzcrWHddGstrPx6rtP77jgRJtPRvHbBh2TN4KT6S/XL/20260723_175951-XL.jpg)
For years, The Jaxson has championed a simple but powerful urban redevelopment principle we call Clustering, Complementing Uses within a Compact (CCC) setting. While the concept may sound technical, its application is straightforward: bring people, businesses, activities, and destinations together within a walkable environment so they reinforce one another and create places that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/what-minneapolis-can-teach-jacksonville-about-the-power-of-clustering/
Spent a few days recently in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, and was blown away by the vibrancy and character of the cities and greater surrounding areas. Was surprised how much is there and the size of the metro population. It impressed me as being, to that part of the country, what Atlanta is to the Southeast. In my experience, I thought the traffic there was better than Atlanta, too.
The meshing of St. Paul, as the state capital, with Minneapolis, is truly unique... two large and distinct downtowns within sight of each other.
Definitely would go back there for a vacation, especially if incorporating much of natural Minnesota and nearby Wisconsin for side trips. Just not in winter!
Interestingly, last I checked, Jax had 2 daily nonstops to Minneapolis. I suspect Mayo may be a part of supporting those flights as Minneapolis would be the gateway airport to their headquarters in Rochester, MN, about 60 miles south.
I was pleasantly surprised about the nonstop flight and the opportunity to not connect in Atlanta.
My brother in law lives in Minneapolis and I visited there for work about 5 times a few years ago, so I know it fairly well. Jaxlongtimer, if you go back, definitely check out the North Shore of Lake Superior. It's very high up on the most underrated places in the US, imo. Minnesotans do their best to try and keep it a secret.
There are four things that really set Minneapolis apart from Jacksonville, imo.
1. The Twin Cities is THE hub city for virtually everyone in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and to a lesser extent Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. I've been told by multiple people that their MSP offices are amongst their most productive due to the labor force, which is made up of hard working midwestern types, many of whom grew up on farms or who's parents grew up on farms and instilled a very strong work ethic. It also has a large Hmong and Vietnamese migrant population with a similar work ethic. Because of that it has a phenomenal labor force for white collar jobs. Residents there proudly share that they have the highest percentage of jobs paying more than $75k in the country. They have major HQ there too like Target, 3M, Cargill (largest private company in US), United Healthcare, General Mills, US Bank, Medtronic, Ecolab, Xcel Energy, Ameriprise, Best Buy and several others. Jacksonville's 2nd largest company by market cap (FIS) wouldn't be in the top 10 in MSP. In fact, MSP's top 10 companies is probably better than the state of Florida combined.
2. Similar to the first one, the University of Minnesota is the dominant college in the state and is located right next to the heart of Downtown Minneapolis. It has 57k students, 5k faculty, and 22k general employees with about 90% being located on the main campus and 10% in St. Paul. That creates a constant pipeline of students, researchers, entrepreneurs, and recent graduates living and working near the urban core. If you ever go out at night, it's like going out in Jax Beach, with tons of college students and recent graduates. It would be like having UF's main campus located from Rivers Edge to St. Nicholas.
3. Minneapolis and St. Paul have done an amazing job preserving their historic buildings and housing stock. As Ennis pointed out, the Warehouse and Mill District's are awesome and cannot be recreated or replicated by new construction. Both also happen to be in great locations and are highly desirable. St. Paul has some absolutely fantastic historic single-family neighborhoods. Both cities combined have some of the best pre WW-2 housing stock outside of the northeast and California, imo.
4. Speaking of St. Paul, one of the Twin Cities' underrated strengths is that Minneapolis doesn't exist in a vacuum. The metro has two major urban centers, each with its own government, tax base, and economic development strategy. If one city adopts policies that make it less attractive, businesses and residents can often relocate just a few miles away without leaving the region or disrupting their workforce. That creates a level of competition that encourages both cities to remain attractive places to live, invest, and do business. St. Johns County has probably pushed COJ to get its act together recently, but since consolidation, there has not been a lot of local competition to push COJ.
Great article as usual by Ennis, but I did just want to point out that Minneapolis a truly unique place. Lot's of lessons to be learned, but also some things that can't be replicated any more.
I think the single biggest lesson Jacksonville can take from Minneapolis is that you don't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building heavily programmed, active riverfront parks to create a vibrant waterfront.
Minneapolis has one of the premier urban park systems in the country, and its downtown riverfront is considered one of the best in the US. Yet much of it consists of passive public spaces: tree lined trails, overlooks, restored natural areas, plazas, picnic lawns, and places to just sit and enjoy the river.
What makes it successful isn't an abundance of attractions or recreational facilities, it's continuity and length. The chain of parks connect seamlessly to one another, link surrounding neighborhoods to the river, preserve historic assets, and provide miles of uninterrupted public access. The river itself is the attraction, not all the bells and whistles.
Will be running a St. Paul article soon. Spent some time there last Sunday before flying back to Jax. Slower than DT Minneapolis but more active and larger than DT Jax. I was impressed with St. Paul's train station.
Great article and great pictures. It was nice to see lots of people in the pix.
And, it looks like they threw a parade for you!!
Minneapolis is the one city in the US that EVERY city could learn from, especially Jacksonville. I visited around 2014/15 and was blown away, and I have visited most of the largest US cities.
It is NOT one of the best park systems in the country is is THE best park system in the country. I visited several of their parks both DT and in the surrounding neighborhoods and the condition of all of them was superior to what you typically see in any city. It was light years better than what you see in most JAX parks, conditions wise. There are so many parks that NO RESIDENT is more than six blocks from a park.
There are several reasons why it has the reputation for having the best park system in the country:
1) They spend the most money per capita on parks of any US city
2) Every resident is no more than six blocks from a park.
3) There is a CITY COUNCIL just for Parks. They have their OWN taxing authority, their OWN elected officials, their OWN budget. You can't cut the parks budget to pay for public safety because the two functions do not share anything at all.
4) Because the Park system is so insolated from unrelated politics, and because it is well used and well taken care of, private philanthropy spends millions every year to support the system. When I visited there about 11-12 years ago, it was about $7 mm a year.
BTW, the SECOND best park system in the US is St. Paul.
As far as DT itself, I would echo everything Ennis said about it. There are still department stores there, btw. Minneapolis has the most live theater of any US city except NYC and Chicago and that is DT also. All the Professional sports stadiums are as well.
Some other things that Minneapolis does that are out of the ordinary are their elections are all NON-Partisan and Ranked Choice voting. This combination does a LOT to eliminate the party-driven power dynamic, mud-slinging, and the need for money to win an office. The mayoral candidates that spent the most money had never won since it had gone into effect, for example.
Sadly, in 2024 the Florida Legislature banned rank-choice voting for all elections in the state. We are one of 17 states prohibiting the practice.
https://vote.direct/blog/ranked-choice-voting-by-state-2026
Just today (https://x.com/RonDeSantis/status/2086838888874525064) the Governor called ranked choice voting "such a fraud."
Disappointing but not surprising. Nothing DeSantis does is good for anything except division and oppression. Replace him in November with Jolly and things can start to change.