I Love My City, But. . . .

I love my city. I really do. Minneapolis is an amazing, vibrant, cosmopolitan, beautiful city. Four-hundred-thousand people call Minneapolis home, that's big enough to be a full-fledged city, small enough to still feel welcoming. There is an image of Minneapolis as a lily-white expanse of bo-ring. That is the image carried by people who don't know us.

In fact, more than one out of three residents is not white, one in eight is LGBT, and a surprisingly large percentage are not Scandinavian Lutherans. We have scads of immigrants from around the world and we embrace that diversity.

We have an extraordinary cultural life. Only New York City offers more live theatre per capita. Everyone knows Prince, but did you know we also have an orchestra? And we've more polka bands than you can shake a stick at. Oh, that one just feeds the stereotype, doesn't it?

We are the third most literate city in America (although, I'm not sure that's saying much) based on things like bookstores, newspaper circulation, education. We have produced some writers. We have   scads of museums and boatloads of artists. Seriously, everyone in Minneapolis who isn't a writer or an artist, knows one. It's like actors in LA.

There're plenty of sports here. Minneapolis is home to the NFL, MLB & NBA along with the U of M Golden Gophers. We having bowling, golf, tennis, even free public bocci ball courts. Foodies are truly blessed. There is a steakhouse from the 1930's that has a trout stream in the patio so you can catch your own fish, a tiki bar on the river with a double-decker patio, a lobster shack and fifteen places that have been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. You even have the option of wood- or coal-fired pizza. We have ethnic restaurants like crazy: Greek, German, Indian, Ethiopian, Polish, Japanese, Swedish, Lebanese, Vietnamese ~ and they're good!

And the parks. Oh the parks. We have so many parks (197, to be precise). Big parks & little parks and they're always free (although parking'll cost a buck or two). There are more than a dozen lakes within the city limits, oodles of playgrounds, ballfields and nature sites. There are miles of parkways looping around the lakes and along the river (both sides). Even with all that water, we still have pools in the parks, swimming pools in some and wading pools in most. We have a rose garden, a wildflower garden and a tamarack bog. Don't forget Minnehaha Park ~ with the famous falls and paths along the creek all the way to the Mighty Mississippi.


But, she has her flaws. Her flaws are not small.

The crime rate is frightening, particularly on the Northside ~ known as NoMi. Thirteen (of a citywide fifteen) shootings in the first two weeks of July occurred in NoMi. There have been seventeen murders in Minneapolis between January 1 and July 14. That would be an annual rate of less than ten per hundred thousand ~ not too bad, unless it's you or someone you care about. But twelve of those homicides have been in NoMi, population about 60,000, which puts my neck of the woods at a homicide rate of forty per one hundred thousand, third worst among cities in the US (based on 2012).

After a while, you feel ignored by City Hall. We can't even get rid of the damn mattresses. That is not a non-sequiter. Inexplicably, mattresses are drawn to the streets of NoMi. Mattresses waiting by the alley ~ next to the garbage can, especially around the first of the month, when renters move ~ are understandable. But we get them everywhere. There was one on dumped on a boulevard garden on Dowling Ave (very high-traffic street) that took days for the sanitation department to pick up.  Another was floating in a flooded street last week. There are so many mattresses that many residents have decided St Mattress must be our patron saint.  We just haven't figured out whether the mattresses are gifts from, or offerings to, St. Mattress.

What do the mattresses have to do with murder rate? Everything & nothing. Weird litter does not cause crime. But the number of calls to the city asking to have these frighteningly stained health hazards removed is often absurd. We all know that a dirty futon lying in a vacant lot in South Minneapolis would be promptly removed. Betcha they don't get put on hold by 911 as often as the NoMi folks either. And Betsy "I'm the Mayor" Hodges Tweets quotes from Thoreau while the police chief wants us all to get along.

We're tired of feeling like the forgotten stepchild. Most of the residents of NoMi are good people who care about our neighborhood. We want action. When we call about an upholstered public health issue, we want it gone. No more drive-by policing, if someone calls, the cops need to get out of their cars. Hollering, "everything okay here?" from the driver's seat is not policing. Slumlords need to be held accountable for the condition of their rental property.

It's time to stop ignoring the Northside. We need help from City Hall. We deserve it.