Metro Area Growth Booms

David Peterson, Star Tribune

Published August 26, 2004 in the Star Tribune

The population of the Twin Cities area has grown more rapidly since 2000 than it did during the early years of the 1990s, a decade that turned out to represent the region's greatest growth spurt ever, the Metropolitan Council said Wednesday.

And a big change is taking place in where people are moving, the council's estimates suggest. Growth is easing on the eastern end of the metro area while remaining strong in the west.
The list of the fastest- growing cities from 2000 to 2003 looks much different than it did 1990 to 2000.

Woodbury, last decade’s leader, has sunk to tenth place.

Woodbury had an annual population increase less than half the annual average recorded from 1990 to 2000. Blaine, which has moved aggressively to develop its vast open acreage in recent years, didn't even make the top 10 last decade but is now No.1, having tripled its average annual increase.

"It's gone crazy," said Blaine Mayor Tom Ryan, who was elected to the city council in 1986 on an anti-growth platform. "It has been unreal. We are seeing $200 million in growth in a single year. We've added 46 restaurants in three years. I don't know what chain we don't have. Unless the economy falls apart I don't see it slowing down."

Neither Minneapolis nor St. Paul is bleeding population, as the U.S. Census Bureau has claimed, according to the council's estimates. But the council is not yet reporting the kinds of population increases many expect to see in corning years as the loft and condo boom in both core cities starts yielding results The council considers the population of Minneapolis and St. Paul essentially stable.

Overall, the council estimates, the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area was home to 2.7 million people as of April 2003, having grown by nearly 100,000, or 3.7 percent, since April 2000.
"The numbers are quite dramatic," said Mark Vander Schaaf, the council's director of planning and growth management. "We're adding the equivalent of the city of Duluth every three years."
Met Council Chairman Peter Bell said the estimates confirm earlier projections that the metro area will add a million residents between 2000 and 2030.

"There's no question that the growth we're experiencing in the region is both a blessing and a burden," Bell said Wednesday. "Growth lends vitality and prosperity, but it also poses challenges in terms of congestion, pollution and so on."

He called for continued efforts to plan growth in ways that make it possible to afford the new roads and sewers need - ed to serve burgeoning populations in many communities.
Changing roster Altogether, only five of the region's top 10 growth cities from
the 1990s are still in the top 10 so far in this decade, the council believes.

Among suburbs, the changes in rank often result from city councils deciding to authorize or discourage development. A slowdown in growth can also be a sign that a city is running out of land.

People on the move also are making choices reflected in the growth patterns: As traffic congestion worsens, workers seem to be congregating closer to the region's major job centers, which are drifting toward the southwest.

Eden Prairie, for instance, added the most households between 2000 and 2003, including "a fair amount of higher-density and multifamily housing," Vander Schaaf said. "Eden Prairie has a strong job base, good access to roads and transit, close proximity to the central cities and is home to several beautiful regional parks."

Communities whose annual rate of growth has slowed, the council's estimates suggest, include Eagan, Andover and Savage, and to a lesser extent, Lakeville.

Blaine on the other hand has been poised for growth ever since it became the home of the National Sports Center, its mayor said, and the Tournament Players Club of the Twin Cities provided another boost.. The city could someday become the home as well of a new Vikings stadium, which would give it a much higher national profile. A city that used to be known more for its trailer parks is now seeing million-dollar homes, he said.

There have been rough spots, he added. For instance, a $3.5 million bond issue three years ago to acquire permanent open space has led to the acquisition of far less 'land than had been hoped, as the city has wound up "competing with developers." But some important parcels are now safe, he said.

The new numbers stand in contrast to estimates issued by the U .S. Census Bureau for the two central cities. The federal agency believes that since the 2000 census Minneapolis' population has declined by nearly 10,000 people, to about 373,000, and St. Paul's by about 7,000, to 280,000.
The Met Council and the state demographer's office are skeptical about the federal estimates, saying that local analysts have much more current information to go on.

Vander Schaaf recalled that toward the end of the 1990s the Census Bureau was convinced that the two central cities had declined in that decade by about 30,000 people. When the definitive figure was established in 2000, he said, it turned out that the government had missed the truth by 60,000 people. In reality, 30,000 was roughly the increase, not the decline. One probable explanation, Vander Schaaf said: the difficulty of tracking from Washington the movement of foreign immigrants, which is far more evident locally.

The Met Council arrives at its estimates by tracking the additions in housing units, via building permits, minus demolitions, and factors in whatever it can find out about vacancy rates and the occupancy of group quarters. The estimates are used in the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid, as well as discovering whether the council's own population fore- casts are proving valid. They are used to suggest to communities what they need to be providing by way of housing.

The complete list of city and county estimates for the seven- county metropolitan region can be found online by going to http: //www.metrocouncil.org and clicking On the link to the new growth study.

David Peterson is at dpeterson@startribune.com.



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