Despite the barely noticed building boom that’s spreading faster than scandal through residential sections of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul—especially along the suddenly vogue Mississippi River—there are no serious office buildings in the works. Where are the new skyscrapers? The last major high-rise built here was U.S. Bank Place, finished in 1992.
Perhaps a more salient question is why cities build skyscrapers in the first place. Manhattan, of course, has the excuse of being an island where the only direction to grow is up. But the rest of the nation (and the world) takes its cues from New York. Real cities have skyscrapers that act like lighthouses to the world: Behold, here is our city—visible from miles around—a safe harbor of culture and commerce. One should not simply make jokes about the phallic nature of skyscrapers—like rockets, they point in the direction of progress, and connote the beautiful violence of conception, creation, expansion, new frontiers.
But the age of skyscrapers is probably finished, especially in a place like the Twin Cities, where culture and commerce have quietly packed their boxes and moved to the suburbs, where the cardinal direction of expansion is out and away, where the architectural idiom is long and flat and depopulated. This flight has many well-documented causes. Mostly, businesses and people argue that it just costs too much to live and work downtown. But we’ve come to suspect that fear plays an increasing role. What are people so afraid of? Same as it ever was: death and taxes.
Because the city bears a disproportionate share of the poor and the needy, our taxes are higher and our schools aren’t as strong. The outer suburbs, which are still primarily bedroom communities, have virtually no social obligations beyond their lustrous public schools. More homes and fewer disadvantaged—these things make the suburbs richer and cleaner than the city. Then, of course, there is the widespread perception that the city is infested with violent criminals. Some of the most heinous violent tragedies have happened out in the exurbs in the past year, but one does not have to read between the lines to see that many thoughtful people automatically equate crime with inner city minorities and scofflaws simply expanding their turf. (Perhaps they make that equation because they know where to go to get their cocaine and companionship.)
Worst of all, this conflicted view of the city has traditionally translated into an unjust burden of taxes, fees, and levies. The thinking is that visitors coming to the city should help foot a higher proportion of the bill because they are a captive audience enjoying the unique amenities of the city. More and more, though, people are repelled by the higher costs of the downtown district, which can be as much as 20 percent higher, thanks to various tarriffs. They will simply stay at home in the burbs, which are being choked to death by agreeable national restaurant chains and big-box shopping clubs that are as native to Minnesota as milfoil.
Is life better out where there are no sidewalks? We can’t say. We’ll just continue keeping track of who precisely is itching to carry guns, and where all the road rage seems to be occurring. It’s not clear whether these angry, frightened people are heading into the Big Bad Cities or away from them.
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