As of 2011, the estimated population of the city of Minneapolis is 387,753.[8] Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis–Saint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with the area containing approximately 3.3 million residents.[9]
The city is abundantly rich in water, with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Among cities of similar densities, Minneapolis has the most dedicated parkland.[10] It was once the world's flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing the fifth highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies.[11][12]
Minneapolis has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. The community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs and VOLAGs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.[13][14]
Dakota Sioux were the region's sole residents until French explorers arrived around 1680. Nearby Fort Snelling, built in 1819 by the United States Army, spurred growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the east to settle there. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present-day Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank in 1856. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east-bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.[16]
Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C.,[17] but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen."[18] In early years, forests in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber industry that operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood.[19] The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills where Pillsbury and General Mills became processors. By 1905, Minneapolis delivered almost 10% of the country's flour and grist.[20] At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for twelve-million loaves of bread each day.[21]
Minneapolis was a "particularly virulent" site of anti-semitism until 1950. A hate group recruited members in the city and held meetings there around 1936 to 1938. The Jewish Free Employment Bureau tried to help victims of economic discrimination with limited success. Formed in 1948, the nonsectarian Mount Sinai Hospital was a place where Jewish physicians and health professionals could practice.[27][28]
During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal, the city razed about two hundred buildings across twenty-five city blocks—roughly 40% of downtown, destroying the Gateway District and many buildings with notable architecture including the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with sparking interest in historic preservation in the state.[29]
The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city's defining physical characteristic, which was brought to the region during the last ice age ten thousand years ago. Fed by a receding glacier and Lake Agassiz, torrents of water from a glacial river cut the Mississippi riverbed and created the river's only waterfall, St. Anthony Falls, important to the early settlers of Minneapolis.[31] Lying on an artesian aquifer[11] and flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km2) and of this 6% is water.[32] Water is managed by watershed districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks.[33] Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.[34]
The city center is located at 45° N latitude.[35] The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point[36] and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation, but a spot at 974 feet (297 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.
Minneapolis has a continental climate typical of the Upper Midwest. Winters are cold and snowy, while summers are hot and humid. On the Köppen climate classification, Minneapolis falls in the hot summer humid continental climate zone (Dfa) and has a USDA plant hardiness of zone 5a/4b.[37] As is typical in a continental climate, the difference between average temperatures in the coldest winter month and the warmest summer month is great: 60.1 °F (33.4 °C).
The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, heatwaves, and fog. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Minneapolis was 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936, and the
coldest temperature ever recorded was −41 °F (−40.6 °C), in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983–84, when 98.4 inches (250 cm) of snow fell.[38] Template:Minneapolis weatherbox
European Americans make up about three-fifths of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian American population is primarily Norwegian and Swedish. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans are not nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish (11.3%), English (7.0%), Polish (3.9%), French (3.5%) and Italian (2.3%) descent.[42]
There are 10,711 multiracial individuals in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.[43]
The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic White, declined from 92.8% in 1970 to 60.3% in 2010.[44][45]
Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls.[16] New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England, New York, and Canada, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland and Scandinavians (from Sweden, Norway and Denmark) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America also interspersed.[46] Later, immigrants came from Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Southern and Eastern Europe. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe began arriving in the 1880s and settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s.[47] Asians came from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia.[48] The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.[49]
U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2007 show the population of Minneapolis to be 377,392, a 1.4% drop since the 2000 census.[50] The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.
Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta).[51][52] In 2012, The Advocate named Minneapolis the seventh gayest city in America.[53]
Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.[49][54][55]
The Minneapolis–St. Paul area is the second largest economic center in the Midwest, behind Chicago. The economy of Minneapolis today is based in commerce, finance, rail and trucking services, health care, and industry. Smaller components are in publishing, milling, food processing, graphic arts, insurance, education, and high technology. Industry produces metal and automotive products, chemical and agricultural products, electronics, computers, precision medical instruments and devices, plastics, and machinery.[58] The city at one time produced farm implements.[59]
Availability of Wi-Fi, transportation solutions, medical trials, university research and development expenditures, advanced degrees held by the work force, and energy conservation are so far above the national average that in 2005, Popular Science named Minneapolis the "Top Tech City" in the U.S.[67] The Twin Cities ranked the country's second best city in a 2006 Kiplinger's poll of Smart Places to Live and Minneapolis was one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.[68]
The Twin Cities contribute 63.8% of the gross state product of Minnesota. The area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product and its per capita personal income rank thirteenth in the U.S.[69] Recovering from the nation's recession in 2000, personal income grew 3.8% in 2005, though it was behind the national average of 5%. The city returned to peak employment during the fourth quarter of that year.[70]
The Walker Art Center, one of the big five modern art museums in the U.S., sits atop Lowry Hill, near downtown. It doubled its size with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron and is continuing its expansion to 15 acres (6.1 ha) with a park designed by Michel Desvigne across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.[82] The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1915 in south central Minneapolis, is the largest art museum in the city with 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. New wings designed by Kenzo Tange opened in 1974 and Michael Graves in 2006 for contemporary and modern works and more gallery space.[77] The Weisman Art Museum, designed by Frank Gehry for the University of Minnesota, opened in 1993. An addition which doubled the size of the galleries, also designed by Gehry, opened in 2011.[83]The Museum of Russian Art opened in a restored church in 2005[84] and exhibits a collection of 20th century Russian art as well as lecture series, seminars, social functions and other special events.
The Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall under music director Osmo Vänskä who has set about making it the best in the country[90]—a critic writing for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 thought that that day they were "the greatest orchestra in the world".[91] In 2013, the orchestra received a Grammy nomination for its recording of "Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5".[92] In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.[93]
In 2012, Food & Wine magazine named Minneapolis America's best and best-priced new food city.[96]
Minneapolis is America's third-most literate city.[97] A center for printing and publishing,[98] Minneapolis was a natural place for artists to build Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the U.S., made up of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions, sometimes called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher.[99] The center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.[99]
Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis Millers baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets.[101] During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles.[102] The American Wrestling Association, formerly the NWA Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.[103]
The downtown Metrodome, opened in 1982, is the largest sports stadium in Minnesota, with one major tenant, the Vikings. The Metrodome is the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four. Runners, walkers, inline skaters, coed volleyball teams, and touch football teams all have access to "The Dome". Events from sports to concerts, community activities, religious activities, and trade shows are held more than three hundred days per year, making the facility one of the most versatile stadiums in the world.[106]
The state of Minnesota authorized replacements for the Metrodome with three separate stadiums that totaled around $1.9 billion. Six spectator sport stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena.[107] The new Target Field is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer.[108] The Gopher football program's new TCF Bank Stadium was built by the university and the state's general fund.[108] Several plans were advanced for a new Vikings stadium.[109] In 2012, the Minnesota Legislature agreed to build a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome, possibly with a retractable roof, giving the Vikings a 30 year lease. The agreement costs Template:Dollarsign975 million: of this, the Vikings share is Template:Dollarsign477 million and the public's share is Template:Dollarsign498 million — the state of Minnesota is to pay Template:Dollarsign348 million, and Minneapolis must pay Template:Dollarsign150 million.[110] Including interest and operating costs, the city's share over 30 years is Template:Dollarsign678 million.[111][112]
Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, De La Salle, and Marshall high schools.[102] Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.[116]
Minnehaha Falls is part of a 193-acre (78 ha) city park rather than an urban area, because its waterpower was overshadowed by that of St. Anthony Falls a few miles farther north.[117][118]
The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America.[119] Foresight, donations and effort by community leaders enabled Horace Cleveland to create his finest landscape architecture, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards and parkways.[120] The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (84 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway.[121]
Theodore Wirth is credited with the development of the parks system.[122] Today, 16.6% of the city is parks and there are 770 square feet (72 m2) of parkland for each resident, ranked in 2008 as the most parkland per resident within cities of similar population densities.[10][123]
Parks are interlinked in many places and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area connects regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary is located within Theodore Wirth Park. Wirth Park is shared with Golden Valley and is about 60% the size of Central Park in New York City.[124] Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 500,000 visitors each year.[118]Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha, a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem.[125]
Runner's World ranks the Twin Cities as America's sixth best city for runners.[126] Team Ortho sponsors the Minneapolis Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K which began in 2009 with more than 1,500 starters.[127][128] The Twin Cities Marathon run in Minneapolis and Saint Paul every October draws 250,000 spectators. The 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race is a Boston and USA Olympic Trials qualifier. The organizers sponsor three more races: a Kids Marathon, a 1-mile (1.6 km), and a 10-mile (16 km).[129]
Minneapolis is a stronghold for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party. The Minneapolis City Council holds the most power and represents the city's thirteen districts called wards. The council has twelve DFL members and one from the Green Party. R. T. Rybak also of the DFL is the current mayor of Minneapolis. The office of mayor is relatively weak but has some power to appoint individuals such as the chief of police. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards and levy their own taxes and fees subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits.[133]
Citizens had a unique and powerful influence in neighborhood government. Neighborhoods coordinated activities under the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), which ended in 2009.[134] Minneapolis is divided into communities, each containing neighborhoods. In some cases two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are commonly known by nicknames of business associations.[135]
The organizers of Earth Day scored Minneapolis ninth best overall and second among mid-sized cities in their 2007 Urban Environment Report, a study based on indicators of environmental health and their effect on people.[136]
Early Minneapolis experienced a period of corruption in local government and crime was common until an economic downturn in the mid-1900s. Since 1950 the population decreased and much of downtown was lost to urban renewal and highway construction. The result was a "moribund and peaceful" environment until the 1990s.[137] Along with economic recovery the murder rate climbed. The Minneapolis Police Department imported a computer system from New York City that sent officers to high crime areas. Despite accusations of racial profiling; the result was a drop in major crime. Since 1999 the number of homicides increased during four years.[138] Politicians debated the causes and solutions, including increasing the number of police officers, providing youths with alternatives to gangs and drugs, and helping families in poverty.[139]
From 2006 to 2012, under chief Tim Dolan, the crime rate steadily dropped, and the police benefited from new video and gunfire locator resources, although Dolan was criticized for expensive city settlements for police misconduct.[140] While violent crime dropped (from 6,374 in 2006 to 3,720 in 2011[140]), homicides rose by 105%[141] and rape was at the highest rate among large cities.[142]U.S. News & World Report said in 2011 that Minneapolis tied with Cleveland, Ohio as the 10th most dangerous city in the United States.[143]
Janeé Harteau was confirmed as the new chief in 2012. A member of the force since 1987, Harteau, who was nominated by Rybak and is the city's first female and first openly-gay police chief, already served as deputy chief, inspector, and patrol bureau commander.[144][145]
Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter schools. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and Somali.[146] About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities.[147] Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute.[148] Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.[149]
Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes.[150] The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management.[151] A Big Ten school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the fourth largest campus among U.S. public 4-year universities in terms of enrollment.[152]
The Hennepin County Library system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008.[154] The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885,[155] faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to temporarily close three of its neighborhood libraries.[156] The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli opened in 2006.[157] Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection.[158] At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.[159]
Half of Minneapolis–Saint Paul residents work in the city where they live.[160] Most residents drive cars but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto.[161] Alternative transportation is encouraged. The Metropolitan Council's Metro Transit, which operates the light rail system and most of the city's buses, provides free travel vouchers through the Guaranteed Ride Home program to allay fears that commuters might otherwise be occasionally stranded if, for example, they work late hours.[162]
On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.[163]
Minneapolis currently has one light rail and one commuter rail line. The Hiawatha Line LRT (currently being rebranded as the Blue Line) serves 34,000 riders daily and connects the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International airport and Mall of America in Bloomington to downtown. Most of the line runs at surface level, although parts of the line run on elevated tracks (including the Franklin Ave. and Lake St./Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport. The 40-mile Northstar Commuter rail, which runs from Big Lake through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at Target Field, opened on November 16, 2009.[164] It utilizes existing railroad tracks and serves 2,600 daily commuters.[165]
Minneapolis' second light rail line, the Central Corridor (currently being rebranded as the Green Line) will share stations with the Hiawatha Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East/Metrodome station, travel east through the University of Minnesota, and then along University Avenue into downtown St. Paul. Construction began in November 2010 and expected completion is in 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line, will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected in 2017.[166]
Minneapolis ranks second in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle,[167] and was named the top bicycling city in the 2010 "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking.[168] Ten thousand cyclists use the bike lanes in the city each day, and many ride in the winter. The Public Works Department expanded the bicycle trail system from the Grand Rounds to 56 miles (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway, the Light Rail Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 34 miles (54 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps.[169] Many of these trails and bridges, such as the Stone Arch Bridge, were former railroad lines that have now been converted for bicycles and pedestrians.[170] In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city.[171] In 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota launched with 65 kiosks for bicycle sharing,[172] and 19 pedicabs were operating downtown.[173] Nice Ride plans to expand in 2013 to 170 stations in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and expects to add 17 more in 2014.[174]
A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.[175]
Seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, the Minneapolis Skyway System, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurants and retailers connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.[176]
Minneapolis has a mix of radio stations and healthy listener support for public radio but in the commercial market, a single organization Clear Channel Communications operates seven stations. Listeners support three Minnesota Public Radio non-profit stations, the Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota each operate a station, the networks broadcast on affiliate stations, and religious organizations run two stations.[183]
The city's first television was broadcast by the Saint Paul station and ABC affiliate KSTP-TV. The first to broadcast in color was WCCO-TV, the CBS affiliate which is located in downtown Minneapolis.[184] The city and suburbs are also home to affiliates of FOX, NBC, PBS, MyNetworkTV, The CW and one independent station.[185]
A statue of Mary Tyler Moore downtown on the Nicollet Mall commemorates the legendary 1970s CBS television situation comedy fictionally based in Minneapolis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It marks the site where producers filmed the series' iconic opening sequence in which character Mary Richards, played by Moore, throws her hat up in the air. The show was awarded three Golden Globes and thirty-one Emmy Awards.[186] Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh were from Minneapolis on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.[187]American Idol held auditions for its sixth season in Minneapolis in 2006[188] and Last Comic Standing held auditions for its fifth season in Minneapolis in 2007.[189] In Young Adult, a 2011 screenplay by Diablo Cody, Charlize Theron lived in a Churchill riverfront apartment.[190]
Religions outside the Judeo-Christian mainstream also have a home in Minneapolis. In 1972, a relief agency resettled the first Shi'a Muslim family from Uganda. By 2004, between 20,000 and 30,000 Somali Muslims made the city their home.[200] In 1972, Dainin Katagiri was invited from California to Minneapolis—by one account, a place he thought nobody else would want to go—where he founded a lineage which today includes three SōtōZen centers among the city's nearly twenty Buddhist and meditation centers.[201][202] Atheists For Human Rights has its headquarters in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in a geodesic dome.[203] Minneapolis has had a chartered local body of Ordo Templi Orientis since 1994.[204]
Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community.[205] More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States.[206]Catholic Charities is one of the largest providers of social services locally.[207] The American Refugee Committee helps one million refugees and displaced persons in ten countries in Africa, the Balkans and Asia each year.[208] In 2011, Target Corp. was #42 in a list of the best 100 corporate citizens in CR magazine for corporate responsibility officers.[209] The oldest foundation in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over nine hundred charitable funds and connects donors to nonprofit organizations.[210] The metropolitan area gives 13% of its total charitable donations to the arts and culture. The majority of the estimated $1 billion recent expansion of arts facilities was contributed privately.[211]
Cardiac surgery was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than two hundred patients had survived open-heart operations, many of them children. Working with surgeon C. Walton Lillehei, Medtronic began to build portable and implantable cardiac pacemakers about this time.[215]
HCMC opened in 1887 as City Hospital and was also known as General Hospital.[28] A public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center, the HCMC safety net sees more than 350,000 clinic visits and 97,000 emergency room visits each year and in 2012 provided about 18% of the uncompensated care given in Minnesota.[216]
Funded in part by assessments on commercial properties, in 2009 Ambassadors of the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (DID) began working on 120 blocks of downtown to improve its cleanliness, friendliness and acceptability of behavior. They are employees of Block by Block, a company in Nashville, Tennessee that serves 46 U.S. cities.[217]
Utility providers are regulatedmonopolies: Xcel Energy supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy supplies gas, CenturyLink provides landline telephone service, and Comcast provides cable service.[218] In 2007 citywide wireless internet coverage began, provided for 10 years by US Internet of Minnetonka to residents for about $20 per month and to businesses for $30.[219] The Minneapolis Wi-Fi network earns $1.2 million annual profit and as of 2010 has about 20,000 customers.[220] The city treats and distributes water and requires payment of a monthly solid waste fee for trash removal, recycling, and drop off for large items. Residents who recycle receive a credit. Hazardous waste is handled by Hennepin County drop off sites.[218] After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over one thousand miles (1609 km) of streets and four hundred miles (643.7 km) of alleys—counting both sides, the distance between Minneapolis and Seattle and back. Ordinances govern parking on the plowing routes during these emergencies as well as snow shoveling throughout the city.[221]
^Salisbury, Rollin D., Harlan Harland Barrows, Walter Sheldon Tower (1912). The Elements of Geography. University of Michigan, reprinted by H. Holt and company. Retrieved on 2007-06-27.
^Atmosphere (January 4, 2005). "I Wish Those Cats @ Fobia Would Give Me Some Free Shoes" and "Sep Seven Game Show Them" and "7th St. Entry" on Headshots: SE7EN remastered. Rhymesayers, ASIN: B0006SSRXS [Explicit lyrics].
^Krader, Katy (August 2012). "America's Best and Best-Priced New Food City". Food & Wine.
^Garvin, Alexander (June 19, 2002). The American City : What Works, What Doesn't, 2, McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-07-137367-5.
^Loring, Charles M. (1915, read November 11, 1912). History of the Parks and Public Grounds of Minneapolis. Minnesota Historical Society, University of Michigan (via Google Books), 601–602. Retrieved on 2007-04-11. and Nadenicek, Daniel J. and Neckar, Lance M. in Cleveland, H. W. S. (April 2002). Landscape Architecture, as Applied to the Wants of the West; with an Essay on Forest Planting on the Great Plains. University of Massachusetts Press, ASLA Centennial Reprint Series. ISBN 1-55849-330-1.
^Millet, Larry. AIA Guide to the Twin Cities:
The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota Historical Society. ISBN 0873515404.
^Jeffrey, Kirk (2001). Machines in Our Hearts: The Cardiac Pacemaker, the Implantable Defibrillator, and American Health Care. Johns Hopkins University Press, 59–65. ISBN 0-8018-6579-4.
This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Minneapolis. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.