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Adam Minter

St. Louis Park, MN
Commenter for
5 years 5 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 10/29/11 at 02:46 pm in response to Star Tribune will start charging some readers for web, app access Nov. 1

David -

Thanks for that. Makes good sense.

Posted on 09/28/11 at 01:46 am in response to Hit hard by home-mortgage crisis, community plans Dayton's Bluff Vacant Home Tour

Here's a simple solution: distribute permanent residency visas to 240 young Chinese and Indian couples in exchange for a 50% down-payment on one of these homes (middle class Indians and Chinese have the dough, believe me), and agree to live in it for ten years, minimum.

Guaranteed: 90% of the mortgages will be paid off within five years, most of these families will have started businesses, and their children will be top students in their respective schools. Unemployment rate will be...

Posted on 05/19/11 at 06:18 pm in response to Made in Minnesota: Which nations spend the most on the stuff we make?

Skip - It's a common misconception that the state picks up the tab for the governor's trade missions. In fact, the state only picks up the tab for the governor, his staff, and security. All other parties who accompany him - including other politicians, as you characterize them - pay their own way. As to whether or not the trade missions are measurable successes, I will point you to the fact that Pawlenty visited China three times - more than any other country - and that China has been...

Posted on 04/01/11 at 08:52 pm in response to Policies that built first-ring suburbs in 1950s now foster their decline

Odd, and a little disappointing, to see so much discussion of transit, strip malls, and schools - and so little talk about jobs. When the inner rings were built, there were quality manufacturing jobs available to residents - either in close proximity, or in areas that could be reached relatively cheaply as a result of cheap gas. But over the last 25 years, those good jobs have migrated out of the core cities, and first-ring suburbs, to outer ring suburbs or - worse - out of the US.

...

Posted on 03/30/11 at 11:01 am in response to Census: MSP grows, but only on the edge; experts see trouble ahead

An interesting choice of photo for this story. It wasn't so long ago that the north of downtown was home to machine shops and other small manufacturers which employed middle class Minnesotans. Lots of factors killed that: globalization, the high cost of doing business in Minneapolis, and a city council convinced that the best use of an old industrial building is a high-end loft. The days of the small machine shop are pretty much over, at least in the US, but Minnesota manufacturing still has...

Posted on 03/08/11 at 10:10 am in response to Why I worry about China

What an utterly offensive and ignorant diatribe more worthy of the John Birch Society than MinnPost. Take a look at this pull quote (or clause, if you will) for a moment:

"So, if you don’t want your grandchildren speaking Chinese as their mother tongue ..."

Really, MinnPost? Really?

That kind of language has a very traceable lineage: right back to the late 19th and early 20th century days of the so-called "Yellow peril," when politicians and newspapers raised the specter...

Posted on 03/08/11 at 01:33 am in response to At the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press, groupthink on a Vikings stadium

What I find really disagreeable about this column, and other attacks on TC sports journalists who support a new stadium, is that their support isn't as genuine or well thought out - ie, "Groupthink" - as the opponents. And underlying this, I think, is an overwhelming presumption on the part of opponents that the pro-stadium faction is shilling for their employers, if not their beat/industry. What I'd really like to read, just once, is an interview where you or another opponent ask Jim Souhan...

Posted on 12/04/10 at 02:34 am in response to A cold week on the Mississippi: Seeking new ideas for Minneapolis' Upper Riverfront

When I read that one of the finalists was out of Beijing I was hopeful that it was Turenscape, the designer of Houtan Park - the riverside park that was designed built specially for Expo 2010 (the Shanghai World's Fair). Sure enough, that's the firm.

Until just a couple of years ago, Shanghai's riverfront was steel mills and shipyards - and it'd been that way for a century. No resident of Shanghai had the experience of a riverside park, of the idea of the river as a place for...

Posted on 11/19/10 at 06:31 pm in response to GOP notebook: Watching tax committees, women in the Legislature and Norm Coleman's China visit

During the course of my eight years in China I have heard many dumb things come from the mouths of visiting American politicians, but Coleman's: "The people earn one dollar a year," sets an entirely new standard. Perhaps the quote was taken out of context, in which case I hope that the context can be restored. But if not I can only marvel at Coleman's uncritical gullibility in the face of a CCP propaganda onslaught designed to make him sympathetic to the country's trade practices ("we can'...

Posted on 06/18/10 at 09:05 pm in response to Shelter for Asian women focuses on community's culture

A potentially fascinating but ultimately frustrating article: beyond serving rice, what on earth are the culturally responsive ways of addressing domestically abused Asian women in crisis? What, specifically, differentiates these women from non-immigrants? I have no doubt that the issues are different - so what are they?

And, for that matter, what - other than perhaps funding for the shelter - do Hindi-speaking women have in common with Hmong-speaking women and Mandarin-speaking women...