As the person who started the group to oppose the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, I take issue with Cityscape columnist Bill Lindeke’s piece, “Former Minneapolis 2040 leader: Cynical use of environmental laws and communication plagued the plan.” In it, he interviews Heather Worthington, who was head of long-range planning at the city at the time. She refers to “NIMBY” groups, saying efforts to stop the 2040 Plan — including a lawsuit claiming it violates the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) — are a cynical use of environmental laws. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But let’s start at the beginning. Every 10 years, the Metropolitan Council does a regional plan so it can figure out how regional systems like sewer treatment, transportation, parks, drinking water, solid waste and surface water management should evolve. The core of this plan is forecasting what parts of the region will grow and by how much. Cities and counties are then required to create long-range plans in conformance with the regional plan. Things that shape how cities grow must be aligned with the council’s plan, including the city’s zoning code, development rules, capital investments and other things that shape city development.
For its 2040 Plan, the Metropolitan Council said Minneapolis was supposed to plan for 15% growth. Minneapolis planned for 75% growth, according to one study that showed the city’s zoning and development changes could result in the construction of 150,000 new housing units.
The core idea was density. Density would address two thorny urban problems. First, if people lived more densely, it would be better for the environment. Multifamily housing would replace single family homes. People in urban cores drive less than suburban or exurban people. Building in the core would preserve virgin land as opposed to building on the edges of the region.
Density would solve a second urban problem. Studies, mostly in California and New York, have shown that regulation is a barrier to housing construction. To get density, the city would radically reduce regulations on new development, removing this barrier. Advocates printed signs saying that by approving the 2040 Plan, housing would become abundant and cheap.
Getting density required radical changes. It eliminated zoning protections for single family homes, allowing them to be replaced by triplexes at minimum and much more if a developer could get adjoining parcels or if a property was on a bus line, or if the property was in the middle half of the city. It allowed new buildings to be bigger and taller and to completely cover a parcel. Small area plans that shaped development were eliminated to accommodate the planned dramatic growth. It adopted a transportation plan that assumes a 60% reduction in auto travel by 2030, as the new density would mean people would naturally walk, bike or take transit. It eliminated parking minimums because cars would not be needed. Pictures showed Minneapolis becoming Manhattan, with bungalow streets replaced by walkups, and urban centers like Uptown filled with gleaming skyscrapers.
The Minnesota Environmental Rights Act requires that if you are going to make radical changes that impact the environment, you have to mitigate those harms. And clearly, growing 75% would substantially negatively impact the environment in Minneapolis. Minneapolis did nothing to mitigate the environmental harms of this planned massive growth. It just assumed that the health and environment of Minneapolis residents would be sacrificed for the benefits of density. This is what triggered the MERA lawsuit.
But there is an even bigger problem with Minneapolis’ plan. It takes 2.1 babies per woman to keep a population stable. The current birth rate in the United States is 1.64 babies per woman and it has been declining since the 1950s. Without immigration, the U.S. would be removing housing. Minnesota is a cold, high-tax northern state and in the Twin Cities people can get less expensive housing with better schools and less crime in the suburbs. When the 2040 Plan was created, Minneapolis was forecast to grow only 15% from 2020 to 2040. It is now forecast to grow 11%. Minneapolis will never have radically more density, yet it is developing as if it will. Buildings are bigger and taller and often cover every square inch of a lot. Developers go wherever they can hustle a parcel, often in a sea of single-family houses. Greenspace is being reduced, solar access lost and polluted runoff increased. And it is all unnecessary.
Minneapolis is rebuilding its streets for the massive shift to walking, biking and transit that would occur with this fantasy density. Parking is being removed, streets narrowed, and auto lanes are being converted to bike lanes. This has substantially increased auto congestion and, commensurately, carbon emissions and pollution. It may seem counterintuitive, but bike lanes in Minneapolis are often awful for the environment.
Ownership housing is the best way for low- and middle-income residents to build wealth. Ninety-five percent of new housing built in Minneapolis since 2009 has been rental, according to an analysis by the city assessor’s office that I requested. By taking away zoning protections from single family homes, it has incentivized the corporatization and destruction of its only reservoir of wealth-building housing. Unsurprisingly, home ownership rates have declined, and billions of dollars flow from residents’ hands into corporate coffers. Given Minneapolis has the largest population of persons of color in the state, it is hard not to see the racism in incentivizing the destruction of wealth-building opportunities.
The idea that putting housing in the urban core is better for the environment also turns out not to be true. Minneapolis has only 15% of the jobs in the region, a percentage that has been declining for decades. Around 50% of jobs are within about a mile of 494/694. If the region wants to reduce travel, it makes more sense to redevelop office complexes and strip malls near suburban jobs than to put more housing in the urban core, just to expect people to commute out to suburban jobs.
At its center, the call for more density misdiagnoses the country’s housing issues. Zoning may be driving housing costs up in California and New York City, but Minneapolis is not them. Minneapolis actually grew faster than the Twin Cities overall population between 2010 and 2020, something that could not happen if its zoning was holding back development. The reason for increasing housing costs here and for most of the rest of the country is the cost of construction. The cost to build housing has almost doubled, when adjusted for inflation.
Density is an attractive solution that doesn’t live up to its promises. People want agency to fight climate change and to help the poor by producing more affordable housing. The density fantasy gives them that agency they crave. But what happens if we planned for reality? That over the next 20 years, Minneapolis, at best, will have a tiny amount of growth that could easily have been accommodated in commercial corridors and existing walkable neighborhoods, while preserving ownership opportunities. And it would have been much easier to mitigate the environmental impacts of a small amount of growth. But that is not what Minneapolis did and that is what led to the lawsuit.
The absurdity of the density fantasy becomes even more stark when we admit that if trends hold over the next 20 years, Minneapolis will probably have a declining population. There was no need to sacrifice ownership housing to corporations. There was no need to sacrifice the city’s urban environment to out-of-scale development. There was no need to rebuild the roads for a fantasy shift away from automobiles. It was all unnecessary. It becomes even worse given the population of the city actually declined the last two years.
Right now, people claiming to be environmentalists are working at the Legislature to end MERA. To end the requirement that large-scale projects that harm the environment find ways to mitigate that harm. In this day of climate change, worsening health outcomes, loss of habitat and degradation, that is the worst thing Minnesota could do. Instead, the Legislature should recommit itself to creating a healthy environment for all residents by affirming MERA.
Also, people claiming to be housing advocates are working to remove zoning protections for wealth-building housing by eliminating zoning protections for single family homes. The Legislature should see that this will only reduce ownership housing. Minnesota has more than enough developable land to accommodate its modest growth without impoverishing future generations.
Carol Becker, of Minneapolis, is a college teacher.
