Minneapolis

Early map of the Minneapolis area showing Dakota paths and villages c. 1834

The Dakota Sioux were the region's sole residents when French explorers arrived in 1680. Gradually, more European-American settlers arrived, competing for game and other resources with the Native Americans. By the Treaty of Paris following the Revolutionary War, British land east of the Mississippi River became part of the United States.[14][15] In the early 19th century, the United States acquired land to the west of the river from France in the Louisiana Purchase. Fort Snelling was built in 1819 by the U.S. Army at the southern edge of present-day Minneapolis and also bordering Saint Paul as the U.S. military's most remote outpost,[16] to direct Indian trade away from the French and English to the U.S., and to prevent the Dakota and Ojibwe in the north from fighting each other.[17] The fort attracted traders, settlers and merchants, spurring growth. Agents of the St. Peters Indian Agency built at the fort enforced U.S. policy of assimilating Native Americans into European-American society, asking them to give up hunting for subsistence and to learn to plow for cultivation.[18] The U.S. government pressed the Dakota to sell their land which was ceded in a succession of treaties. The U.S. reneged on the treaties during the Civil War, resulting in hunger, war, internment, and exile of the Dakota from Minnesota.

Outwitting the fort's commandant, Franklin Steele laid his claim on the east bank of Saint Anthony Falls,[17] and Stevens built his home on the west bank.[19] The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized Minneapolis as a town in 1856, on the Mississippi's west bank. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867 and later joined with the east-bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.[20]

Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River and a source of power for its early industry. Forests in northern Minnesota were a valuable resource for the lumber industry, which operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall.

Stereoscopic view of Minneapolis, early 20th century

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.[21] Due to the occupational hazards of milling, six local sources of artificial limbs were competing in the prosthetics business by the 1890s.[22] The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's 34 flour mills. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C.,[23] 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."[24]

Loading flour, Pillsbury, 1939

A father of modern milling in America and founder of what became General Mills, Cadwallader C. Washburn converted his business from gristmills to truly revolutionary technology, including "gradual reduction" processing by steel and porcelain roller mills capable of producing premium-quality pure white flour very quickly.[25][26] Some ideas were developed by William Dixon Gray[27] and some acquired through industrial espionage from Hungary by William de la Barre.[26] Charles A. Pillsbury and the C.A. Pillsbury Company across the river were barely a step behind, hiring Washburn employees to immediately use the new methods.[26] The hard red spring wheat that grows in Minnesota became valuable ($0.50 profit per barrel in 1871 increased to $4.50 in 1874),[25] and Minnesota "patent" flour was recognized at the time as the best in the world.[26]

Not until later did consumers discover the value in the bran (which contains wheat's vitamins, minerals and fiber) that "...Minneapolis flour millers routinely dumped" into the Mississippi.[28] After 1883, a Minneapolis miller virtually started a new industry when he began to sell bran byproduct as animal feed.[29] Millers cultivated relationships with academic scientists, especially at the University of Minnesota. Those scientists backed them politically on many issues, such as in the early 20th century when health advocates in the nascent field of nutrition criticized the flour "bleaching" process.[26] At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for 12 million loaves of bread each day;[30] by 1900, 14.1 percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis.[25][26] Further, by 1895, through the efforts of silent partner William Hood Dunwoody, Washburn-Crosby exported four million barrels of flour a year to the United Kingdom.[31] When exports reached their peak in 1900, about one third of all flour milled in Minneapolis was shipped overseas.[31]

Battle between striking teamsters and police, Minneapolis general strike of 1934

Known initially as a kindly physician, Doc Ames led the city into corruption during four terms as mayor just before 1900.[32] The gangster Kid Cann was famous for bribery and intimidation during the 1930s and 1940s.[33] The city made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers.[34]

Different forms of bigotry played roles during the first half of the 20th century. In 1910, a Minneapolis developer started writing restrictive covenants based on race and ethnicity into his deeds. Copied by other developers, the practice prevented minorities from owning or leasing such properties. Though such language was prohibited by state law in 1953 and by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, restrictive covenants against minorities remained in many Minneapolis deeds as recently as 2017.[35] The Ku Klux Klan succeeded by entering family life, but effectively was a force in the city only from 1921 until 1923.[36] After Minnesota passed a eugenics law in 1925, the proprietors of Eitel Hospital sterilized about one thousand people at a Faribault state hospital.[37]

From the end of World War I until 1950, Minneapolis was a "particularly virulent" site of anti-semitism. A hate group known as the Silver Legion of America recruited members in the city and held meetings around 1936 to 1938.[38] Answering bigotry against Jewish doctors, Mount Sinai Hospital opened in 1948 as the first hospital in the community to accept members of minority races and religions on its medical staff.[39][38]

The Gateway District in 1939

When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights.[40] A lifelong civil rights activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities by 1946.[41] In the 1950s, about 1.6% of the population of Minneapolis was nonwhite.[42] Minneapolis contended with white supremacy, participated in desegregation and the civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement.[43]

During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal, the city razed about 200 buildings across 25 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.[44]

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall. In the right foreground are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

Lake Harriet frozen and snow-covered in winter

Minneapolis experiences a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa in the Köppen climate classification),[54] typical of southern parts of the Upper Midwest, and is situated in USDA plant hardiness zone 4b, with small enclaves of the city classified as being zone 5a.[55][56][57] The city features very cold, snowy winters and humid, warm to hot summers. 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 climate can be compared to Moscow in precipitation and temperature, although the summer is warmer in the Twin Cities.[58]

According to the NOAA, Minneapolis's annual average for sunshine duration is 58%.[59]

The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The highest recorded temperature was 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936 while the lowest was −41 °F (−41 °C) in January 1888. The snowiest winter on record was 1983–84, when 98.6 inches (250 cm) of snow fell,[60] and the least snowy winter was 1890–91, when only 11.1 inches (28 cm) fell.[61]

The Baroque-style Basilica of Saint Mary by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray[92]

The Dakota people, the original inhabitants of the area where Minneapolis now stands, believed in the Great Spirit and were surprised that not all European settlers were religious.[93] More than 50 denominations and religions have an established presence in Minneapolis: According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 70% of the population of the city identified themselves as Christians, with 46% professing attendance at a variety of churches that could be considered Protestant (most of whom being Lutheran due to the city's German and Scandinavian heritage), and 21% professing Roman Catholic beliefs.[94][95] The same study says that other religions (including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism) collectively make up about 5% of the population, and 23% claimed no religious affiliation.

Those who arrived from New England were for the most part Christian Protestants, Quakers, and Universalists.[93] The oldest continuously used church in the city, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, was built in the Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood in 1856 by Universalists and soon afterward was acquired by a French Catholic congregation.[96] The first Jewish congregation in Minneapolis was formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov (though it has been known since 1920 as Temple Israel) and in 1928 built a synagogue in the East Isles neighborhood.[78] St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral was founded in 1887, opened a missionary school in 1897, and in 1905 created the first Russian Orthodox seminary in the U.S.[97] Edwin Hawley Hewitt designed both St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral and Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church on Hennepin Avenue just south of downtown.[98] The first basilica in the United States, and co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Basilica of Saint Mary near Loring Park was named by Pope Pius XI in 1926.[93]

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Decision magazine, and World Wide Pictures film and television distribution were headquartered in Minneapolis from the late 1940s into the 2000s.[100] Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye met while attending the Pentecostal North Central University and began a television ministry that by the 1980s reached 13.5 million households.[101] Today, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in southwest Minneapolis is the nation's second-largest Lutheran congregation, with about 6,000 attendees.[102] Christ Church Lutheran in the Longfellow neighborhood, designed by Eliel Saarinen with an education building by his son Eero Saarinen, is a National Historic Landmark.[103]

During the 1950s, members of the Nation of Islam created a temple in north Minneapolis,[104] and the first Muslim mosque was built in 1967.[105] 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.[106] In 1972 after the death of Shunryū Suzuki, Minnesotans at the San Francisco Zen Center invited Buddhist monk Dainin Katagiri to move from California to Minneapolis—by one account, a place he thought nobody else would want to go. He founded a lineage which today includes three Sōtō Zen centers among the city's nearly 20 Buddhist and meditation centers.[107][108] Atheists For Human Rights has its headquarters in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in a geodesic dome.[109] Minneapolis has had a chartered local body of Ordo Templi Orientis since 1994.[110] Hindus are served by multiple temples in Minneapolis and the Hindu Temple of Minnesota in Maple Grove.[111]

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center, one of the five largest modern art museums in the U.S., sits atop Lowry Hill, near the downtown area. The size of the Center was doubled with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron, and expanded with the conversion of a 15 acres (6.1 ha) park designed by Michel Desvigne, located across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.[132]

The Minneapolis Institute of Art, 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 and Michael Graves, opened in 1974 and 2006, respectively, for contemporary and modern works, as well as more gallery space.[133]

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is open every day and offers free admission to its collection of 90,000 objects spanning 20,000 years.[134]

The Weisman Art Museum, designed by Frank Gehry for the University of Minnesota, opened in 1993. An addition that doubled the size of the galleries, also designed by Gehry, opened in 2011.[135] The Weisman Art Museum offers free admission.[136] The Museum of Russian Art opened in a restored church in 2005[137] and exhibits a collection of 20th-century Russian art as well as lecture series, seminars, social functions and other special events.

USA Today voted the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District as the nation's best art district in 2015, citing 400 independent artists, a center at the Northrup King Building, and recurring annual events like Art-A-Whirl every spring, and the Fine Arts Show Art Attack and Casket Arts Quad's Cache open studio events in November.[138][139]

Minneapolis has been a cultural center for theatrical performances since the mid 1800s. Early theaters included the Pence Opera House,[140] the Academy of Music, the Grand Opera House, the Lyceum, and later the Metropolitan Opera House, which opened in 1894.[141]

The city is second only to New York City in terms of the number of theater companies per capita[142] and is the third-largest theater market in the United States.[143] Theater companies and troupes such as the Illusion, Jungle, Mixed Blood, Penumbra, Mu Performing Arts, Bedlam Theatre, Blackout Improv, HUGE Improv Theater, the Brave New Workshop, the Minnesota Dance Theatre, Red Eye Theater, Skewed Visions, Theater Latté Da, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts and the Children's Theatre Company are based in Minneapolis.

The Guthrie Theater, the area's largest theater company, occupies a three-stage complex overlooking the Mississippi, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.[133] The company was founded in 1963 by Sir Tyrone Guthrie as a prototype alternative to Broadway, and it produces a wide variety of shows throughout the year.[144][145] Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres vaudeville and film houses on Hennepin Avenue, which are now used for concerts and plays.[146] A fourth renovated theater, the former Shubert, joined with the Hennepin Center for the Arts to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, home to more than one dozen performing arts groups.[147][148] The city is home to Minnesota Fringe Festival, which features hundreds of performances and productions each year.[149]

Recording artist Prince studied at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Minneapolis Public Schools.[150][151]

The Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at the city's Orchestra Hall under music director Osmo Vänskä[152]—a critic writing for The New Yorker in 2010 described it as "the greatest orchestra in the world."[153] The orchestra was nominated in 2013 for its recording of "Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5," and it won a Grammy Award in 2014 for "Sibelius: Symphonies Nos 1 & 4."[154][155] Vänskä departed in 2013 when a labor dispute remained unresolved, which forced the cancellation of concerts scheduled for Carnegie Hall.[156] After a 15-month lockout, a contract settlement resulted in the return of the performers, including Vänskä, to Orchestra Hall in January 2014.[157]

According to DownBeat, for 25 years the Dakota Jazz Club has been one of the world's best jazz venues. Newer on the scene, Crooners in northeast Minneapolis also won world's best in 2020.[158]

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Prince was born in Minneapolis and lived in the area most of his life.[159] After Jimmy Jam and his 11-piece Mind & Matter broke through discrimination that had created a race barrier downtown, Prince reached a global multiracial audience with his combination of indecency and religion.[160] An authentic musical prodigy enriched by a music program at The Way Community Center, Prince learned to operate a Polymoog at Sound 80 for his first album that became a sonic element of the Minneapolis sound.[161] With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records,[162] Prince helped make First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry prominent venues for both artists and audiences.[163]

In 1970, Allan Fingerhut saw the potential for the nightclub that became First Avenue & 7th Street Entry which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2020.[164]

Other prominent artists from Minneapolis include Hüsker Dü and The Replacements, who were pivotal in the U.S. alternative rock boom during the 1980s. Their respective frontmen Bob Mould and Paul Westerberg developed successful solo careers.[165] The city is home to the MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment and has garnered attention for rap, hip hop and spoken word.[166] Underground Minnesota hip hop acts such as Atmosphere and Manny Phesto frequently comment about the city and Minnesota in song lyrics.[167][168]

Tom Waits released two songs about the city, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" (Blue Valentine, 1978) and "9th & Hennepin" (Rain Dogs, 1985), and Lucinda Williams recorded "Minneapolis" (World Without Tears, 2003). In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.[169]

Locally and internationally recognized Minneapolis electronic dance music artists include Woody McBride,[170] Freddy Fresh[171] and DVS1.[172]

Minneapolis is home to three opera companies: Minnesota Opera, Mill City Summer Opera and Really Spicy Opera, known for its productions of new musicals and operas.[173]

Minneapolis is the third-most literate city in the U.S.[174] and hosted the founding of Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the country. The Center consists of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions, which The New York Times called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher.[175] The Center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.[175] Publishers located in Minneapolis include Coffee House Press and the University of Minnesota Press.

Alight (formerly the American Refugee Committee) is located on the top floor of the Bank's building.

Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community.[176] More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States.[177] 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.[178]

The oldest foundation in Minnesota, The Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over 900 charitable funds and connects donors to nonprofit organizations.[179]

Alight helps 2.5 million refugees and displaced persons each year in Asili-Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, Myanmar, Pakistan, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Thailand and Uganda.[180] In 2011, Target Corporation was listed 42nd in a list of the best 100 corporate citizens in CR magazine for corporate responsibility officers.[181] Catholic Charities USA is one of the largest providers of social services locally.[182]

West Broadway Avenue was a cultural center during the early 20th century but by the 1950s, flight to the suburbs began, and streetcars closed down.[183] One of the largest urban food deserts in the United States was in North Minneapolis, where, as of mid-2017, 70,000 people had only two grocery stores.[184] Wirth Co-op has since opened as did North Market in 2017.[185]

As of 2019, Minneapolis-based chefs have won James Beard Foundation Awards: Ann Kim, chef at Young Joni, Pizza Lola and Hello Pizza, won in 2019.[186] Founder of the Sioux Chef, Sean Sherman won two James Beard prizes in 2019: the leadership award and best cookbook. Steve Hoffman won the James Beard distinguished writing award for "What Is Northern Food?."[187] Other winners: 2008 rising star chef Gavin Kaysen won again in 2018, Spoon & Stable; Alexander Roberts, Restaurant Alma; Isaac Becker, 112 Eatery; and Paul Berglund, Bachelor Farmer. Also in a venue that has closed, Tim McKee won at La Belle Vie.[188] Andrew Zimmern won in 2010, 2013 and 2017 for Outstanding Personality/Host on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and for his television program On Location in 2012.[189] When thirteen chefs and restaurants were nominated for James Beard awards in 2017, The Wall Street Journal named Minneapolis one of the ten best places to visit in the world.[190]

Team USA, including Gavin Kaysen (of Spoon and Stable, kitchen pictured), Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud, won a silver medal in the 2015 Bocuse d'Or.[191]

Julia Moskin wrote about New Nordic cuisine, chef Paul Berglund and the Bachelor Farmer, and the restaurants La Loma, Tilia, the Red Stag Supper Club, Fika and Haute Dish in The New York Times in 2012. She said Minneapolis chefs served trendy Nordic ingredients like root vegetables, fish roe, wild greens, venison, dried mushrooms, and seaweed.[192] Two months later, Bon Appétit featured the Bachelor Farmer, Piccolo, Saffron, Salty Tart, and Smack Shack/1029 Bar, writing about New Nordic cuisine and the Scandinavian heritage of Minneapolis.[193] Minneapolis is noted for its East African cuisine due to a wave of Somali immigration which started in the 1990s.[194] In 2018, Food & Wine named Spoon and Stable one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years.[195] As of 2019, chefs and bakers at eight of nine Kim Bartmann Minneapolis restaurants use heritage grains from Sunrise Four Mill.[196]

USA Today reader's choice decided that Minneapolis–Saint Paul was the best local food scene in 2015.[197] Four fine dining restaurants closed during 2015 and 2016: La Belle Vie, Vincent, Brasserie Zentral, and Saffron.[198][199] Food & Wine named Brewer's Table at Surly Brewing one of its ten 2016 restaurants of the year.[200] Also in 2016, Food & Wine named Eat Street Social, Constantine, and Coup d'État three of the best cocktail bars in the U.S.[201] Young Joni was selected one of the GQ top ten new restaurants and one of Eater's twelve best new restaurants of 2017.[202][203] Esquire put Hai Hai on its list of America's best restaurants in 2018, and Grand Café and Marco Zappia of Martina both earned special mentions.[204]

Minneapolis Public Schools enroll over 35,000 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about 100 public schools including 45 elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, 19 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. In 2017, the graduation rate was 66 percent.[275] Students speak over 100 different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and Somali.[276][277] Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute.[278] Besides public schools, the city is home to more than 20 private schools and academies and about 20 additional charter schools.[279]

The University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus

Minneapolis's collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend 20 colleges, schools, and institutes.[280] The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management.[281]

Augsburg University, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges. Minneapolis Community and Technical College and the private Dunwoody College of Technology provide career training. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. Two large principally online universities, Capella University and Walden University, are both headquartered in the city. The public four-year Metropolitan State University and the private four-year University of St. Thomas are among postsecondary institutions based elsewhere with additional campuses in Minneapolis.[282]

The Hennepin County Library system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008.[283] The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885,[284] faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to temporarily close three of its neighborhood libraries.[285] The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli opened in 2006.[286] Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection.[287] 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.[288]

METRO Blue Line LRT downtown at Government Plaza

Half of Minneapolis–Saint Paul residents work in the city where they live.[310] Most residents drive cars, but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto.[311] 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.[312]

On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.[313]

Minneapolis currently has two light rail lines and one commuter rail line. The METRO Blue Line LRT (formerly the Hiawatha Line[314]) 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 Avenue and Lake Street/Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport.

Minneapolis's second[315] light rail line, the METRO Green Line shares stations with the Blue Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East station, travels east through the University of Minnesota, and then along University Avenue into downtown Saint Paul. Construction began in November 2010 and the line began service on June 14, 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line (Green Line extension), will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected sometime in 2022.[316] A northwest LRT is planned along Bottineau Boulevard (Blue Line extension) from downtown to Brooklyn Park.[317] Metro Transit recorded 81.9 million boardings in 2017, slightly down from 82.6 million in 2016. The Blue Line carried 10.7 million riders in 2017, breaking its previous record annual ridership total. About 13.1 million people rode the Green Line in 2017, up 3.5% from 2016. However, these increases in light rail ridership were offset by a lower number of bus boardings: 55.7 million in 2017, compared to about 58.5 boardings in 2016.[318]

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.[319] It uses existing railroad tracks and serves 2,600 daily commuters.[320] Annual ridership on the line increased to over 787,000 in 2017, up 12% from the previous year.[318]

According to the 2016 American Community Survey, 59.9% of working city of Minneapolis residents commuted by driving alone, 7.6% carpooled, 14.2% used public transportation, and 7.3% walked. About 5.1% used all other forms of transportation, including taxicab, motorcycle, and bicycle. About 5.9% of working city of Minneapolis residents worked at home.[321] In 2015, 18.2% of city of Minneapolis households were without a car, which decreased to 17.1% in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Minneapolis averaged 1.35 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household.[322]

Bike rack on the Blue Line

Minneapolis ranked 27th in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle in 2011,[323] and was editorialized as the top bicycling city in "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking in 2010.[324] 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 mi (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway, Little Earth Trail, Hiawatha LRT Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 40 miles (64 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps.[325] 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.[326] In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city.[327] In 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota launched with 65 kiosks for bicycle sharing,[328] and 19 pedicabs were operating downtown.[329] In 2016, Nice Ride expanded to 171 stations and 1,833 bikes[330] supplied by PBSC Urban Solutions, a Canadian company.[331]

A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of 50 largest cities in the United States.[332]

The Minneapolis Skyway System, seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurants and retailers connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.[333]

Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) sits on 3,400 acres (1,400 ha)[334] on the southeast border of the city between Minnesota State Highway 5, Interstate 494, Minnesota State Highway 77, and Minnesota State Highway 62. The airport serves international, domestic, charter and regional carriers[335] and is a hub and home base for Sun Country Airlines and Compass Airlines.[336] It is also the third-largest hub for Delta Air Lines, who operate more flights out of MSP than any other airline.[337] For terminals serving 25 to 40 million passengers, MSP was named the world’s best airport for customer experience in North America in 2020 for the fourth consecutive year.[338] Forbes named MSP the No. 2 Best Airport in North America, behind Detroit in 2019.[339]

Main entrance of Hennepin County Medical Center known as Hennepin Healthcare[340]

Minneapolis has seven hospitals, four ranked among America's best by U.S. News & World Report—Abbott Northwestern Hospital (part of Allina), Children's Hospitals and Clinics, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) and the University of Minnesota Medical Center.[341] Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Shriners Hospitals for Children and Allina's Phillips Eye Institute also serve the city.[342] The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is a 75-minute drive away.[343]

Cardiac surgery was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than 200 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.[344]

Hennepin Healthcare opened in 1887 as City Hospital and was also known as Minneapolis General Hospital, Hennepin County General Hospital and HCMC.[345] A public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center,[346] the HCMC safety net counted 643,739 clinic visits and 111,307 emergency and urgent care visits in 2019.[347] In prior years responsible for about 18% of Minnesota's uncompensated care,[348] HCMC provided much less uncompensated care in 2014 because, after the Affordable Care Act came into effect, its charity care declined more than bad debt went up.[349]

A snow emergency

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.[350]

Utility providers are regulated monopolies: Xcel Energy supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy supplies gas, CenturyLink provides landline telephone service, and Comcast provides cable service.[351] 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.[351] After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over 1,000 mi (1,610 km) of streets and 400 mi (640 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.[352]