Two topics: Problems with census estimates and the Rainsvilles, in business since the 1880s....
From my experience, it's wise to take the census estimates of a Minneapolis-St. Paul population loss with a grain of salt. As the Pioneer reported, and both papers did when the 2000 census numbers came out, these are the people who underestimated the combined central city populations by about 60,000 compared to the 2000 count. And that's probably conservative, considering documented census undercounting of minorities. There are pros and cons to the methods used by the Metro Council and the Census. Methods based on building permits fail to take into account the increased utilization of existing housing, such as when waves of immigrants arrive from countries with higher fertility rates or when younger people double up in a tight rental market, as happened in the late 1990s. Census methods often apportion based on statewide numbers in ways that can distort local estimates. Logic would suggest that if Minneapolis gained population after razing more than 700 living units in the Sumner-Glenwood neighborhood just before the 2000 census, the repopulation of that area can only drive the city's estimates higher. Housing units are being added near the river, with new beacheads in north and northeast Minneapolis. Demolition of single-family and duplex housing has slowed as it has regained its value after troughing in the mid-1990s. The rental housing market has eased somewhat but I suspect immigrant demand has kept central city housing from significantly depopulating. The only major factor that would work against Minneapolis would be if larger Latino, Asian and East African families moved to the burbs and were replaced by smaller families. Anybody know whether immigraiton has slackened? It's true that some families with school-age kids move to the suburbs, as Mr. Leurquin finds on his block, but that was also true when the population dipped in the 80s and when it rose in the 90s. What matters for population trends is the composition of families replacing them. In much of southwest Minneapolis, as in his Waite Park, the population aged and shrank in the 1990s as people like me aged and our kids started their own households, but that didn't keep the city's population from rising due to highest median household size in core neighborhoods. One Minneapolis family that has done business here since the 1860s is the Rainville clan, now in its sixth generation. It started in the 1860s in old St. Anthony with a Rainville making mattresses in an outbuilding while working the sawmills by day. The family opened a furniture store next to the Great Northern depot in the 1880s, later moving to East Hennepin and the building now occupied by Bobino restaurant. Furniture makers in those days also did funeral work, since they had the knowhow to make caskets and the delivery horses and wagons. Ed Rainville still runs a funeral home, now at 2301 Central Av. NE. The family also has supplied several elected city officeholders, including current Council Member Barb Johnson, former Council Member Alice Rainville, and former Council Member and County Commissioner John Derus. I believe others within the family have run for office. Steve Brandt Star Tribune Not yet a customer of Rainville Bros. Chapel TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
