Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
Reminds me a lot of Seattle. I find it weird how in many cases in the US there are basically multiple iterations of the same city in different locations.
Minneapolis is interesting in that it isn't necessarily where somebody would expect to see a city that large. Does it have a natural advantage that accounts for this or did it just happen to get lucky and end up with growing major companies or something similar?
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I think its safe to say that Minneapolis is here because of the Mississippi River and St Anthony Falls. The falls are the only sizable waterfall along the river and so provided the power to generate lots of saw-mills and, especially, flour mills, which was the initial industry for the area. That of course led to companies like Pillsbury, General Mills, Cargill etc...
Along with luck, the Twin Cities then grew largely because of having successful companies (3M, Medtronic, Target, Best Buy, along with companies like Honeywell and Control Data back in the '60s-'80s), and being the primary trade center for a large, and surprisingly affluent (due to many successful farmers), part of the country. Its also a nice place to live (if you can deal with our winters)!
PS: Drew--good pictures as always--I always enjoy seeing your threads!
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