Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
An interesting take away from Minnesota is that Minneapolis is only contributing 150$M. For a City that is almost 3 times the size or Regina with a substantial amount of corporate money there also. Regina could not fork over that same amount realistically.
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Let's keep in mind that the St. Paul's-Minneapolis region has ~670k in the city (~3 Million in the urban/metro area). With a ratio like that, chances are they could have some pretty high infrastructure expenses due to it being more expensive to keep up suburban areas. There is a also a river there (like in Saskatoon for example) and infrastructure like bridges can cost hundreds of millions (for example 270 million for Saskatoon's Circle Drive South Bridge, 70 of which is the responsibility of the city). Bridge building is something Regina doesn't have to worry about (I'm not counting our single arch 4m span bridges)...
We should also keep in mind that St. Paul built an NHL arena in the late 90s, and a new MLB stadium in the last few years as well.
So yes, they are bigger and have a much bigger fiscal capacity... but the region has definitely been putting it to full use.
Edit:
Just thought I'd clarify... I'm not trying to say we can definitely afford it. I'm just trying to say that each city's circumstances are different and making comparisons isn't always clear cut or appropriate.