Pew study: Minneapolis is one of the last places people want to move

Protesters and police outside a September Rage Against the Machine concert (Photo: Peter S. Scholtes)

Was all that money and tear gas for nothing? A national study conducted within weeks of the Republican National Convention shows the Minneapolis metropolitan area to be one of the last places Americans would like to live.

In October 2008, when impressions created by the convention were still fresh, pollsters for the Pew Research Center asked Americans where they’d like to move. The result: Minneapolis is the fourth-least desirable destination among the nation’s 30 largest cities.

So much for the RNC showcasing the Twin Cities. The bottom line: Outsiders would amend the local catchphrase thusly: “(There’s Got to Be) More to Life.”

(Statistical sticklers and civic boosters will note that by some readings of the research, Minneapolis is actually fifth from the bottom (depending on where Kansas City ranks). And the pollsters’ 4–6 percent fudge factor for making comparisons between cities means Minneapolis might really rank near the top of the bottom third of cities studied.)

The question was: “If you had a choice, would you want to live there, or not want to live there?” The results for “the Minneapolis, Minnesota area”: 82 percent said “No” and only 14 percent said “Yes.”

It’s that remaining 2 percent who didn’t have an answer — and perhaps have never formed an opinion or even heard of the place — who might be swayed by a promotional video like this one, made for the Republican National Convention (file under “Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there”):

What hurts our chances with others who have visions of U-Hauls dancing in their heads? For one, we’re Midwestern, as are the three cities where even more people said they wouldn’t want to live: Cincinnati, Cleveland and Detroit. Cities in the West and South are where Americans want to be.

The older they are, the less likely it is that people like the idea of moving here. Among 18 to 34-year-olds, the Pew study showed a full 25 percent would like to live in Minneapolis — which sounds good but still leaves us fourth-least desirable in that age group. That plummets to 14 percent among those aged 35–59. A mere 12 percent of people 60 and older want to take their chances on our icy sidewalks.

Our reputation among women isn’t catching a ride with Mary Tyler Moore’s tossed cap anymore. A mere 13 percent of women want to live here, compared to a full fifth of men, who may be swayed by ads showing pickup trucks or snowmobiles blasting through wintry drifts.

Party identification means nothing. Whether Republican, Democrat or independent, 17 percent to 18 percent of those questioned found Minneapolis attractive. But ideology made a difference, with 21 percent of liberals — but only 14 percent of conservatives — expressing a fondness for Minneapolis.

Why would Americans want to move? For one thing, only 8 percent rated “Job opportunities” as a positive attribute of their current communities, while 24 percent said traffic was a big problem.

(Possibly, people who’ve recently been laid off or had their homes foreclosed are picturing living in a modern Hooverville or Tent City, making warmer climes not just more desirable but more survivable.)

The survey was not conducted in the dead of winter. Pew’s researchers polled 2,260 adults living in the continental United States over a two-and-a-half week period in October 2008. The overall margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.