As the Twin Cities metro area grows, outlying cities must choose sides: Are they more like Minneapolis, the first city of the West, or St. Paul, the last city of the East? Inner-ring suburbs tend to fall in line with whichever major city is closest. But as once-distant places like St. Cloud, Minn., enter the metro’s orbit, the choice isn’t so clear. Sometimes the difference comes down to details — whether it takes hours or days to plow streets, whether city workers collect residential trash or whether zoning codes permit portable signs.

On Monday, the St. Cloud City Council held a study session on a proposed new land development code intended to make the city more beautiful and orderly. The most controversial plank — part of a thorough overhaul with a lengthy approval process that started early this year and won’t be done until August at the earliest, according to the St. Cloud Times — is a so-called ban on portable signs.

If in the end St. Cloud adopts a true ban on the signs — the kind that are often mounted on wheeled trailers and have movable letters in fluorescent (not technically neon) colors — then that would emulate Minneapolis, where such abominations are forbidden, according to planning staff. But the modified ban under consideration actually hews closer to St. Paul, where ordinances allow property owners to put out portable signs four times per year, 15 days per time. (St. Cloud is considering two times a year, 30 days per time.)