Strong Local Economy : Featured Stories

A survey by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that cities do better economically when the people in them want to stay in them.It also found that Twin Citians are held here by many things, including our arts and cultural amenities, our parks and recreational advantages, and our improving transit picture. With a new year has come a new political climate, and fiscal challenges continue at all levels of government. What does this mean for our likelihood of holding on to the things that keep people loving the Cities? Holly Dolezalek asked some experts.

Time was when the northwest corner of Snelling and Selby was a meat-and-potatoes kind of locale: A sporting-goods store was there, and a shoe shop and a day-labor place. Then along came developer Ed Conley, who remade two buildings on the corner. The result: one of the city's plus chic shopping destinations, home to a designer handbag shop, hip vintage wear, lingerie, couture, and more. It's a peaceful, colorful touch of European-style savoir-vivre at one of the capital city's busiest intersections.

Our photographer, Bill Kelley, took a leisurely trip from Maryland Avenue to Selby Avenue on Dale Street, making images of the many faces of this great old Saint Paul street: the well-loved neighborhood institution called Conny's Creamy Cone, a place to get Cambodian DVDs, the ambitious new Frogtown Square development, Big Daddy's Barbecue--and a gigantic sunflower too. Join him on one of the city's most diverse and soulful thoroughfares.

Like it or not, the Twin Cities are competing with major metropolises around the world--we're talking Amsterdam, London, Tokyo, and the like--to attract creative, innovative, entrepreneurial people who can live anywhere. That's the message of adman John Foley, whose brand-new nonprofit, 4Front, aims to raise awareness of this high-stakes situation by creating a yearly festival that's part competition, part showcase of Twin Cities innovation. The goal: to lure the best and brightest worldwide to our towns.

Six friends who live near the struggling intersection of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis wanted to see what they could do to revitalize their neighborhood. So, in the middle of an economic downturn and against most of the odds, they formed a nonprofit to create, of all things, an art center centered on fire. They worked hard and got lucky, and the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center is set to open in October with classes in welding, forge building, jewelry making, and blacksmithing. If their luck holds, the CAFAC will be also be a crucible for change in the 'hood.

On his web site Olive & Myrtle, Saint Paul designer/merchant Aaron Porvaznik sells beautiful, high-design things, from housewares to toys to bedspreads, that aren't exactly necessities. So why is he thriving at a time when most folks don't have many spare dollars to spend? It might have something to do with the passionate care he takes to make sure that everything on Olive & Myrtle is sustainably sourced--and his conviction that good design and sustainability are practically the same thing.

When South Africans Roy Goslin and Diane Ferrandi were hired by an American firm and offered their pick of US locations, the couple chose Minneapolis/St. Paul because it's about the size of Cape Town. Within a few years they were working for themselves, importing wine from their homeland. But thanks to the bad rep that cheap South African wines had garnered, and their unfamiliarity with the Twin Cities food scene, they had an uphill climb. Today, after the World Cup, South Africa is trendy, Goslin and Ferrandi are old hands, and metro Minnesotans are getting a taste for fine vintages from the land of the springbok.

The Twin Cities teem with cool crafters whose edgy and beautiful creations go miles beyond hand-painted "Bless This Mess" signs and laser-cut rocks that bid us "Imagine." For a long time these artists' main outlets were occasional crafts fairs and web sites. Then along came Sarah Sweet and Angela Lessman, who crafted the big, colorful, funky consignment store in Northeast Minneapolis with the disarming name. All it took for the shop to succeed was a dream, a near-failure, and a work ethic that borders on insanity.