This issue is the last one for me as editor of The Line. Inspired in no small part by the courageous entrepreneurs, artists, thinkers, and visionaries whose stories I’ve helped to tell in these web pages, I’m pushing off in new directions that involve writing, theater, spirituality, and (I hope) self-discovery.

A few observations upon leaving this great job:

We have a unique community here. That word gets thrown around to the point of abuse and meaninglessness, but I use it deliberately. The density of intelligence, innovation, and general intellectual and spiritual liveliness in the Twin Cities, crossed with the physical beauty of the place and its human scale and pace, makes for a city unlike any other I have lived in.

When I moved here from New York in 1991—and I moved here simply because I wanted to live here—I knew that the Twin Cities contained treasures; that nestled into a rather unassuming Midwestern place best known nationally for ice and snow, breakfast food, a certain folksy public radio show, and the occasional major rock band, there were assets that, all by themselves, gave the horse laugh to coastal prejudices about “flyover land.” We had an advertising scene so vibrant that it was scaring the big shops in New York, a “regional” theater whose productions were getting reviewed in London, an international contemporary art center that was reinventing the idea of the international contemporary art center.

As the years passed, I learned more and more about the less obvious local treasures, open secrets that it took some digging to find: my friend David Means and his often brilliant Strange Attractors intermedia-performance showcase at Metro State; the Indian Music Society of Minnesota, one of whose concerts featured a brilliant young woman who rested the instrument on her foot and played violin ragas with ecstatic absorption; how to garnish goat stew with banana slices Somali style.

But it wasn’t till I helped set up and began editing The Line in 2010 that a got a real and rounded picture of the creative energy here. It wasn’t till my excellent news editors—in chronological order, Dan Haugen, Chris Steller, Jeremy Stratton, Anna Pratt, and Elizabeth Millard—began reporting on development initiatives and new companies that I understood the real depth of innovation in the Twin Cities; it seems like a new marketing firm or app-development startup or small, ingenious nonprofit is born here every few hours.

Of course, my time with The Line also coincided with years of explosive growth in urban amenities here, so there’s been a whole lot more to see and enjoy—we’ve developed an amazing restaurant scene (who knew?); we’ve pushed forward mightily in public transit;  and if the Guthrie has lost its edge, at least its amazing Jean Nouvel building nearly makes you think you’re in Berlin or Seoul.

And I got a feel for the historical richness and depth here: beneath the Lake Wobegon clichés is a complicated heritage: the strong and continuing presence of Native people (despite everything); an African-American history that’s as old as white settlement;  blue-collar Scandinavians (like my own forebears) who labored in the railcar yards on the West Bank; communist unions; churches that helped launch religious fundamentalism; Jewish philanthropists and Jewish mobsters; an Irish archbishop (John Ireland) who had the ear of Presidents and was in debt to James J. Hill; and a vital stream of immigrants, from the Irish to the Rusyns of Ukraine to the Oromos, the Somalis, and the Karen people of Burma.

A Few Things...

I’ve loved celebrating our towns, helping reveal hidden or potential strengths, highlighting problems and suggesting solutions. And I’d like to offer a parting handful of recommendations and caveats, in no particular order:

Let’s embrace our uniqueness of scale—we’re smaller and more manageable than a megalopolis, but we’ve left small-town status far behind and forever. Let’s promote our fusion of midland comfort and hyperconnectivity to the entire globe.

Let’s embrace winter and make it a selling point.

Let’s remember that not everybody in our towns is economically, emotionally, or stylistically in tune with the “new economy” and its icons—coffee shops, tech startups, art crawls. I think that one of the tragedies of my lifetime has been the decline of opportunities for people to do honest and remunerative work with their hands, without college degrees or the need to read books by Malcolm Gladwell. No monoculture, please—not even in the name of the lively and worthy developments The Line is proud to cover.

I’d like to see more out-of-the-box thinking in our philanthropic sector. The straitjacket of the obligatory 501C3 structure has turned many a brilliant nonprofit into a lame or dysfunctional little bureaucracy.

I actually pray (in front of statues of saints) that the development of the Green Line does not price out the wonderful ethnic businesses that line University Avenue or the hard-working folks who live on the adjacent streets. I know that the City of Saint Paul doesn’t want this to happen, and has done a lot of innovative things to work against it. But this is America, and there is probably a Qdoba waiting to take the place of the Cheng Heng restaurant on the ground floor of a multi-use low-rise. Let’s stay alert here, fellow citizens.

Native Twin Citians, please get over your clannishness. I hear again and again how difficult it can be for transplants to find a welcoming social circle among people who grew up here. So what if that new hire at OLSON didn’t go to Washburn with you?—she’s yearning to make friends.

...and Some Heartfelt Thanks

Finally, no words can express my gratitude to the writers whose work has appeared in these pages during my editorship, and to Bill Kelley, whose photos graced most of our issues. Their professionalism and good nature, their skill and energy, made my job a true pleasure, and more than once saved my bacon when I made some potentially issue-wrecking error. I love you all, and that is not hyperbole.

I leave The Line in the ultra-capable hands of one of those writers, and one of our cities’ best journalists, Camille LeFevre. Camille is city-savvy, art-savvy, development-savvy, and connected all over town. Working with our publisher, Dena Alspach (another woman who knows everybody and is full of good ideas), she will make The Line shine.

Jon