Housing Patterns in the Twin Cities

In the spring of 2020, our Metro Analysis class was planning to embark on a field trip - a straight-line drive through South Minneapolis into the south suburbs of the Twin Cities. We were studying transportation eras and metropolitan housing markets, and we were analyzing household movement patterns at the time. However, the Covid-19 pandemic swept through and forced all of us home to finish the class remotely. Pandemic notwithstanding, we still completed the field trip virtually, by using Google Streetview to analyze the neighborhoods and housing along the route. This assignment was a reflection on what I saw on the field trip, and it serves as another foray into "reading the landscape" and gauging sense of place, albeit behind a screen.

Regardless, I still learned a lot about housing patterns and how housing "works" in American cities. Particularly, certain housing markets, which take on a sectoral shape, are much more dynamic than others because they are primarily middle-class. Middle-class households view housing as more of an appreciating asset, whereas lower- and upper-class households view it as more of a place to live and a personal statement, respectively. This leads to much more evidence of movement and vacancies in middle-class sectors. The particular housing sector we were "driving" through was a middle-class housing sector, and being able to see evidence of this dynamism was incredibly enlightening.