I understand the hesitation to accept more state involvement; local control, on the surface, seems more efficient. But it's possible we have too many cooks in the kitchen. Take my local neighborhood association, which wanted to replace the buckthorn along Minnehaha Creek: they got swamped by bureaucracy split between the watershed district, the parks board, and the city. Some streamlining is needed so people with the resources and drive to improve the city get the support to actually do it.
Too many cooks is a huge problem. The high speed rail project from LA to SF is perhaps the poster child of that. Or, closer to home, light rail from SW to downtown.
I think the reason you’re getting pushback is because the topic is so sprawling and complex. Too big for the human mind to fully grasp. Designing effective governance might be an ideal application for AI.
We can all agree we want our government to deliver services we need, do it well, and at a minimum cost. But like forecasting the weather, there are a huge number of variables at play, and everything you do affects everything else. A cloud forms above Omaha, which affects the air temperature below it, which causes a pressure differential, which creates wind in Omaha, which creates wind in Minneapolis, which…moves the cloud from above Omaha. Hennepin County can come up with a great solution to homelessness. Then we get a massive influx of homeless because of how great the systems are. Then we get a massive influx of drug trafficking, human trafficking, various related crimes, etc.
Maybe we can coax AI to divert some of its efforts away from developing biological weapons and instead spend a few MW-hrs designing good governance?
I like the idea of better coordination. What I worry about with a regional approach is sprawling bureaucracy, with more layers of management, that isn't accountable to the people and can't seemingly get anything done. My last job in Corporate America was in a 330K-person global behemoth. Largess usually is accompanied by inefficiency, lack of responsiveness, and inability to turn on a dime.
Be it public or private, the larger the organization becomes, the less efficient and effective they are. How can a governor make an assessment of something they have no direct experience with. If local counties or municipalities want to collaborate on some project and they explore and find potential mutual benefit, then they will do that. They do not need a state agency or governor to force them.
Maybe giving the city's a vote in the appointments would be a way of including their opinion into the Met Council. Of course we need to require skills for our city officials to make wise choices.
Highly disagree. The bigger government gets, the less responsive it becomes, the less transparent, all at higher cost to taxpayers. Can you provide any examples where eliminating local control and expertise has improved outcomes and/or reduced costs?
Toronto provides a good example of why consolidation is bad. Their amalgamation in 1998 dissolved 6 cities and added them into Toronto, with people saying it'll reduce costs and increase efficiency.
More recently the Minneapolis Park Board has made a strong case why eliminating their HR, finance, and IT departments would not save any money. The City needs 1.4 employees per 100 to do the same job the Minneapolis Park Board does with 1 employee. Merging departments would increase taxpayer costs and reduce quality of service as detailed in this piece:
Bigger government is different from more efficient government, but I understand what you mean. Consolidation won't make sense in every case. That said, consider an institution like HCMC, a regional hospital that's run by the Hennepin County Commission. I wouldn't want my neighborhood association responsible for the county's response to homelessness. They don’t have the resources or expertise. The next governor could do a more thorough assessment of which programs would benefit from state oversight and which wouldn't.
Where to start? Well, perhaps with "the Devil is in the details". There is a reason that metro areas in the US consist of a core city, one or more suburban rings, and one or more exurban rings. And, if one studies how these form, it is because of the tension inherent in wanting the positives of the life a metropolis is providing at a given point in time and not wanting the negatives. Most metros have either a 19th or a 20th century formation back-story of regions that were outside of all development choosing whether to develop as a part of the city or as a separate entity. Sometimes, with oscillations. The Southside of Mpls is a great example, because much of it was once part of a Richfield township, and could just as easily have ended up as a part of a much larger Richfield than as part of Mpls.
I grew up in Chicago until age 10, and then in what is now a suburb and was at that time the very definition of "exurb" - Schaumburg. Schaumburg is an excellent example of a place that was *consciously designed* by a visionary leader to be a counterpoint to what Chicago was (at that time) and also to what other suburbs that were less-intentionally planned had become. It took several decades to evolve from rural to exurb to suburb to hub for the entire NW suburban region, but that is what it is today, and largely, the plan worked.
The problem with a regional unit of government (not our Met Council specifically - I'm talking about it in the abstract here for a moment) is that it is incredibly difficult even to decide what "things" it will be allowed to mandate on a region-wide basis, and what is off-limits - left to the many individual cities and suburbs. They exist specifically in order to do things differently from each other, and *that is a good thing*.
Even though neither of you knew much detail, it was good that you mentioned Lake Elmo, and that it involved the Met Council exercising power it barely knew it had. I know a bit about the Lake Elmo drama, since I used to work out that way, and I used to do political campaign stuff for office-holders and candidates in a number of communities in the northeast Metro. Reduced to the very basics, this was the Met Council deciding that the community the citizens and the leaders of Lake Elmo had built and clearly, overwhelmingly, wanted to have and preserve, was not a type of community the Council wanted to "allow". Too "permanently exurban" for a place so close to St. Paul that *ought* to be highly-developed suburban. My problem with that is I have absolutely no idea how folks who don't live there would know better than the ones who do what the "correct" disposition "should" be.
The silver lining - at least for me - is that I don't see *any* Governor getting involved to the extent Roper hopes for. That would be a recipe for guaranteeing that, each year or two, one or more entire communities largely became united in opposition to said Governor's re-election chances... and rightly so. Diversity *is* good - all forms of it - and diversity among communities within a metro area is one of those goods. There are things - like public transit - that can only be done on a regional basis, and it would be nice if our existing regional government did it better - smarter and more efficiently - than it does. And the Governor can and should help with that.
But she must resist prompts to go beyond and dictate "standards" to the Metro cities and suburbs that deny them the very reasons they were established in the first place.
I know they touched on the transit system, my belief is that the running of the system should be taken away from the Met Council. It's clear to me is that it is currently being designed for those they want to use the system rather than those that those that currently need and use it. It's obvious that the chiefs have never needed or regularly used the system or worked in it's running. They are still building to bring people into the cities when much of the business has moved to the suburbs. There has been a switch but it is not fully reflected in the system.
The problem is we are not electing officials that have the skills required to run their cities and state. The Governor, Mayors, Councilmen are like a CEO's, CFO's, COO's, expected to guide and run the state, cities and counties in a humane and cost effective way. For some reason we switched to idealism and have completely forgotten about skills.
I suspect this is really about control. We already know that one party wants to further increase the power of the Met Council, give them the sole power to decide density and infrastructure. The biggest problem with this is that the Met Council is party controled, with one single vision and no account to anyone but the party. The Met Council used to be more open as to their goals for needs and wants but is now more of a closesd need to know system.
I suspect we should return to skills before giving any any more power. It could be that with regular regional meetings with people that have real skills would make the shift unnecessary.
I understand the hesitation to accept more state involvement; local control, on the surface, seems more efficient. But it's possible we have too many cooks in the kitchen. Take my local neighborhood association, which wanted to replace the buckthorn along Minnehaha Creek: they got swamped by bureaucracy split between the watershed district, the parks board, and the city. Some streamlining is needed so people with the resources and drive to improve the city get the support to actually do it.
Too many cooks is a huge problem. The high speed rail project from LA to SF is perhaps the poster child of that. Or, closer to home, light rail from SW to downtown.
I think the reason you’re getting pushback is because the topic is so sprawling and complex. Too big for the human mind to fully grasp. Designing effective governance might be an ideal application for AI.
We can all agree we want our government to deliver services we need, do it well, and at a minimum cost. But like forecasting the weather, there are a huge number of variables at play, and everything you do affects everything else. A cloud forms above Omaha, which affects the air temperature below it, which causes a pressure differential, which creates wind in Omaha, which creates wind in Minneapolis, which…moves the cloud from above Omaha. Hennepin County can come up with a great solution to homelessness. Then we get a massive influx of homeless because of how great the systems are. Then we get a massive influx of drug trafficking, human trafficking, various related crimes, etc.
Maybe we can coax AI to divert some of its efforts away from developing biological weapons and instead spend a few MW-hrs designing good governance?
I like the idea of better coordination. What I worry about with a regional approach is sprawling bureaucracy, with more layers of management, that isn't accountable to the people and can't seemingly get anything done. My last job in Corporate America was in a 330K-person global behemoth. Largess usually is accompanied by inefficiency, lack of responsiveness, and inability to turn on a dime.
Somehow we need to balance all that...
Be it public or private, the larger the organization becomes, the less efficient and effective they are. How can a governor make an assessment of something they have no direct experience with. If local counties or municipalities want to collaborate on some project and they explore and find potential mutual benefit, then they will do that. They do not need a state agency or governor to force them.
Maybe giving the city's a vote in the appointments would be a way of including their opinion into the Met Council. Of course we need to require skills for our city officials to make wise choices.
Highly disagree. The bigger government gets, the less responsive it becomes, the less transparent, all at higher cost to taxpayers. Can you provide any examples where eliminating local control and expertise has improved outcomes and/or reduced costs?
Toronto provides a good example of why consolidation is bad. Their amalgamation in 1998 dissolved 6 cities and added them into Toronto, with people saying it'll reduce costs and increase efficiency.
It did the exact opposite, increasing taxes and not solving any major problems: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/study-debunks-benefits-of-mike-harris-era-amalgamation-in-ontario-1.3087959
More recently the Minneapolis Park Board has made a strong case why eliminating their HR, finance, and IT departments would not save any money. The City needs 1.4 employees per 100 to do the same job the Minneapolis Park Board does with 1 employee. Merging departments would increase taxpayer costs and reduce quality of service as detailed in this piece:
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2026/08/a-message-to-the-city-of-minneapolis-consolidation-would-hurt-our-parks/
Bigger government is different from more efficient government, but I understand what you mean. Consolidation won't make sense in every case. That said, consider an institution like HCMC, a regional hospital that's run by the Hennepin County Commission. I wouldn't want my neighborhood association responsible for the county's response to homelessness. They don’t have the resources or expertise. The next governor could do a more thorough assessment of which programs would benefit from state oversight and which wouldn't.
Where to start? Well, perhaps with "the Devil is in the details". There is a reason that metro areas in the US consist of a core city, one or more suburban rings, and one or more exurban rings. And, if one studies how these form, it is because of the tension inherent in wanting the positives of the life a metropolis is providing at a given point in time and not wanting the negatives. Most metros have either a 19th or a 20th century formation back-story of regions that were outside of all development choosing whether to develop as a part of the city or as a separate entity. Sometimes, with oscillations. The Southside of Mpls is a great example, because much of it was once part of a Richfield township, and could just as easily have ended up as a part of a much larger Richfield than as part of Mpls.
I grew up in Chicago until age 10, and then in what is now a suburb and was at that time the very definition of "exurb" - Schaumburg. Schaumburg is an excellent example of a place that was *consciously designed* by a visionary leader to be a counterpoint to what Chicago was (at that time) and also to what other suburbs that were less-intentionally planned had become. It took several decades to evolve from rural to exurb to suburb to hub for the entire NW suburban region, but that is what it is today, and largely, the plan worked.
The problem with a regional unit of government (not our Met Council specifically - I'm talking about it in the abstract here for a moment) is that it is incredibly difficult even to decide what "things" it will be allowed to mandate on a region-wide basis, and what is off-limits - left to the many individual cities and suburbs. They exist specifically in order to do things differently from each other, and *that is a good thing*.
Even though neither of you knew much detail, it was good that you mentioned Lake Elmo, and that it involved the Met Council exercising power it barely knew it had. I know a bit about the Lake Elmo drama, since I used to work out that way, and I used to do political campaign stuff for office-holders and candidates in a number of communities in the northeast Metro. Reduced to the very basics, this was the Met Council deciding that the community the citizens and the leaders of Lake Elmo had built and clearly, overwhelmingly, wanted to have and preserve, was not a type of community the Council wanted to "allow". Too "permanently exurban" for a place so close to St. Paul that *ought* to be highly-developed suburban. My problem with that is I have absolutely no idea how folks who don't live there would know better than the ones who do what the "correct" disposition "should" be.
The silver lining - at least for me - is that I don't see *any* Governor getting involved to the extent Roper hopes for. That would be a recipe for guaranteeing that, each year or two, one or more entire communities largely became united in opposition to said Governor's re-election chances... and rightly so. Diversity *is* good - all forms of it - and diversity among communities within a metro area is one of those goods. There are things - like public transit - that can only be done on a regional basis, and it would be nice if our existing regional government did it better - smarter and more efficiently - than it does. And the Governor can and should help with that.
But she must resist prompts to go beyond and dictate "standards" to the Metro cities and suburbs that deny them the very reasons they were established in the first place.
I know they touched on the transit system, my belief is that the running of the system should be taken away from the Met Council. It's clear to me is that it is currently being designed for those they want to use the system rather than those that those that currently need and use it. It's obvious that the chiefs have never needed or regularly used the system or worked in it's running. They are still building to bring people into the cities when much of the business has moved to the suburbs. There has been a switch but it is not fully reflected in the system.
The problem is we are not electing officials that have the skills required to run their cities and state. The Governor, Mayors, Councilmen are like a CEO's, CFO's, COO's, expected to guide and run the state, cities and counties in a humane and cost effective way. For some reason we switched to idealism and have completely forgotten about skills.
I suspect this is really about control. We already know that one party wants to further increase the power of the Met Council, give them the sole power to decide density and infrastructure. The biggest problem with this is that the Met Council is party controled, with one single vision and no account to anyone but the party. The Met Council used to be more open as to their goals for needs and wants but is now more of a closesd need to know system.
I suspect we should return to skills before giving any any more power. It could be that with regular regional meetings with people that have real skills would make the shift unnecessary.