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Finance & Commerce > Print > Culture change or fad? Twin Cities population shifts towaPage 1of 3 ... AttachmentH Finance & Commercehttp://finance-commerce.com Culture change or fad? Twin Cities population shifts toward central core by Bill Clements Published: September 7th, 2011 All that talk in recent years about “transit- oriented” and “mixed-use” developments appears to be more than just talk: Regional planners now have the data to back it up. Planners for the Metropolitan Council released the information, which points to a statistically significant trend of more people in the seven-county metro region moving closer to the central core of cities and to more accessible transit options in higher-density areas. The land-use data also project a fast acceleration of the shift in the next 20 years. Robb Bader is vice president of St. Louis Park-based It’s contained in a study that considers the Bader Development. Three Bader generations work 2005-10 period and looks forward to 2030. in the same office and these days are focused on developments closer to city cores and transit options — like the Ellipse, a year-old mixed-use (The projections to 2030 are based on development on Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis land-use estimates in the comprehensive Park. It has been 100 percent leased for months. development plans, referred to as “comp (Staff photo: Bill Klotz) plans,” that metro cities last updated with the Met Council in 2008). This move toward smaller houses and multifamily and transit-oriented housing closer to cities “is not a flash in the pan,” said Ryan Jones, director for the Twin Cities of Metrostudy, a construction industry group that studies and tracks new home building.“However, it’s not going to be the absolute for everyone.” In other words, whether the shift is a long-term cultural change or a fad is still in question. The shift started in the late 1990s, said John Kari, a Met Council planning analyst. It got a boost after the start of the Livable Communities Act and its programs “that really helped communities see the synergistic potential of walkable, connected land uses particularly with transit,” he said in an interview. And it’s significant. “This is the major change in planned land-use expectations that we’ve seen since we’ve been doing local comp plans since the ’70s,” Kari told the council in a recent presentation. Key to this concept are “mixed-use” developments, which Kari and research manager Libby Starling have defined as “connected and integrated” developments that serve two or more purposes — retail, commercial and residential. They do not have to include residential. “A lot of communities don’t know exactly what the mixture [of mixed-use] will be in future,” Kari said, “but this is where they want to see development, where they expect it to go — and it’s more likely to be higher-density development.” The land-use study data found that 5,625 acres in the metro area were taken up by mixed-use development in 2010, and projected that number will soar to more like 55,000 acres by 2030. htt://finance-commerce.com/w-content/luins/dmcsociabletoolbar/w-rint.h?=09/14/2011 pppg__ppppp...