Pl016

THE MINNESOTA EXPERIMENT: A personal recollection of experimental planning and development in the Twin Cities metropolitan area

By John E. Vance THE MINNESOTA EXPERIMENT: A personal recollection of experimental planning and development in the Twin Cities metropolitan area

By John E. Vance

Including An Introduction to THE VANCE PAPERS

September 1977 A publication of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, 311 Walter Library, 117 Pleasant St. S.E., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

The content of this report is the res pons i bi 1 i ty of the authors and is not necessarily endorsed by CURA.

Publication No. CURA 77-7 PREFACE

Since 1967 much has been written about the experimental and innovative planning that is taking place in Minnesota and about the related governmental reorganization occurring in the Twin Cities area. These writings include articles in national media, reviews in the nation 1 s metropolitan press, dis­ sertations, and widely distributed books. Nearly all of the research has been from the perspective of persons on the outside appraising and assessing our area 1 s accomplishments. In the story which follows, John Vance views the Minnesota happenings comprehensively from the inside. He gives a first person account of the plan­ ning and development that has occurred here during the past 20 years, in the context of innovative planning activity in Minnesota during the· past century. This report serves not only as a history of what has been happening here but also as an introduction to the impressive files which Mr. Vance accumu­ lated while he occupied key staff positions with both the Metropolitan Council and its predecessor, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission. The

University now has Mr. Vance 1 s 40 years of urban papers, well annotated and indexed for future researchers. The papers will, it is hoped, eventually become a part of the Minnesota Historical Society Archives for urban research. John Vance has unusual credentials for writing this report not only because of his long experience and familiarity with the Twin Cities metropol i­ tan planning scene but also from his wide professional experience. He has worked in three levels of government ..He was an elected official in Ohio for 11 years prior to and during World War I I; he was director of the Civic Plan­ ning and Traffic Board of the Providence Chamber of Commerce from 1945-1953; he worked for the Rhode Island Development Council, first as director of in­ formation and later as executive director, from 1953-1958. In 1946, Mr. Vance published a national field survey of metropolitan planning, which served as a major reference on the subject for many years. The adoption of the Minnesota Regional Planning Act of 1957, allowing the establishment of a metropolitan planning commission, was given wide publicity in national planning circles. Mr. Vance realized this was the first metropoli­ tan planning agency in the country that had the status of a political sub­ division with a levy for operation, and he wanted to be a part of this new

iii experiment. He came to Minnesota early in 1958 as an assistant to C. David Loeks, commission director, to help establish the Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC). He served ten years with MPC and five years with the Metropolitan Council, first as executive secretary and later as director of public information. He played an important role in the administrative transition from the MPC to the Metropolitan Council. He retired in 1972 and is now an urban consultant and author.

John R. Borchert

iv CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - URBAN PLANNING, A BRIEF HISTORY 5

CHAPTER 2 - PEOPLE AND POLITICS IN MINNESOTA 9

CHAPTER 3 - EARLY COOPERATIVE PLANNING IN THE TWIN CITIES AREA 12 Nineteenth Century Planning Metropolitan Planning, The First Effort--1927 The Sanitary District--1933 The Airports Commission--1943

CHAPTER 4 - PLANNING IN THE 195O'S 18 Community Planning Advisor The Regional Planning Act--1957 Reorganization of Central Cities Planning Housing and Redevelopment--Minneapol is and St. Paul Upper Midwest Research and Development Council The Minnesota Municipal Commission County Planning Twin Cities Area Transportation Study Metropolitan Transit Summary

CHAPTER 5 - THE METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION (1957) 32 Creation and Organization The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth Early Problems Development Districts Long-range, Three Phase Program

CHAPTER 6 - BASIC RESEARCH AND ORIENTATION (MPC Phase I: 1958-1961) 38 Structure and Administration Work Program Publications Intergovernmental Relations Cooperative Planning Upper Midwest Economic Study--Urban Component Joint Program for Landuse and Transportation Planning

CHAPTER 7 - JOINT PROGRAM FOR LANDUSE AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNING 44 (MPC Phase 11: Planning, 1962-1967) Federal Highway Act of 1962 Organization Values, Goals, Policies Urban Growth Models The Preferred Alternative Sub-Regional Planning in the Metropolitan Area Position Papers on Legislation

V CHAPTER 8 - GOVERNMENTAL REORGANIZATION 54 Alternatives for Reorganization Referrals Councils of Government The Move Toward Metropolitan Government 12 January 1966 20 September 1966 20 October 1966 10 November 1966 December 1966 January 1967 9 February 1967 16 February 1967 28 February 1967 Drafting A Bill The Battle in the Legislature

CHAPTER 9 - THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL (MPC Phase 111: I mp l ementat ion) 69 Choosing the Council Council Responsibilities An Executive Director Push for the 1969 Legislative Session Staff Operations The Metropolitan Development Guide Attitudinal Survey Added Powers and Duties Hammering out the Details The 1971 Session The 1974 Session The 1975 and 1976 Sessions The 1977 Session The Council Today

CHAPTER 10 - SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS IN THE GOVERNMENTAL 82 REORGANIZATION PROCESS Foundation and Federal Grants Municipal and County Leagues Leagues of Women Voters The Citizens League The Role of Business Political Parties The Minnesota Legislature Planning Groups University Related Groups The Metropolitan Press Summary

vi CHAPTER 11 - CONTINUING THE EXPERIMENT 93 Elected versus Appointed Metropolitan Council The Metropolitan Council--Administration Governmental Reorganization Fiscal Disparity The Land Value Tax versus Ad Valorem Real Estate Tax The Experimental City Commission on Minnesota's Future The Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area Summary

APPENDIX A - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VANCE PAPERS 107 Tips to Researchers Suggested Subject Areas for Research

APPENDIX B - A GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS FOR THE AGENCIES AND PROGRAMS 115 MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK

APPENDIX C - PUBLICATIONS OF THE METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION 117 Publications During MPC's Phase I (1958-1962) Major Reports of the Joint Program (1962-1967)

vii INTRODUCTION

Democratic institutions lack perfection because they are created through compromise.

In the creation of our country we progressed, through compromise, from the Declaration of Independence to the Articles of Confederation, the Consti­ tution, the Bill of Rights and other amendments, and then to the present maze of compromised pol icy pronouncements known as "Acts of Congress. 11 Attempts are made to annotate and codify these enactments, but the effort ultimately gets lost in subsequent bureaucratic regulations and judicial interpretations. It makes one grateful for lawyers.

Twenty-four hundred years ago Aristotle said that 11 the true purpose of the state is the perfection of all its citizens. 11 Since 1776 our country has been endeavoring to produce a state that will work toward the attainment of this goal. In spite of the seemingly hopeless route of the compromising dem­ ocratic process, we have been able to produce in America a state that more nearly meets the standards of Aristotle than any so far conceived. As I have reflected on the progress in Minnesota toward creation of a high quality of 1 ife (through what some have cal led the "Minnesota Experi­ ment"), I have been impressed with the efficiency of the institutions created to accomplish it. I am not, however, attesting to the perfection of these institutions but to the ability of our citizens to take half-a-loaf and feed the whole family. In spite of the inevitable compromises which have been endured in the creation of most of our urban institutions, the Minnesota legislature has given in most instances the best that it could at the time. Perfection, or improved performance, is often hammered out a bit at a time in an operational process that may require many legislative revisions. There are many examples· of this process in Minnesota legislation during the past half century or more. Some of these examples will be reviewed in later chapters. Urban planning and development seems to happen in phases, each phase per­ forming a job in its time, then passing its work on. In our ecstasy over a new innovative phase, we are often inclined to depreciate the earlier efforts. Perhaps the earlier phase accomplished what it was created to do, with no authority to do more. It may be that its work was as creative and important in its time as the present phase is today, and in addition, the earlier phase created the supportive base for existing programs. Future phases may make today's effort appear quite elementary, yet today's accomplishments should not be minimized at that time. Upon arrival of the airplane, we didn't chas­ tise the automobile because it couldn't fly; the auto did what it was designed to do and did it well! References to the Minnesota Experiment began to appear in national media shortly after the 1967 Minnesota leglislative session. The Minnesota Experi­ ment has been heralded as an 11 innovation in government 11 that rivals, in scien­ tific importance, the Wright brothers' first airplane. In some of the arti­ cles, it's a bit difficult to tie down and succinctly define the Minnesota Experiment. Some have taken the view that it was the establishment of the Metropolitan Council. No doubt this was the triggering event. Others main­ tain that any recognition of area governmental reorganization must take into consideration those phases of urban development and planning that provided the base for the creation of the council, including the Minnesota Municipal Commission (MMC), the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC), plus the other independent metropolitan service districts and agencies created over the past four or five decades. It wasn't until 1972, when the Twin Cities metropolitan area was being considered for national awards, that a definition of the Minnesota Experiment really emerged. The awards were given to the Twin Cities area, the council, and the Minnesota legislature in recognition of the area's ability to reorgan­ ize governmentally to meet changing needs towards the production of a quality of life for the people of the area. Thus, the Experiment is apparently not any particular institution and its program, but rather, the willingness of the Minnesota legislature to produce a series of institutions that have served, each in its time, the growing governmental needs that "change11 invariably demands. In this the legislature has responded neither irrationally nor prematurely to political or citizen pressures, but has acted only after discerning that the area was ready for new legislation and was willing to accept the responsibility that such'legis­ lation implied. Usually the legislature was guided in this action by the competence and responsibility shown by the area in handling previous actions and authorizations in the same field.

2 I shall endeavor, in this document, to present the many phases in the 50-year story of urban planning and development in the Twin Cities metropol­ itan area and bring into proper focus the importance of each phase. However, the greatest detail and analysis will be in reporting the history and activi­ ties of the MPC and the Metropolitan Council, the agencies about which I have first-hand knowledge. I hope that this document will assist us in keeping the proper perspec­ tive as we work to perfect our urban institutions. I will not be able to deal exhaustively with the many subjects to be covered, but I hope to produce a narrative that will show the continuity of events in an interesting manner. I hope it will also help graduate students in political science, planning, and other related fields to choose a subject for their dissertations. A list of suggested subject areas is included in the Appendix. Notice the various code numbers following each suggested title. These direct the reader, or student, to a particular file in the Vance Papers which are temporarily housed in the offices of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota. These files include both personal and selected papers covering my 40-year career in urban planning and development. The preparation of this brief history could well be in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Twin Cities• first formal effort at metropolitan planning in 1927; the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Citizens League; the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Metropolitan Planning Com­ mission; the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Metropolitan Council; or

coincidentally, the author 1 s 70th birthday. So if we need events to celebrate in 1977, there are a few. In order to aid the reader in an understanding and identification of the many agencies and programs mentioned, ·I have included a glossary as a part of the Appendix. I have endeavored to give the full name the first time it is used, with its acronym; thereafter using only the acronym.

John E. Vance September 1977

3

CHAPTER 1 - URBAN PLANNING, A BRIEF HISTORY

Barring annihilation or deep depression ... we have no way to avert the crisis of growth, no way but to face it and try to civilize it. Catherine Bauer Wurster

Catherine Bauer Wurster doesn't say what we do when we face the crisis of growth, or how the civilizing process takes place. To the extent, however, that planning implies a conscious handling of change over time, we can assume that this is how planning has become the civilizing tool in resolving the urban growth dilemma. Planning is one of those activities that people pursued for thousands of years before there was a name for it. For example, a group of archaeologists recently discovered the remains of a city in Turkey believed to be over 8,000 years old. Moreover, they discovered evidence of 11 some 11 planning with houses and markets laid out in an orderly pattern. Another example of early planning is the city of Kahun in southern Egypt. This was a particularly interesting example of the stockaded community. Built about 3,000 B.C. to house the slaves who constructed the nearby lllahun pyra­ mid, it was laid out with straight symmetrical streets like so many of our American cities. Kahun is the first known town that was evidently totally planned in advance of being built. The regularity of its design is in marked contrast to the confused pattern of cities that grew slowly through the years. Greek and Roman Empire city builders produced monuments expressive of their civilization but did not contribute greatly to the art of planning cities as convenient and comfortable living places for the great masses of people. Wealth by conquest and taxati-on enabled them to build with lavish­ ness, but neither Athens nor Rome had the advantage of being developed in accordance with a city plan designed to provide for future growth. During the Middle Ages, most town construction was confined to small fortified communities controlled by local feudal lords. The town wall provid­ ed the principal means of protection from enemy attack. The medieval forti­ fied town of Carcassonne in southern France, still stands as a reminder of the period when feudal lords were barricading their communities against war­ like neighbors. Hundreds of years later, however, four of the five largest cities in America--New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles--were founded

5 as fortified villages or military outposts. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the railroad during the 19th century, few cities were planned; they just grew. Due to the accident of location or the need to be along navigable rivers or rail lines, these cities became no longer merely a place for protection, but a place where people needed to be to maintain a live! ihood. Workers came to live in the cities in Europe and America, often in indescribable conditions of squalor. There were several factors, however, that were destined to help turn the tide of this unorganized ugly city living toward a more hopeful outlook. One was the writings of Dickens and Ruskin which drew heavily from the adverse living conditions in the industrial centers of England. By the turn of the century, enough indignation was aroused that things began to happen. In the early 1900 1 s Ebenezer Howard, an American, organized a company to build a new town about 28 miles north of London. Known as Letchworth, the town was sur­ rounded by a greenbelt of open space reserve for agriculture, forest, and park use. During the 1920 1 s another such city, Welwyn, was built. Twenty more have been planned since World War I I. The purpose of such cities, according to Howard, was to have 11 clean, busy streets within and open country without, providing the best of two worlds--Town and Country." A long line of 11 new town 11 advocates followed Howard, including Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, with New Jersey's Radburn; Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright and their end­ less debate; Lewis Mumford, Clarence Perry, and many others.

Another event of note, which took place in the early 1890 1 s, was the preparation by Daniel H. Burnham of the plan for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. As a result of this, Burnham became the principal exponent of classic city planning and the 11 civic center11 design philosophy sought so eagerly after the fair. Thus began what has been known as the 11 City Beautiful Movement 11 in the history of city planning. It almost became a national obsession to create

11 an image of the City Beautiful in every urban place, 11 but the movement wasn 1 t getting at the real problems of the city. The front porch got painted, but what a mess in the backyard. As a result, in 1917 a group of concerned persons representing numerous professions came together to see what could be done to make our cities more livable and efficient. Included in the group were architects, lawyers, engi­ neers, political scientists, public officials, and developers. They realized that the job was too big for any one profession, but they felt that each had

6 a contribution to make. So they organized themselves into the American City Planning Institute, which was the beginning of planning as a profession and the forerunner of today's American Institute of Planners (AIP). From the new group of planners, a philosophy and procedures for city planning evolved. These centered around landuse planning and zoning. It was the late 1920 1 s, however, before zoning--a new concept--became legal and oper­ ative through a long series of court cases and decisions. Eventually, a plan­ ning process was developed which was primarily concerned with physical or landuse planning. Activities on the land were controlled through zoning regu­ lations and zoning districts. It was a somewhat negative approach, and some contended it was designed primarily to maintain the status quo. There were long lists of prohibited uses in many zoning districts. Nevertheless, the city planning process became more sophisticated, incorporating transportation circulation system plans, civic center plans, central business district plans, parks, and school plans. But the plans were not always directly related to each other, and there was little evidence that the proposed development would necessarily satisfy the values-for-living of the people of the area. In addition, the social side of the cities• problems was not being given proper weight. Then followed a period of two wars and a depression during which 11 plan­ ning11 was not too nice a word in the minds of many, and planners had to be highly motivated, thick-skinned people. By the end of World War I I, however, a great deal had been said about postwar planning due to the backlog of de­ layed public works and the anticipated population explosion. It was in the early years after the war, also, that the constitutionality of urban redevel­ opment was determined and the need for comprehensive metropolitan planning recognized. By this time, not only were cities growing together to create metropolitan areas, but metropolitan areas were running head on into each other creating whole regions of metropolitan and urban development like the

11 megalopolis11 along the east shore of the United States from Boston to Washington. In 1946, made one of the first postwar studies of metropolitan planning, pub] ished under the title Planning the Metropolitan District. A summary of this report was presented as a paper at the annual conference of the American Institute of Planners in Providence, Rhode Island the same year. At that time I found that metropolitan planning was hardly more than a fad, sponsored and

7 financed in most cases by planning associations with contributions coming from private citizens, businesses, and the social structure of the community. Metropolitan planning, under these conditions, quite often would bloom and die within a few years. Lacking steady financial resources, the planning staffs found themselves spending most of their time raising money and courting the favor of major donors rather than giving the needed attention to the business of objective planning.

As conditions during the 1950 1 s began to show need for serious and in­ tense planning at the metropolitan level, more areas were willing to establish levies or provide annual appropriations for metropolitan planning. The Housing Act of 1954, through its 701 Program, provided planning grants-in-aid to local units of government and metropolitan areas. The beginning of effec­ tive organizations for metropolitan planning can pretty well be dated from this time. Most metropolitan planning programs have, at the outset, employed the standard planning process of basic research and analysis followed by function- al studies leading to the development of a comprehensive landuse plan. How­ ever, as metropolitan planning became popular after World War II, it soon became apparent that old city planning methods could not be applied to plan­ ning at the regional level. It was more difficult, in dealing with a multi­ plicity of local units of government, to guess or assume what people's values­

for-living might be. The 11 values, goals, policies11 approach to planning was evolved in recent years, with much of the experimentation and formulation of procedures coming from the work of the Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) during the years 1963 to 1967. The planning process_ developed, was used by the MPC in the production of its final report, Metropolitan Development Guide. MPC's successor, the Metropolitan Council, is also gener­ ally following this process in producing a series of development guide docu­ ments. The details of these developments will be covered in subsequent chapters.

8 CHAPTER 2 - PEOPLE AND POLITICS IN MINNESOTA

To the typical Minnesotans, such passivity would be unthinkable. John Fischer

It's difficult to assemble all that has been written about Minnesota's search for a quality of life for its people, and of the state's willingness to experiment with governmental reorganization in an effort to attain it. Some authors are amazed at the cooperation of local government in this en­ deavor, since this is where great resistance is found in other states when the Minnesota approach is proposed. Other writers try to analyze the state's people, the climate, the political atmosphere, or the social and cultural accomplishments. have read all of this material that I can find and have tried to analyze it in the light of my own planning and development experience in other parts of the country. I was born and reared in Ohio, spent the first 13 years of my married life in New England and the last 20 years in Minnesota. Ohio became a state in 1803, only 16 years after the Ordinance of 1787 which officially ·opened the Northwest Territory to settlement. The Ohio settlers were primarily farmers and tradesmen from the East, coming via Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Kentucky. Many of these people could trace their ancestors to Revolutionary soldiers, and some to the Mayflower. In Ohio we were brought up on German and English customs, folklore, and I iterature. We had strong roots in the Eastern part of the country, yet we considered ourselves less conservative. When the chips were down, however, we often joined our interests, both eco­ nomic and political, with those of the East. During my stay in New England, I discovered that we could not tackle a problem frontally. That was an admission of inadequacy. To admit the in­ adequacy of that which had gone before was almost heresy. Most New Englanders, at that time, felt that what was good enough for their ancestors and founders 300 years earlier was good enough for them. Although they were aware that change must come and did sanction it, they preferred that it happen in such a way as to preserve respect for the past. Minnesota presented a far different situation than either Ohio or New England. In 1976 when the nation was celebrating its 200th anniversary, the East had more than 350 years of tradition behind it; whereas Minnesota was

9 only 139 years from the opening of the Minnesota Territory for settlement, and 118 years from statehood. Most Minnesotans still had strong roots in the old countries, rather than in the nation 1 s formative years. The 1930 census showed that those of foreign born parentage made up more than half the state 1 s population. In Minnesota and the upper midwest, it was somewhat like starting a nation-within-a-nation, a sort of test-tube baby with no umbilical cord to the nation 1 s past. As the state grew, its people became aware that they didn 1 t have time to study all the ways other states progressed, analyzing their suc­ cesses and failures and then making choices. Their situation was different, their climate was different, and they had to cope from day to day. So, they built their own traditions and charted their own pathway to progress. It was not an unpatriotic pathway; Minnesotans loved their new country, were loyal, fought bravely in the war between the states, and were proud of their freedom and the ability to get ahead in this new democracy. Thus, given the head start that the East had on the people of the upper midwest, it 1 s not difficult to understand how eager they were to catch up. John Fischer, in the April 1969 issue of Harpers, says:

For reasons I don't fully understand, they [Minnesotans] always have been intensely ambi­ tious, not only for themselves but for their society. Maybe the fact that Easterners and even Chicagoans long regarded them as a bunch of yokels may have something to do with it. Anyhow, they have been almost obsessively anxious to prove that they belong in the big leagues; and to get there, they have been willing to pay whatever it takes in both energy and cash.

I know well the parochial view held by Easterners about Minnesota and the upper midwest. When it was announced that I was leaving New England to come to Minnesota, many asked why I chose 11 that ice box11 or 11 that outpost of civilization.•• Some of this was in jest, of courie, but such an attitude by others over the years has no doubt stimulated the people of Gopher Land to

determine 11 to really make it11 and do it in good style. Beverly Mindrum of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote in the Sunday issue on 2 January 1977:

10 Minnesota 1 s early residents were independent souls with a respect for education amounting to worship, a strong interest in directing their own political destinies, and no feeling that the wisdom of the East Coast was wisdom in the country's midsection.

Minnesota legislative history reveals that approval of legislation has not been based on the question 11 Has it been tried somewhere else? 11 but rather,

11 Wi 11 it be good for Minnesota? Wi 11 it move us ahead? 11 Many who have written about Minnesota and its Experiment have noted the absence of a dominating political machine. John Fischer notes, 11 Clean govern­ ment has long been taken for granted. 11 I think another important factor in the Minnesota Experiment is the press.

In many of the nation 1 s metropolitan areas, there is one owner of the area 1 s only morning, evening, and Sunday papers. The area is often controlled both politically and economically by a handful of families. The boards of direc­ tors of the banks, industry, business, and the press are made up of the sons, daughters, and in-laws of the same few families. This kind of power structure can encourage progress when it chooses, but if not, it is in a strong position to mold public opinion and divert needed action.

In Minnesota, it 1 s different. The metropolitan area has two cities, which for many years carried on a feud across the river or tried to ignore the fact that the other even existed. Yet this rivalry helped prevent a take-over of the area or dominance by a few.

Thus Minnesota has become a national focus for innovation. The state 1 s motto seems to be 11 Let 1 s get on with it! 11 It is clear that the 11 yokels 11 are not really yokels, but intelligent experimenters and nationally recognized in­ novators. The 11 ice box11 has become a national leader in creating a desirable qua] ity of 1 ife for its people; and 11 the outpost11 has become a teeming metrop­ olis excelling in all the cultural amenities, with international air transpor­ tation bringing the world to its door. It becomes obvious after a brief look at the people and politics in Minnesota why national attention has been focus­ ed on Minnesota and its methods of solving urban problems and producing the good life for its people.

11 CHAPTER 3 - EARLY COOPERATIVE PLANNING IN THE TWIN CITIES AREA

The 30 year gestation period during which the Twin Cities Council developed shows plainly that if the plant is to withstand the local political climate, it must be of native stock. George A. Favre, Christian Science Monitor, 8-10 November 1969

My sociology professor in college had a pet quotation about heredity.

It was 11 1 am an omnibus in which all of my ancestors are riding--one of whom is driving. 11 think George Favre in his statement above was trying to make a s i mi l a r po i n t. The Metropolitan Council as we know it is an omnibus in which are riding all of those institutions, agencies, and individuals who, over the years, have made a contribution to cooperative metropolitan planning and development. The council is not just those on the present scene who inherited an innovative institution nor those of us who were honored to be among the midwives at the council 1 s birth.

NINETEENTH CENTURY PLANNING

It takes very little research to discover that the people of Minnesota and the metropolitan area had considerable regional consciousness well before the turn of the 20th century. As early as 1872 H. W. S. Cleveland, the fa~ous landscape architect, addressed the St. Paul Common Council and its Chamber of

Commerce on the subject of 11 Public Parks, Radial Avenues and Boulevards: An

Outline Plan for the City of St. Paul . 11

The 1880 1 s saw the formation of a Minneapolis Board of Park Commission­ ers. H. W. S. Cleveland was engaged by the board to prepare a comprehensive report. His proposals for both Minneapolis and St. Paul also carried recom­ mendations for joint municipal action. By 1888 he had proposed his 11 combined plan11 for the Twin Cities. It called for planning the two cities as a single area with boulevards and parkways connecting the cities. In 1910 St. Paul revealed the creation of a design by architect Cass Gilbert for the state Capitol. The plan was to have rivaled the Champs Elysees of Paris. In 1911 an even larger plan for parks in St. Paul was proposed, calling for a system of connecting boulevards and parkways. Finally, the report called

12 for a ••peerless Twin City--one and inseparable, now and forever; integrated by its park systems. 11 In 1917 the plan for Minneapolis was published, prepared by Edward H. Bennett who had previously collaborated with Daniel H. Burnham to author the famous Chicago plan of 1907. The Minneapolis plan provided for a separate commission to insure the correct development of underdeveloped areas within a 20-mile radius, which was, of course, recognition of possible metropolitan problems in the future.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING, THE FIRST EFFORT--1927

The 1920 1 s saw a valiant effort by area citizens to emulate the famous New York regional plan by establishing a Twin Cities Regional Planning Com­ mission. This effort was headed by Robert Jones, professor of architecture at the University of Minnesota. A body was established in 1927 known as the

11 Metropolitan Regional Planning Association of Minneapolis and St. Paul and

Environs. 11 The area to be planned was determined by choosing as a foca 1 point the center span of the Marshall Avenue-Lake Street bridge and drawing a circle with a 27-mile radius from that point. This area included all of Ramsey and Hennepin Counties; nearly all of Washington, Anoka, and Dakota Counties; half of Scott County; andone-third of Carver County--almost the equivalent of the area now served by the Metropolitan Council. Unfortu­ nately, this planning endeavor eventually failed due to the Depression and the subsequent inability to sustain necessary financial assistance. Never­ theless, it was an important thrust as it represented the first formal recog­ nition of the growing need for metropolitan planning, and started the area on a 50-year crusade for planning and dev~lopment at the metropolitan level. In the years that followed the 1927 endeavor, special districts became the legislature 1 s approach to area problem solving. By 1967 there were more than 25 special districts with a half-dozen or more new ones contemplated. These ranged from simple watershed districts to full-fledged regional service districts. The two principal ones prior to 1950 were the Minneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District (MSSD) and the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC).

THE SANITARY DISTRICT--1933

During the 1920 1 s the Minnesota legislature was struggling with the very serious sewage disposal problem in the metropolitan area. In 1928 a

13 Metropolitan Drainage Commission was set up to determine what cooperative en­ deavors would be required to solve the problem and end the discharge of raw sewage into the Mississippi River. Photographs taken in 1930 showed floating scum, oil slicks, and sl~dge deposits on the Mississippi and a 1931 report noted "relatively few fish" in the river. Citizens were warned about swimming in the water. The 1933 legislature set up the MSSD with authority to tax both cities to carry out the pollution abatement recommendations of the drainage com­ mission. Five years of effort by this agency produced a complete, operating disposal system with miles of interceptor sewers, a nine-mile main tunnel, and a modern treatment plant downstream from St. Paul. This sewerage system was the first such pollution control facility on the 2,348-mile course of the Mississippi. The new facility, designed to serve Minneapolis and St. Paul, soon became a metropolitan facility as each city was authorized to contract wholesale sewage disposal service to contiguous satellite governmental units. By 1959 there were 21 of these contracts, yet not all of the new cities and villages had tied into the system. Suburban development was proceeding so rapidly that builders were providing homes with onsite septic tanks and onsite wells. By 1959 the recirculation of effluent from septic tanks created a critical ground water contamination problem in many communities. For example, drinking water was being dispensed in bottles from city hall in Bloomington due to polluted residential wells. In the 1961, 1963, and 1965 legislative sessions there were strong ef­ forts to create a metropolitan sewer agency. Everyone seemed to want it, but the means of transferring facilities and the payback procedures to Minneapolis and St. Paul for plant investment caused the effort to break down in each session. Eventually, the MSSD could no longer contract with additional sub­ urban communities, as its plant and the rest of the sewerage system was over­ loaded. The additional municipalities wanting service had nowhere to turn. Several new regional plants were underway but were not ready. At the 1967 legislative session many thought that the long stalemate on the sewer question greatly enhanced the cause for the creation of a metropolitan council. When the Metropolitan Council was created in the 1967 session, one of its top priorities was to prepare a study recommending the creation of a met­ ropol.itan sewer board. Such a board was proposed by the council to the

14 Minnesota legislature and was created during the 1969 session. Subsequent

legislation broadened the board 1 s powers and authority and changed its name to the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission (MWCC).

When the MWCC 1 s integrated metropolitan disposal system began in 1971, there were 33 waste water treatment plants, yet only three of these facilities met all state and federal effluent standards consistently. By the end of

1975, the MWCC had made dramatic improvement in the area 1 s water pollution control system. The number of operating plants had been reduced to 19, proc­ essing efficiently 94 bill ion gallons of waste water annually. The water quality had improved tremendously and was sufficiently restored to again allow boating and fishing.

As an example of the effectiveness of the MWCC 1 s sewage treatment, the award-winning Rosemount Advanced Treatment Plant uses a unique physical chemical process to produce consistently an effluent nea~ly as pure as drinking water. The time is almost here when the rivers, lakes, and streams of the Twin Cities area will be virtually pollution free.

THE AIRPORTS COMMISSION--1943

Prior to 1943, Minneapolis and St. Paul had been engaged in a kind of destructive competition over airports. Planes hopping les? then ten miles between Wold Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis and Holman Field in St. Paul seemed ridiculous to outsiders and pathetic to frustrated airline operators. Eventually, airplanes got too large for Holman Field, boxed in as it was be­ tween large industrial plants and the river. Wold Chamberlain Fiel~, on the other hand, had room to grow. It had been laid oui some 20 years earlier on flat_land south of Minneapolis. From the viewpoint of intercity competition, it had the additional advantage of being about equidistant between downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. Thus it would be much easier for the new commission to choose the principal airport site than if the feud between the cities was still on. The law creating the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) in 1943 re­ quired that a study be made to formulate a plan of operation for a new airport that included an analysis of all other airports then existing in the area. The study was made by Charles E. Doell, chief ehgineer of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners, and George M. Shepard, chief engineer of the city of St. Paul. The Doell-Shepard report recommended that Wold Chamberlain Field be

15 upgraded substantially to serve as the major terminal for scheduled airline operations in the metropolitan area. The plan was adopted on 14 August 1944, after public hearing. MAC took control of the two major municipal airports July 1945. A total of 3,000 airport acres was acquired and $30 mill ion was spent in developing a modern airport facility at Wold Chamberlain, known as the Minneapolis-St. Paul I nternat i ona l Airport. Early in 1968 MAC recommended the creation of a second major airport on 15,000 acres near Ham Lake north of Highway 242. Following this report,

Governor Harold Levander asked the Metropolitan Council to make an 11 in-depth appraisal II of the Ham Lake proposal. After careful study the council voted, in April 1969, to suspend the MAC plan for a major airport facility at Ham Lake. The decision of the council was based on airport site criteria set forth by the council 1 s development guide committee and applied to nine poten­ tial major airport sites. In July 1970, the council reviewed its study of two major airport sites, Ham Lake to the north and Rosemount-Farmington to the south, pointing out the pros and cons of each for consideration of MAC in its site selection process. By the end of 1970, the council announced completion of its environmental study of the areas around the two sites under consideration. The study point­ ed up the value of beginning future physical planning from resource and land­ use suitability considerations instead of from a functional planning base. The change would reduce spillover, or impact on natural resources. During 1971, a joint airport study committee was set up, comprised of members from the Metropolitan Council and MAC. The purpose of the committee was to insure a close working relationship between the two bodies in develop­

ing the airports system plan. This plan would become a part of the council 1 s Metropolitan Development Guide on transportation. Early in 1972, two additional search areas for the proposed major airport were identified. One was north and west of the Ham Lake site and the other was south and west of the Rosemount site. By the fall of 1972, the council had approved a regional airport system plan that provided for a new major airport in the northwestern Anoka County area. The MAC was to choose a site within this general area. There was talk of banking the land for the site as a hedge against inflation and until the new airport could be built. Estimates were made of the cost of the new facility which in some instances ran over

16 $1,000,000,000. These estimates were not universally accepted. Several studies also showed that existing facilities at Wold Chamberlain were capable of handling air traffic to 1990 or 2010. With improvements, it was estimated that it would be adequate even longer. Eventually, the debate shifted from location to 11 00 we need a new facility at all at this time? 11 In August of 1976, the MAC published its master plan. According to the plan, present facilities were considered sufficient, with certain modifica­ tions, to accommodate up to five times the present number of airport passen­ gers and cargo. Commission officials saw no need for a second major airport in the next 20 years. Thomas 0 1 Brien, of the commission 1 s consulting firm, has been quoted as saying, 11 The airport and its problems will be reviewed yearly.1 1 Putting aside all the controversy about airport expansion, I believe the air facilities and service in the Twin Cities area to be among the best in the country. The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has been used as a model for other metropolitan areas. The coordinated 19th century planning by the two cities, the early 20th century trial balloons, and the operating special service districts, were all a part of the gestation period that provided the base for the metropolitan planning and development agencies that were to emerge in the 1950 1 s and 1960 1 s.

17 CHAPTER 4 - PLANNING IN THE 1950'S

The problems of intergovernmental relations in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area have created a need for a regional planning association or agency .... Clarence C. Ludwig, Secretary, League of Minnesota Municipalities--1953

In the Twin Cities area the greatest movement toward metropolitan aware­ ness occurred during the 1950's. There were many reasons why. Ten years of depression in the 1930's put building and development at an all time low; five years of wartime postponement of highway construction and other public works, added to the population explosion in the postwar decades, all magnified the need for coordinated cooperative planning at the metropolitan level. There was a national recognition of this need as well. To aid and en­ courage local government to meet these problems, the Congress produced two important pieces of legislation. During the postwar years, cities across the country were trying to rid themselves of blight and decay through the vehicle of urban redevelopment; but each move was being challenged by opponents on constitutional grounds. It wasn't until 1949 that the legality of urban re­ development was finally upheld in the courts. Almost immediately, Congress responded with Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 which provided grants and other programs for urban redevelopment. The other piece of important federal legislation was Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954, which provided for planning grants to cities under 50,000 population and to metropolitan areas.

COMMUNITY PLANNING ADVISOR

In Minnesota the state legislature and state departments moved quickly to provide the necessary, complementary action needed to aid local government to operate under the 1949 and 1954 planning acts. At that time Minnesota did not have a state planning agency. Today it has one of the nation's finest, which in addition serves as the state's clear­ in9house for federal funds under the 204 program. However, in the mid-1950's the state had a one-person planning department housed in the Department of Business Development. The person was Guy J. Kelnhofer, Jr. Kelnhofer did

18 yeoman service for a number of years when local government was unfamiliar with planning and thus sometimes a bit wary of it. As might be expected, his ef­ forts met with many frustrations. The following testimony was given by Kelnhofer before the Commission on Municipal Law on 25 January 1960. The hearing was devoted, in part, to the possible need to codify the state laws that relate to planning and zoning.

MR. KELNHOFER: As your Executive Secretary said, I am the Community Planning Advisor in the Depart­ ment of Business Development and as such, one of my duties is to go about the State of Minnesota providing assistance to the extent that one man is able to do so; to municipalities, counties, townships and private citizens groups which are interested in planning, how to do it, and what they might do in solving their particular prob­ lem ... I am the first man in this position of Com­ munity Planning Advisor in the State of Minnesota, and it 1 s been necessary to do a great deal of ground-breaking, and to find out not only what needs to be done, but what has been done and what the problems are. I 1 ve been at this work since 1957. It is very satisfying work, but one of its major frus­ trations is my inability to tell people what it is that they can do, and how to do it under Minnesota Statutes ... As an example, when I leave here I 1 m going to one of our larger cities -in the state, and am going to meet briefly with the man­ ager of ·that city; this evening I 1 m going to meet with officials of an adjoining township, and still later I will meet with a planning commission from another township ... They 1 re going to want to know how they can organize to control development and growth both in their own particular township, and how they can organize to cooperate with the large municipality of which they are satellite, so their development will be gauged with it, so they will have an organizational framework within which they can solve common problems and air solutions .... MR. ROBBIE: The office that you hold is the closest thing to a state planning office that we have under present Minnesota law, is it not? MR. KELNHOFER: We have no state planning office, this is the only office at the present that has a planning function; it is planning assistance. We are more or less engaged in acting as administra­ tors of a planning grant program whereby we use municipal funds and federal funds to provide di­ rect planning assistance to municipalities.

19 With this testimony as backdrop, it's not difficult to understand the frustrations of people in local government and thus their willingness to come together in an effort to find a means of coping with unhaltered development and growth.

THE REGIONAL PLANNING ACT--1957

After the 1927 effort at establishin~ metropolitan planning in the area, very little had been said or done about reviving the idea. However, on 23 March 1953 Clarence C. Ludwig, University of Minnesota professor and executive secretary of the League of Minnesota Municipalities, opened the subject again before a meeting of the Twin Cities Area Regional Planning Conference. He said in part:

The problems of intergovernmental relations in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area have created a need for a regional planning association or agency which will enable the many governing bodies involved to secure area-wide facts and to discuss them with mutual benefit to all .... We feel that the League should take the initi­ ative in starting action along this line again.

The executive committee of the league authorized the staff to initiate such action. The thesis of Amir H. Sharifi, titled, The Twin Cities Metro­ politan Planning Commissio~~~ Its Background, Formation and Early Development contains- the details of the efforts that eventually produced the Metropolitan Planning Commission. (This thesis is on file at the Metropolitan Council Library.) After failing to obtain a regional planning agency at the 1955 legisla­ tive session, the area was encouraged to try again at a joint conference on metropolitan and community planning on 21 September 1956. At that time Tracy Auger, director of urban planning assistance of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), addressed the body and informed participants that the federal government was ready to aid in financing area-wide planning. The effort to obtain regional planning legislation was renewed at the 1957 legislative session. This time a compromise solution was found, and the Regional Planning Act of 1957 was adopted. In my introduction, I used the quote, "Democratic institutions lack per­ fection because they are created through compromise." A good example of this

20 was the adoption of the 1957 Regional Planning Act which allowed the estab- 1 ishment of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission. For several legislative sessions there was a consensus as to the purpose and function of the proposed metropolitan planning agency, but the hang-up was the method of representation. The final compromise resulted in a plan that some have chosen to cal I a 11 Rube Goldberg•• framework. Nothing about it approached a one i:;erson, one vote concept. For example, seven members were appointed at-large by the governor; each of five counties had one representative; suburban municipali­ ties elected six representatives in caucus; the school districts had one; the townships had two; central city mayors,two; central city councils,two; plus one each for MAC and MSSD. The point is that the compromise was far from ideal, but it permitted the area to begin a task that needed doing.

REORGANIZATION OF CENTRAL CITIES PLANNING

Along with the establishment of the area 1 s first regional planning agency, the MPC, it was quite timely that Minneapolis and St. Paul would see fit to provide a new and stronger planning role for their own operation and to serve as partners in the new metropolitan venture. In 1959 the American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) held its annual conference in the Twin Cities. At the conference an address on 11The Twin Cities: Partners in Planning•• was given by Daniel M. Upham, then executive assistant in the news department of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune. It was an excellent presentation, informative not only to the out-of-state guests, but to many of us newcomers to the area as well. The paper has long been a valuable resource to me. His story of the modernization of the central cities• planning agencies is so well done that. I now quote extensively from it:

In both cities, the complexities of local plan­ ning situations currently are being explored by new planning directors, both of whom took office last year. The Minneapolis directorship was assumed by Lawrence M. Irvin, until then, director of slum clearance for Columbus, Ohio. He took the place of Herman E. Olson, plan­ ning engineer, who had retired after long public service in Minneapolis. The St. Paul directorship was taken over by Herbert C. Wieland, who came from Lawrence, Mass., directorship, to succeed Leeks.

21 In both towns, civil service regulations gov­ erned recruiting. In St. Paul, examiners certified three top candidates to a selection board of city officials, which selected Wieland. In Minneapolis, the choice was settled entirely by examination, with only Irvin, the high candidate, being eligible for appointment. Attractions of the Minneapolis situation to planners lay in the fact that it offered director and statf a chance to repl 9n from the ground up. The city plan was nearly 35 years old. For much of this time the planning agency and the city coun­ cil had been at odds. At times planning activity faded to a minimum. This state might have continued until today, but for a happy accident of December 15, 1955. On that day, the Minneapolis ·school board set about to reshuffle the appointments held by several of its members to sit as ex-officio members of city commissions. With no particular forethought, it named Arnett W. Leslie, a retired paper merchant, as its representative to the almost-dormant plan­ ning commission. If you insist that Lesli~ tell you the salient point of his philosophy, he will look you in the eye, tighten his lips, and say: 11 1 believe in doing things right." There was little about the planning commission operation to meet this demand in Leslie's nature. Both commissioners and staff were suffering badly from frustrations induced by lack of status in the general scheme of city operation, and from poverty of budget. Leslie found numerous o~her causes for disquiet. He found, also, that others shared his misgivings, both in the city hall and in the Min­ neapolis business community. These dissatisfactions, rather than any one person, were center of an ensuing reform movement, although in the latter stages an "implementation committee" of planning commissioners and aldermen functioned as a coordinator. The city council hired George Barton of Chicago to do a study on which it later based its consent to the highway department's proposal for Minneapolis freeway locations; the Downtown Coun­ cil of Minneapolis, planning-minded agency sup­ ported by the business community, financed a study by Frederick T. Aschman of Chicago, analyzing probable impact of the freeways on the central business district. The city council, at the plan­ ning commission's request, financed a second Aschman study. Finished in the summer of 1957, it outlined remedies needed to get Minneapolis plan­ ning back on its feet.

22 The city council voted in 1957 to triple the planning budget for 1958 ... With less basic building to do than Irvin (the Minneapolis director has had to recruit al­ most a complete staff in the last year) Wieland has concentrated on preservation of the fast tempo of planning which existed in St. Paul when he took over.

There are many publications and reports from the two planning agencies that attest to the competence of their work and activities in the years since. Their work has contributed greatly to the efforts in the Twin Cities metro­ politan region, and as city agencies they have won their share of national recognition and plaudits.

HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT--MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL

The first act of Congress dealing with housing was passed in 1937. Its purpose was:

to assist the several States and their political subdivisions to remedy the unsafe and unsanitary housing conditions and the acute shortage of decent safe and sanitary dwellings ....

Title of the Housing Act of 1949 provided for financial assistance to communities for the construction of low rent public housing, plus slum clear­ ance and re_development. It was soon realized, however, that slum clearance alone could not solve the problems of urban decay. So the Housing Act of 1954 provided for 11 the acquisition of blighted property, to be cleared for private or pub] ic use, according to an established redevelopment plan. 11 In addition the 1954 act required the local commun_i ty to establish a "workable program" to provide a firm base for its redevelopment activity. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul established housing and redevelopment agen­ cies (HRA's) to plan and carry out slum clearance and redevelopment p~ojects. Until the 1949 act, such clearance of substandard housing could be replaced only by new low-rental pub] ic housing. Under the new act, the cleared areas could also become planned districts where a variety of uses, including private enterprise, could become a part of the development. Utilities, streets, and other service facilities were often put in by the HRA's with private develop­ ers completing their parts of the plan. At first these projects were done on an ad hoc, project-by-project basis which wasn't getting at the core of the real problems that create blight. 23 Subsequently, the Housing Act was again amended and authorized grants to pay up to two-thirds of the cost incurred in preparing a Community Renewal Program (CRP). The CRP, it was hoped, would provide a master plan for total renewal and serve as a bridge between the overall community plan and the re­ newal projects. When the HRAs were first established, they did some of their own plan­ ning, particularly in Minneapol is,where cify planning had deteriorated due to inadequate budgets and a lessening role for planning in city government. However, both city planning commissions prepared the CRP's for their respec­ tive cities. The Minneapolis CRP began in the fall of 1961 and published its final report in April of 1967. The St. Paul CRP began in April 1965. Its final report was issued in November of 1969. During most of the time that the CRP's were being developed, both Min­ neapolis and St. Paul were working under contract with the Joint Program for Landuse and Transportation Planning. This was a metropolitan intergovernmental planning program with 13 participants. They included MPC, the seven counties, the two central cities, the Minnesota Highway Department, the Federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR later DOT), and the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA later HUD). This relationship no doubt gave the metropolitan perspective to the preparation of the cities' CRP's and provided valuable input for the Joint Program in the preparation of its Metropolitan Development Guide. Even with the CRP in operation in many cities, federal agencies still believed that redevelopment was not functioning as an integrated part of the communities' overall planning programs. As a result the Congress, in 1966, passed the Demonstration and Metropolitan Development Act. This provided for, the Model Cities Program, which attempted to coordinate federal, state, local, public, and private efforts to solve the physical and social problems of blighted areas. The Model Cities Program attempted to deal with various programs at the neighborhood level, CRP at the municipal level, and the Metropolitan Council at the metropolitan level. For many years the HRA's in the Twin Cities were nearly autonomous agen­ cies within the city structure. However, more recently an attempt has been made at consolidation of their functions with other similar city functions to eliminate overlapping in planning, administration, and service.

24 UPPER MIDWEST RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

Another example of innovative efforts and "boot-strap" operations in Minnesota and the upper midwest was the establishment, in 1958, of the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council (UMRDC). This is a non-political, non-profit corporation, pioneering in area-wide development. It was organized and is supported entirely by foundations, business, and individuals to accel­ erate the economic growth of the upper midwest. The boundaries of the area coincide with the Ninth Federal Reserve District which includes Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, northern and western Wisconsin, and upper Michigan. There were two principal parts to the UMRDC's program: the Upper Midwest Economic Study (UMES) and an act ion program based on facts developed by the study. In 1959 the initial Ford Foundation grant was authorized for the study, the UMRDC was incorporated, a guaranty fund from business was initiated, and preliminary work on the Economic Study got under way. The UMES became a part of the program of the University of Minnesota's Department of Economics in the School of Business Administration. James M. Henderson, recognized economist from Harvard University served as the UMES director. Some 20 or more major reports on the region's economy were produced by this project. The UMES urban component was contracted to the Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission. The work was done under the direction of John R. Borchert, chairmin of the University of Minnesota's Geography Department. His staff was housed in the MPC's expanded headquarters. This allowed a close integration of the work of the special UMES staff with that of the MPC during the preparation of eight major reports~ In 1963 the UMRDC and the University founded the North Star Research and Development Institute. The purpose of the Institute was to stimulate the economy of the upper midwest by developing new products and processes for in­ dustry and solving problems facing government on the national, state,and local levels. The Institute has conducted hundreds of assignments for industry, government, universities, and private foundations. The following comment by Dr. Henry T. Heald, former president of the Ford Foundation, seems to summarize quite well the story and work of the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council:

25 Those who have organized the Upper Midwest Economic Study have acted in the best of the American tradi­ tion. They have combined energy and intellect to understand the sweeping forces which are industrial­ izing and urbanizing our exploding population, and by understanding them, to ~irect, shape and, if pos­ sible, master them.

THE MINNESOTA MUNICIPAL COMMISSION

In 1958 any local area in Minnesota could establish a municipal corpora­ tion by merely filing the necessary papers with the state. I remember the first political boundaries map that was made at the Metropolitan Planning Commission th~t year. It was short-1 ived; a new village was formed in less than a week. This happened again and again du_ring the commission's first year in operation. It was frustrating. Many of the corporations were formed for defensive reasons, such as to prevent b~ing annexed by a municipality or to prevent a new state highway frbm taking a certain route. In other cases cor­ porations were formed in order to qualify for liquor licenses. In any event the ability, or intention, to provide municipal services was not a necessary criterion for incorporation. The need to control the accelerating proliferation of small, uneconomical, incorporated municipalities was one of the major reasons for creating the Minnesota Municipal Commission (MMC). Th~ report of the l~gislative Interim Commission on Municipal Law which recommended the establishment of the MMC emphasized the problem:

Where uneconomic villages arise, the problem of furnishing municipal services to all their people aggravates intelligent planning and all other as­ pects of government. Multiplying villages like rabbits can outdistance all progress achieved by otherwise intelligent planning. These uneconomic villages may be· costly to people living in the

.:;•- adjacent area who must assist in paying for the ·required municipal services for the village which is not self-reliant.

The opening section of the 1959 act creating the MMC sets forth th~ leg- islative purpose: It is the purpose of this chapter to empower the Minnesota Municipal Commission to promote and regu­ late development of municipalities so that the pub­ lic interest in. efficient local government will be properly recognized and served.

26 The 1974 Annual Report of MMC notes that:

In the nine years before the commission was cre­ ated, there was a total.of 62 incorporations with an average size of only 7.6 square miles. Half of these new villages contained less than 1,000 pop­ ulation and one had only 43 residents. Incorpora­ tions under the Municipal Commission have been substantially larger and much fewer. During the comparable first nine years of the commission's existence, the commission incorporated only five communities with an average size of 31.13 square miles.

Minnesota was the first state to establish a commission to hear and de­ cide incorporation and boundary adjustment questions. The Minnesota law has become a model statute and has been recommended to other state legislatures by the United States Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Since 1959, at least 15 states have adopted the Minnesota approach. The MMC is unheralded in its work, yet to me it i one of the most im- portant agencies to be created by the Minnesota legisla It has stabi­ l ized local government, prevented uneconomic incorporatio and allowed logical and necessary boundary adjustments between municipal it" It provides a stable base for planning and development at all levels of gov­ ernment. Here again Minnesota has led the way with new, innovative, experi­ mental legislation that has proven its merits over and over again. The 1959 Interim Commission and its secretary, Joseph Robbie, deserve a nod for their foresight and courage in preparing and recommending this legislation.

COUNTY PLANNING

Enabling legislation for planning in Minnesota was grossly inadequate in

the late 1950 1 s when regional planning and county planning laws were enacted. Good comprehensive planning legislation for municipalities and towns was not

provided until the mid-1960 1 s. In 1959 Ralph Keyes, executive secretary of the Association of Minnesota Counties, undertook the project of drafting a bill for comprehensive county planning. He contacted the MPC and indicated he would be pleased to have its assistance. However, in 1959 the MPC was struggling with a small staff and only half the budget it had anticipated. MPC had heavy commitments and no one to work with Keyes. Nevertheless, he drafted a bill which gained the

27 ...-----

necessary support in the 1959 session and became law. This gave all Minnesota counties the opportunity to start county planning if they wished. Prior to this enactment, statute provisions for county planning were meager and inade­ quate, and even these laws affected a third or less of the counties. In this instance Minnesota was not taking the lead; county planning had been functioning in many other states for several decades. Nevertheless, it was a bold thing for Keyes to do, and it prompted planners in the area to move more rapidly to obtain other much needed planning legislation. The county planning law hai been amended on numerous occasions. A 1974 amendment attempted to protect the environment, preserve farm land and other natural resources, and control the use and development of certain publicly­ owned lands. The 1974 amendment also spelled out, in considerable detail, the procedures to be used in the administration of zoning ordinances and other official controls. By the end of 1976, 84 of the state's 87 counties had county planning at some stage of development with each of these counties having zoning adminis­ trators. Hennepin and Ramsey Counties are not included in the county planning enabling law.

TWIN CITIES AREA TRANSPORTATION STUDY

The Twin Cities Area Transportation Study was or­ ganized in response to the need for a comprehensive and deta~led understanding of daily travel patterns in the Minneapolis and St. Paul Metropolitan Area, and for the prediction of the area's future high­ way travel demand. Twin Cities Area Transportation Study, Volume I, Foreward, May 1962

The 1958 Twin Cities Area Transportation Study (TCATS) program was the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of traffic movement within the 89O­ square-mile metropolitan area. The findings of the study were presented in two publications. Volume I, issued in May 1962, summarizes the study's findings on the changes in travel patterns in the metropolitan area up to 1958, and relates these changes to the shifting use for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes. Volume I I, issued in March 1963, deals with the role of mass transit. The purpose of the report was to describe the present characteristics of mass

28 transit in the metropolitan area and identify the major factors influencing use of the mass transit mode of travel. The TCATS studies were indeed timely from many points of view. First, there was no reliable, comparable information on the metropolitan area later than 1949. Second, the MPC needed this background data in transportation for most of its studies and plans. Third, the interregional highway program was putting pressure on cities and counties to make decisions regarding freeway routes. And fourth, the state and the federal government had a tremendous selling job to do in order to complete plans for the area's interstate free­ ways. They needed current facts and figures. Among the findings of the TCATS were the following: • From 1949-1958 the number of vehicles per day on most of the area's major arteries had doubled and in some instances tripled; • The proposed freeways themselves would probably encourage still more low density development; and • The total number of vehicle trips in the metropolitan area could be expected to nearly double by 1980.

METROPOLITAN TRANSIT

During the 1950 1 s considerable attention was being given to the problem of public transit. Two significant efforts were made. One was Volume I I of the TCATS major reports. The other was a report of the Metropolitan Planning Commission on Mass Transit in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. This report was issued in December 1964 and drew the following response from the press:

Immediate consideration should be given to the es­ tablishment of a Twin Cities area public transit agency, the metropolitan planning commission (MPC) said today in a staff report on mass transit. "Mass-transit service as it is now provided is destined to an early demise as a private business enterprise, 11 the report said. A public transit agency is needed now, the MPC explained, to function in a standby basis to as­ sure continued service to so-called 11 captive11 riders should the existing operation (Twin City Rapid Transit Co.) become uneconomical. St. Paul Dispatch, 2 December 1964.

In 1966 a transit agency was established known as the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC). The group was organized by municipalities in the

29 area under the state's Joint Powers Act which enables units of government to do jointly whatever they legally may undertake separately. MTC creation fol­ lowed a narrow defeat of a measure to establish a metropolitan transit author­ ity during the 1965 legislative session. Members indicated they would recom­ mend setting up a transit commission on a permanent basis by the 1967 legisla­ tive session. The 1967 legislature did establish a permanent MTC. The charge to the commission was twofold: maintaining and improving existing public transit in the area; and planning, engineering, constructing, maintaining, and operating transit facilities and systems in the metropolitan area. Much of the credit for the MTC must go to William Kirchner, state senator. He was the prime mover during the 1960's in getting sentiment aroused for pub- 1 ic transit. He also played an important role in steering the transit bill -through the Minnesota legislature in 1967. In 1970 the MTC purchased the Twin Cities Lines Inc. and began operation of public bus transportation in the Twin Cities. The MTC had a 13-point short-range improvement plan which included purchase of 465 new buses and a long-range plan for an extensive family of vehicles system. On the ~ifth anniversary of public ownership of the area's transit sys­ tem, Doug Kelm, chairman of the MTC, reported on the progress made in the five years. In a letter in the September 1975 issue of Transit Quarterly, he stated: Comparing September, 1970 with September, 1975, it is hard to think of any aspect of public transpor­ tation that is not dramatically improved. The equipment, the area served, the level of service, the innovations, the marketing, all are demonstra­ bly superior. About the only thing that has stayed constant is the fare; and that, after five years of unprecedented levels of inflation, makes transit the best bargain in town.· But what is most significant is how these im­ provements have affected the 1 ives of people. Those who were and are transit-dependent--that is, who have no alternative means of transportation-­ now have first-class transportation at their dis­ posal, for perhaps the first time in a ~eneration. And those who previously had made use of the auto­ mobile began to find they had a genuine choice a­ vailable to them, and have been exercising that choice in greater numbers each year.

30 Doug Kelm was a member of the MPC during the 1960 1 s and was a strong advocate of the metropolitan approach to urban problem solving. His role in highway and transit matters has often been controversial, but he has contrib­ uted much toward the development of good public transit in the area.

SUMMARY--PLANNING IN THE 1950 1 S

These are some of the highlights of planning activities by public agen­ cies during the 1950 1 s. Essentially, this planning activity set the stage for a series of fast moving events in the 1960 1 s which would bring national atten­ tion to the Twin Cities and to Minnesota.

31 CHAPTER 5 - THE METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION (1957)

If there is one single word that holds out hope above all others that the Twin Cities area may escape the chaos of uncontrolled growth, it is planning. With proper planning--and with effective community cooperation--there is no challenge too difficult to meet. Minneapolis Tribune, editorial 11 December 1958

CREATION AND ORGANIZATION

The Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) was authorized by the Regional Planning Act passed by the Minnesota legislature in 1957. The commission was activated with the appointment of 20 commission members by rep­ resentatives of local government and 7 members by the governor. Organizational activity by the commission progressed during the summer of

1957 under direction of the commission 1 s first chairman, Clarence C. Ludwig, University of Minnesota professor of political science and secretary to the League of Minnesota Municipalities. In the fall, the commission selected C.

David Loeks as its first director. However, the commission 1 s operating levy would produce no income until the first tax settlement in May of 1958, so little could be done about assembling a staff or starting a planning program. To make possible an earlier opening of the MPC office, 11 metropolitan businesses, banks, and foundations donated $14,500 to the commission. With this an office was opened 1 February 1958, in room 302 at the State Capitol. The donations gave the commission a four to five month head start in recruit­ ing staff and establishing a work program. C. David Loeks, who was well-known in the metropolitan area, came to the commission from a successful career as director of city planning in St. Paul. He was also a convert to metropolitan planning. He had served as chairman of the metropolitan planning committee of the League of Minnesota Municipalities and had worked hard for the passage of the Regional Planning Act. Loeks was

a good choice for the commission 1 s first director. Being an on-the-scene res­ ident of the area, he was able to recruit a staff and begin relating to the metropolitan community and to local government immediately. MPC was the first metropolitan planning agency in the country to be es­ tablished by a state legislature as apolitical subdivision with the authority

32 to levy a tax for operational purposes. The Ford Foundation was interested in this new venture in government. To aid MPC in launching its program, the Foundation provided a grant for Loeks to visit other metropolitan areas. His visits in 1958 were limited largely to the United States; in 1960 he made sev­ eral extensive trips abroad. These travels touched nearly every continent.

Loeks 1 appraisal of the purpose of his travels can be summed up by the follow­ ing quote from a memo prepared upon his return:

felt that my problem was not unlike that of the doctor who expands his knowledge of human anatomy, physiology and pathology by looking at as many dif­ ferent human beings in as wide varieties of situ­ ations as possible. In my case, I was interested in the anatomy, physiology and pathology of cities in as wide a variety of physical, economic and cul­ tural settings as possible.

THE CHALLENGE OF METROPOLITAN GROWTH

Although the 1958 MPC budget was meager, the commission determined to prepare an initial report to the area, a sort of prospectus, to alert all to the seriousness of the job at hand. The report titled The Challenge of Metro­ politan Growth did just that. For example, it reported that by 1980 there would be roughly 600,000 additional persons in the area. This would require the development of an additional 100 square miles of land as follows:

Streets and Highways, 20 square miles Residential, 40 square miles Industrial & Commercial, 15 square miles Public & Private Institutions, 25 square miles

The report also predicted a need for:

700 more firemen 700 more policemen 900 more miles of streets and highways 140 more schools 175,000 more dwellings 260,000 more jobs 120,000,000 more gallons of water per day

All this alerted the sleeping metropolitan area giant to the gigantic task ahead. The report was distributed at the December 1958 meeting of the MPC with legislators, public officials, and other interested groups. Full front page spreads, with color illustrations were produced by the metropolitan press.

33 The quotation at the beginning of this chapter is typical of editorials and comments from the metropolitan press the day following the report's release. This spontaneous and strong support for the MPC and its program was certainly welcome at that time, as the commission was struggling with many, many prob­ lems and was wondering if anyone was interested or cared.

EARLY PROBLEMS

The role of the MPC was misunderstood from the start by many in local government. They thought they need not worry further about l~cal planning-­ that the MPC was created to do that. So, instead of increased initiative for local planning, there was a recognizable slow-down. Not only was the MPC un­ able to give direct assistance to planning at the local level, there was also a question as to whether it could do much more than a housekeeping job of met­ ropo!itan planning. When the bill creating the MPC was before the legislature, it was estimated that the minimum levy needed would be .20 of a mill. Instead, one of the last-minute compromises to get the bill passed was cutting the levy in half to . 10 of a mill. This produced about $85,000, an amount that wouldn't cover the annual postage and paper bills for the Metropolitan Council today. But with it MPC was expected to hire a staff, rent offices, create plans, and coordinate intergovernmental relations. Another problem was the fact that the Regional Planning Act had an open­ ended provision whereby counties contiguous to the original five could apply to be included in the commission's jurisdiction. It was thought that Scott and Carver Counties might apply; the commission, however, continued its stud­ ies and research on the basis of present membership. Still another problem was that there were some 365 units of local govern­ ment in the metropolitan area. MPC was to work directly with local government, advising them and coordinating their planning activities. If one day's atten­ tion had been given to each governmental unit, it would have taken the staff a year, working weekends and holidays to get once around. The lack of adequate state planning laws for local government presented another large problem which could not be immediately remedied. The state laws were so inadequate at that time that any challenge of zoning would invariably win in the courts. This, of course, discredited planning as a whole. Some were saying, "Why pl an? 11

34 Finally, there was the dilemma of having no government at the metropolitan level to report to with authority to approve and implement plans. Local gov­ ernment, or the legislature could review plans and say "That is nice, 11 but there was no official seal of approval. This was not too important during the research and orientation phase of our work, but we knew it would eventually be a problem. There were numerous other problems which most new agencies live with, but those just stated were the big ones. suppose we might have put our feet on our desks, taken 1 ife easy, and announced that when we received an adequate budget, we'd do some planning. This was not the nature of the MPC staff. We hustled around and obtained a $60,000 planning grant from the federal govern­ ment under the 701 Planning Program. At the same time, the area property e­ valuation increased, producing nearly $100,000. Thus MPC 1 s budget was nearly doubled from $85,000 in 1958 to $160,000 in 1959. Both Scott and Carver Counties were admitted under the commission in time to be included in research for most of the studies in 1959. The work of the commission had finally gotten off the ground.

DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS

The problem of relating, on a regular basis, to the area's 365 units of local government persisted. However, the commission introduced the idea of establishing development districts to encourage villages, towns, and counties to join efforts in area planning programs. When completed, each governmental unit could then implement its portion of the plan back in its own community. To help carry out this idea, the MPC prepared a report on Development Districts as the first publication in its Local Planning Bulletin Series. The report proposed 22 districts within which local governments could pool their assets to produce plans for the area. Th~ districts were revised in 1962 to provide for 26 districts. These were used to make area population study com­ P~_r i sons. The primary purpose of the districts was to eliminate the need for the MPC to deal with the 365 units of local government on a one-to-one basis. With the district approach, planning could proceed at the local level with the MPC relating to 26 units instead of 365. Use of the districts was a voluntary act on the part of cooperating units of government. They could also shift boundaries when different local

35 preferences were identified. Some of this voluntary shifting of boundaries was reflected in the 1962 change to 26 districts. There was no uniformity in the districts' programs. Action seemed greater in areas where rapid urbanization of rural areas was causing problems. In other areas, local municipalities were actively planning on their own be­ half and felt no need for district organization. It was never intended that the development districts be set up as perma­ nent levels of government. Their purpose was to serve as temporary planning units to prime the pump of planning in the area and promote action and local interest in good development. Because the districts did not become permanent official agencies, even some MPC members felt that the program had failed. Actually, the really suc­ cessful districts were those that disbanded district operation when their plans were completed, leaving implementation to each local unit of government. A good example of this was District 18 in south Washington County. In other instances the districts kept an organization together until the counties could establish county planning commissions, which often took over the planning services previously performed by the districts. My records show that 13 districts, or half of the number identified, had some degree of district organization and plan-making. The other 13 districts were either predominantly rural in nature with no pressing urban problems or contained established urban communities doing their own municipal planning in cooperation with other municipalities in the district. I believe that the development district concept was a success and that it accomplished what it was designed to do. In a later chapter I will report on a pilot study conducted by MPC in connection with the Forest Lake Development District Number Two. The study shows how subregional planning can be done in a metropolitan area with policies and plan coordinated with that of the metropolitan agency.

LONG-RANGE, THREE PHASE PROGRAM

The long-range work program of MPC, which emerged gradually during its first two years of operation, was in three parts:

Phase I: Basic Research and Orientation (1958-1961) Phase I I: Planning (Joint Program for Landuse­ Transportation Planning, 1962-1967)

36 Phase I I I: Implementation (The Metropolitan Council)

I shall deal with each of these phases in separate chapters.

37 CHAPTER 6 - BASIC RESEARCH AND ORIENTATION (MPC Phase I: 1958-1961)

STRUCTURE AND ADMINISTRATION

The bylaws of the MPC provided for a rather cumbersome administrative structure. The commission met quarterly with three of the four meetings having special designations. The March meeting was the annual report meeting; June was the work program meeting; and September was the budget hearing meet­ ing. December was used to wrap up loose ends for the year. A nine-person executive committee met monthly, or more often, to handle commission business between quarterly commission meetings. Then there were three standing committees: administration, planning and research, and intergovernmental relations. All actions for the commission passed through these committees. The pattern was for the committees first to get executive committee approval and then move for action to the commission. This created an attendance problem. All members were on at least one regular committee. T~us, the members who were on the executive committee had to sit through meetings of three separate groups considering the same items of busi­ ness. These were busy public officials and professional people, serving with­ out salary or per diem. With this multiplicity of meetings, it often became boring and time-consuming. Quorums, as a result, were hard to come by. In 1966, near the end of MPC's tenure, the problem was solved by having the cvm­ ~ission meet monthly, (or more often if necessary), with the executive commit­ tee handling only routine administrative matters. Considering the cumbersome administrative procedures of the commission, its members should be highly commended for their faithfulness and devotion to the cause of metropolitan planning. The following illustrates the magnitude of accomplishments during the first phase of the commission's long-range work program.

WORK PROGRAM

The problem of meager resources had already forced a heavy dependence on federal grants. During the years 1959 through 1961, the MPC received $135,000 in grants, or an average of $45,000 per year. This was less than half the ad­ ditional amount we would have received had the levy been kept at .20 of a mill. The main problems caused by the meager budget were cramped office space,

38 inadequate meeting facilities, heating and cooling problems, and a lack of good office equipment. In all these areas, the federal government would not participate, and we had to use most of our levy money as matching dollars for the federal grants. Nevertheless, we were able to maintain a worthwhile program and move along toward plan-making, or the second phase. The following paragraph on publications will give some idea of the scope of activity in the Phase I work program.

PUBLICATIONS

There were five classifications of publications: major reports, back­ ground documents, local planning bulletins, annual reports, and newsletters. The first major report was The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth issued in December 1958--a sort of prospectus. There were three major reports on population, two studies on water, and separate major studies of land, econom­ ics, sewerage, transportation, and parks. Two background documents were also issued, one on Selected Determinants of Residential Development and another on Selected Determinants of Industrial Development. The commission's need to relate to local government and assist in every way possible was the principal purpose of the Local Planning Bulletin Series of publications. Three such bulletins were issued from 1959 to 1961. The first recommended development districts as a means of providing a cooperative planning base for local units of government. The second was a guide to sub­ division regulations which controlled local development, making street con­ struction, utilities, and other community amenities the responsibility of de­ velopers rather than that of local government through special assessment. The third local planning bulletin was a technical report recommending uniform street and highway standards. Four annual reports were issued, 1958 through 1961. These were basically reports to the state legislature. Starting with 1963, they became biennial reports. The MPC Newsletter was started late in 1958 and issued periodically through part of 1960. The newsletter was well received but was discontinued until October 1962, due to the pressure of producing some 11 major reports to meet federal projects commitments.

39 A chronological listing of the publications of MPC during the years 1958 through 1961 can be found in the Appendix of this book.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

During the years 1958 through 1960, all intergovernmental and public re­ lations were handled by staff and commission members as an extracurricular activity, primarily on a response-to-request basis. Resources were not avail­ able for a full-time staff person to program such an effort. Nevertheless, a number of efforts at intergovernmental activity proved successful and effec­ tive. Starting in 1958, the commission sponsored periodic educational meetings dealing with functional problems within the area, such as highways, sewers, water, and landuse. During 1959 and 1960, full-day planning workshops were held with county commissioners and local officials in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Scott, and Washington Counties. For the first time, people at the county level were given a clear conception of what the MPC was about and what local government's role was to be in the metropolitan planning effort. The commission also cooperated in other major educational projects such as Governor Elmer Anderson's Conference on Metropolitan Problems and the Minnesota Planning Association's annual statewide planning conferences. During 1958 through 1961 MPC staff and members of the commission attended 564 meetings with local groups and presented programs or talks at 269 of them. However, too much of the staff's limited resources was being devoted to this ·effort, and the ongoing research program was suffering. In 1961 the commis­ sion realized it could no longer operate effectively without full-time person­ nel in intergovernmental relations; so a full-time person was hired to head up a community affairs division. This proved to be a timely action, as we were

on the threshold of an expanded plan-making effort known as the 11 Joint Program11 which would constitute Phase I I of the commission's long-range work program.

COOPERATIVE PLANNING

There were three other important activities of the commission during this initial four-year period. One was the Twin Cities Area Transportation Study (TCATS), mentioned in Chapter 4. A close liaison between MPC and TCATS staffs existed during the course of this study. Input and reaction to the TCATS work

40 by MPC continued throughout the duration of the program. TCATS' travel be­ havior inventory was of great value to MPC, providing planning information not obtainable with its meager income and other heavy commitments. The second cooperative planning effort was with the U. S. Bureau of the Census in 1959. For the 1950 census, the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) included Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, and Ramsey Counties. For the 1960 census, Washington County had been added. Early in 1959 the MPC staff, under the direction of Ed Maranda, did the technical work for establishing census tract boundary lines for Washington County and the parts of Dakota and Ramsey Counties that were not tracted in 1950. Thus, for the 1960 census, the entire five counties were divided into census tracts providing more meaningful and useful statistics for the area. The third cooperative intergovernmental effort of unusual importance in­ volved the water and sewer problem. Deep concern developed in the area during 1959 in response to water supply pollution studies produced by the State De­ partment of Health. Numerous organizations and agencies started active pro­ grams to deal with the problem. The MPC was already in the midst of research and planning aimed at developing advice on area water resources and sewage disposal. Late in the year, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District Board requested that the Metropolitan Planning Commission function as a resource for obtaining cooperative action on the part of the many interested groups in­ volved. In response to this request, the MPC formed a water and sewer commit­ tee from its membership, and invited individuals representing more than a dozen vitally concerned agencies to serve as advisors to the committee. The committee met regularly during 1960 and was instrumental in drafting material for proposed legislation. The commission then retained special coun­ sel to aid in the preparation of the legislation. In this effort the MPC worked closely with such groups as the Interim Commission on Municipal Law, the metropolitan affairs committee of the League of Minnesota Municipalities, and representatives of .local government.

UPPER MIDWEST ECONOMIC STUDY--URBAN COMPONENT

We have already discussed the organization and purpose of the Upper Mid­ west Research and Development Counci 1 (UMRDC). During the year 1960, it was proposed by UMRDC and the University of Minnesota that MPC do an urban portion of the Upper Midwest Economic Study (UMES) being financed in part by the Ford

41 Foundation. The MPC approved the general idea at a special meeting in June. Dr. John R. Borchert, professor in the Department of Geography at the Univer­ sity of Minnesota was hired as project director. His first task was to pre­ pare a project prospectus as the basis for obtaining the grant and contract­ ing between the parties. After review of the prospectus, MPC authorized the contract at its December 1960 meeting. MPC entered into a contract on 8 March 1961 with UMRDC and the University of Minnesota to carry on a planning program studying urban development in the upper midwest. This was a three-year, $300,000 program scheduled for com­ pletion by mid-1963. The size of the MPC quarters was nearly doubled to ac­ commodate the UMES staff. Whenever possible, the work being done under the UMES contract was inte­ grated with the ongoing work of the MPC. The study made possible the develop­ ment of research material which MPC would have been unable to produce at that time, and in other instances it made possible development in greater depth of some of the ongoing studies. By late 1961 the urban study program was fully staffed and a number of research projects were well underway.

JOINT PROGRAM FOR LANDUSE AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNltJG

The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1962 declared it to be in the national

interest 11 to encourage and promote the development of transportation systems embracing various modes of transport in a manner that will serve the states and local communities efficiently and effectively. 11 This action came in re­ ·sponse to the growing crisis in transportation in the nation's metropolitan areas. The act provided that the Department of Commerce, through the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), cooperate with the states in developing long-range highway plans which were coordinated with plans for improvements in other forms of transportation in urban areas. The language of the act emphasized the need for continuing cooperative planning in metropolitan areas. Thus, the act established a forthright nation­ al pol icy on urban transportation planning. To implement the pol icy, the act provided that:

After July 1, 1965, the Secretary [of Commerce] shall not approve under section 105 of this title any program for projects in any urban area of more

42 than fifty thousand population unless he finds that such projects are based on a continuing comprehen­ sive transportation planning process carried on co­ operatively by States and local communities.

As a result of this action, the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA, later HUD) and the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR, later DOT) encouraged MPC to launch an extensive joint program for landuse and transportation planning in cooperation with the Minnesota Highway Department and other planning and gov­ ernmental agencies in the area. The late summer and fall months of 1961 were spent in working coopera­ tively with the above-mentioned agencies developing a three-year joint work program. Meetings to discuss the program were held with representatives of HHFA and BPR in Chicago. Earlier in the year MPC had applied to HHFA for an urban planning grant for its 1962 work project. This had been designated

11 Project Minnesota P-20.' 1 When the Joint Program was prepared, it was sub­ stituted for the original work program in Project Minnesota P-20 with the total cost budgeted at $1,351,900. A federal grant of $901,260 was requested to carry out the program. F. Robert Edman, former mayor of Mendota Heights and an original member of the MPC, played an important role in this early phase of metropolitan plan­ ning. As MPC chairman during most of this period, he worked closely with the Minnesota legislature and federal agencies in organizing the Joint Program. He was also an advisor to the legislature at the time the Metropolitan Council was established.

43 CHAPTER 7 - JOINT PROGRAM FOR LANDUSE AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNING (MPC Phase I I: Planning, 1962-1967)

The MPC identified in the first years of its existence that its long­ range work program goals consisted of three phases: research, planning, and implementation. The type of organization needed to implement these phases could not be anticipated initially, but the commission continued its work to­ ward the attainment of these goals.

FEDERAL HIGHWAY ACT OF 1962

In 1961, as the commission was completing the research phase of its work program, the proposed Federal Highway Act of 1962 seemed to foretell the direc­ tion that the MPC must take in its Phase I I work program if it was to partici­ pate in federal highway funds. It took little encouragement on the part of the federal agencies--the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) and the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR)--to convince the MPC that joint landuse-transportation planning should be the future pattern for metropolitan planning. This became even more evident when we realized that the two federal agencies were recommending the same action to other units of government in the area that were to participate with the commission in the Joint Program. At the meeting in Chicago when final touches were put on the Joint Pro­ gram agreement, there was an unusually strong representation of local agencies from the Twin Cities plus an impressive group from Washington. Both central city mayors, the Minnesota commissioner of highways, central city planners, county representatives, suburban representatives, MPC members and staff, Minnesota BPR officials, and Washington representatives from the two sponsor­ ing federal agencies were in attendance. The three-year Joint Program was scheduled to run from 1962 through 1964. However, MPC needed the early part of 1962 to complete its 1961 federal pro­ ject work studies. Also, the Joint Program required doubling the MPC staff, and recruitment was slow. Then, too, there was the matter of quarters. The UMES urban component staff was housed with MPC. Its program, started in mid- 196O, was to run to mid-1963. During 1962 the basic research and analysis phase moved into the report production phase, and the UMES staff was being reduced rather rapidly. Many of those being terminated had skills needed in

44 the Joint Program and so were re-employed by the MPC. By the fall of 1962, some Joint Program studies were well under way and national recruitment for other needed staff continued. Another delay during 1962 was in defining the role and work of the co­ operating agencies, the state, counties, and cities. Contracts had to be drawn and work programs produced. Some Joint Program studies had to wait for basic data prepared by these contracts. The participants in the Joint Program were the Metropolitan Planning Commission, Minnesota Highway Department, City of Minneapolis' planning and engineering departments, City of St. Paul's plan­ ning and engineering departments, the seven metropolitan counties' highway departments (Anoka, Dakota, Carver, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, and Washington), United States Housing and Home Finance Agency, and United States Bureau of Public Roads. Joint Program planning picked up where MPC research left off. The Joint Program set a pattern for the rest of the country, and Washington was advising

the nation to "go to the Twin Cities and see how they are doing it. 11 Of course, many visitors had been coming to the MPC since its inception. They were interested in this metropolitan planning agency that had status as a political subdivision, a creature of the state legislature with a levy for operation and a mandatory provision for intergovernmental cooperation in plan­ ning. The MPC was unique and was looked upon as being as innovative for its time as the Metropolitan Council is today. The 1962 Federal Highway Act was not passed until August 1962, but in December of 1961, when the Joint Program was assembled in the Twin Cities, the bill was before Congress and all agencies were convinced it would become law. So the Twin Cities area was at least six months ahead of any other metro­ politan agency in joint landuse-transportation planning.

ORGANIZATION

The prospectus for the Joint Program, Meeting the Challenge of Metropoli­ tan Growth, set forth the organization in an interesting and graphic form. It provided for 11 local governmental participants and 2 federal agencies. Each of these 13 agencies were represented on a coordinating committee with responsibility for cooroination and administrative supervision. The committee supervised the program team and the MPC community affairs unit. It also had a two-way flow of advice and information from an area technical advisory

45 committee and an area citizens advisory committee. The program team consisted of the direct supervisors of technical staffs participating in the Joint Program and coordinated staff activities in carry­ ing out program studies. At the direction of the coordinating committee, the team related to sub-committees of the two advisory committees for specific information and assistance. Perhaps one of the most difficult problems in the administration of the Joint Program was the same problem that is encountered in the Councils of Government organization. Representatives of the various agencies on the co­ ordinating committee often could not vote on an issue, even though they had personal opinions. They felt compelled to go back to their agencies for advice, but even then could not always get affirmative support because of various policies governing their agencies. This made it difficult to wrap up one planning phase and move on to another. In spite of this problem, however, work progressed and its impact was felt at all levels of government. For example, a problem that plagued many citizens was how to learn of future plans for state and county highways. County offtcials referred citizens to the state, and state officials sent them back to the county. If they finally got an answer, the information was often in conflict. Thus, one of the Joint Program's first projects was the prepara­ tion of an interim thoroughfare plan, which integrated the highway plans of all the counties, cities, and the state. Where there was disagreement or ln­ decision, ·these were identified as 11 gray areas 11 with differences to be re­ solved later in the program. This was the first time such a map had been produced. It was readily accepted and used extensively.

VALUES, GOALS, POLICIES

During World War I I and in post-war America, most efforts at metropolitan planning applied city planning techniques to the metropolitan level. In the national survey that I made in 1946, I found much frustration among planners trying to produce plans for multi-governmental agencies using city planning methods. This effort continued for nearly two decades. The Joint Program, in its early months, followed in this direction until it became evident that metropolitan planning was not city planning 11 writ big. 11 It was the consensus of those working in the Joint Program that with more than 300 units of local gov­ ernment, they could not make detailed, two-dimensional plans as had long been

46 done in the city planning process. They believed that a policy framework for use by local units of government in carrying out their planning and develop­ ment programs was the route to be taken if metropolitan planning was to be effective. A major work item in the Joint Program was an attitudinal survey. This was a survey of individual households and businesses concerning home, friends, shopping, transportation, environmental amenities, recreation, and so on. From this survey, the Joint Program learned the values for living held by its citizens. Following this, a series of papers was produced by John Udy, of the

MPC staff. One of these papers was titled 11 Values and the Planning Process. 11 The following is a quote from the preface of this report:

Planning has become a much more sophisticated art than it was in the days of the 11 City Beautiful 11 aesthete. It is now generally accepted that a plan is supported by policies; and goals to which the plan is oriented, are increasingly made ex­ plicit. However, as a profession, planners rarely tread in the area of values, those elusive quali­ ties which lend true meaning and purpose to living, and indeed are the basis for our life goals. Is this a significant oversight, and if so, what are values, and how may they be related to the plan­ ning process? In the Joint Program, it has been. considered important to try to find answers to these questions.

Answers to thesi questions were determined and eventually the 11 values, goals, policies11 approach to metropolitan planning evolved. This approach became the cornerstone for production of the three final reports of the Joint Program, namely, Goals for the Development of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, Select­ ing Policies for Metropolitan Growth, and Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Devel­ opment Guide. The following quote from the Goals report will help to understand better the values, goals, policies process in metropolitan planning:

In planning for an American metropolis such as the Twin Cities Area, we are fortunate to have as a starting point a clear, concise, and established statement of national values--values that Thomas Jefferson called self-evident truths: 11 ••• that all men a re created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien­ able rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. 11

47 As a statement of national values, this quota­ tion from the Declaration of Independence supports the statement of national goals written 11 years later in the Preamble to the Constitution: 11 We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos­ terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 11 The values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness can be adapted to goals for metropolitan development just as they were to goals for nation­ building. Life, for example, requires an adequate sup­ ply of various items necessary for health andsafe­ ty. In development terms we speak of housing, com­ merce, industry, open space, public facilities, and transportation. To maximize our value of preserv­ ing life, our development policies should be aimed at the goal of providing adequate supplies of each of these. Liberty implies choice. The minimum amount of development adequate for survival is not satisfac­ tory any more than isl ife under slavery. There must be diversity in the environment so that people, within the limits of their personal resources, can make their own selections of where to live, work, shop, play, worship, learn, and travel. Happiness takes us a step further. Not only must there be an adequate supply offering a range of choice, that supply must be of a quality that matches the people 1 s desires according to their standard of living and way of life. Again, the bare minimum is not enough. The individual 1 s de­ sire to improve his lot in life must be taken into account. Development in the Twin Cities Metropol­ itan Area must enable the individual to find satis­ faction and enjoyment. Therefore, when we relate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the realm of metropol­ itan development, what we are talking about is the basic goal of an adequate supply of development that offers both quality and a range of choice. This is what must be planned for.

URBAN GROWTH MODELS

After studying many metropolitan areas throughout the world, the Joint Program decided to test four different patterns for development: present trends, spread city, radial corridors, and multiple centers.

48 The purpose was to determine which development pattern best suited the values of the people of our area, and to show what the restraints and the cost implications might be in producing the various patterns. I A small community can be visually perceived by bicycle. But with 300 units of local government, as we have in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, it was realized that great masses of data must be processed to gain this same kind of perception for our larger area. For some time highway planners had been using gravity models to help determine needed capacity for new facilities. With the advent of electronic data processing, it was possible to increase the number of variables in the model and efficiently process great masses of data in very short time periods. Old methods of hand processing the same amount of data would take months or perhaps years, and when conclusions were reached, it was often too late--the train had left the station. Writing in a special issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Planners in May 1965, Britton Harris, professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded

Experience so far accumulated and amply displayed in this issue of the Journal tends to suggest that the problems of metropolitan growth and development are 11 many-bodi' problems which are best handled through extensive computations on high-speed com­ puters.

So urban growth models were built. First efforts met with trouble because there were so many variables that the computers got indigestion. It was soon discovered that certain variables such as 11 income 11 and 11 education11 produced the same response in the model. This allowed the number of variables to be reduced substantially, enabling the computer to digest the data more readily and produce clear, usable answers. Consultants, Alan M. Voorhees and Associates, built the urban growth model needed for the Joint Program. The large mass of data about the area was processed and each of the four alternative patterns for development was tested.

THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE

As has been mentioned, there was deep concern among planners at the met­ ropolitan level that there was no offical body at that level to whom plans

49 could be presented for approval and implementation. To help solve this prob­ lem, the Joint Pr'ogram's prospectus provided as follows:

If the products of the Joint Program are to promote better development decisions, they must be tested formally by representatives of the Community-at­ large prior to formal adoption and implementation. The heads of the 350 units of local government in the Metropolitan Area will be asked to serve as a council to react to recommendations of the Joint Program. Similar reaction will be sought from the general public and from private groups and individ­ uals who make decisions that affect urban develop­ ment.

This was perhaps the first time (January 1963) that a metropolitan council was formally recommended in an official metropolitan planning publi­ cation. When the time for testing the alternatives came, the Joint Program fol­ lowed the suggestion in the prospectus and established two committees: an Elected Officials Review Committee (EORC) of about 300 officials, and a Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) of about 100 citizens. The EORC was not called a metropolitan council as the name "council" denotes an elected or other form of official body with certain powers. MPC could create only a com­ mittee. For a period of six months, in the fall of 1965 and spring of 1966, meet­ ings were held with members of EORC and CAC reviewing the results of testing the four alternative patterns for development. The computer runs had provided information in seven general areas: total development, housing, commerce and industry, open space, utilities, transportation, and government and taxation. A series of Alternative Papers on these subjects was prepared for use in the meetings with members of EORC and CAC. Each paper set forth the present situation in each category, relating this to each of the four alternative growth patterns. For example, in housing it was pointed out that in 1957 less than 10 percent of all housing in the Twin Cities metropolitan area was multi­ ple housing. By 1964 this had increased to more than 40 percent. The question was asked, ''Does this indicate a shift in housing preference, or has there been a recent change in the composition of the area's population?" Various housing issues were then presented and questions asked as to how the four dif­ ferent patterns of development would affect housing.

50 The committees were exposed to similar reviews of computer material from the other six areas of concern as preparation for their participation in se­ lecting the preferred alternative for development. When the meetings were completed and members apprised of all the impli­ cations of each of the four alternatives, each member was presented with a questionnaire. The questions were divided into the same seven categories that were used in the computer runs. The answers, when tabulated and put through the computer, revealed which of the four patterns for development was pre­ ferred. Completed questionnaires were returned by 75 percent of the committee members, a far better return than was expected. A much smaller return would stil 1 have provided a fair and adequate sampling. The preferred pattern of growth that emerged from the choices made by EORC and CAC can best be described by a paragraph from Joint Program Report Number Four:

Perhaps the selected pattern can best be described as having an abbreviated form of the Radial Cor­ ridors transportation system, downtowns nearly the sizes of those envisioned for Radial Corridors and Multiple Centers, and outlying centers smaller than those of Multiple Centers but frequently of the same diversified composition. It would be an Area of several star-1 ike clusters of development, a metropolis we might call ''Constellation Cities. 11

When further refined, the constellation cities concept became the preferred alternative. The Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Development Guide, the final report produced by the Joint Program, was built around this concept. Although the Metropolitan Council, when established, did not adopt the Joint Program's Metropolitan Development Guide, it did adopt the constellation cities concept

to guide its action, but changed the name to "major centers. 11

SUB-REGIONAL PLANNING IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA n Before concluding this chapter on MPC and the Joint Program, I would 1 ike to review the work of the Forest Lake Development District Number Two. While not a part of the Joint Program, it had a direct and important relationship to it. Representatives came to the MPC soon after the district's formation and asked MPC to serve as consultant and prepare a plan for their area on a

51 reimbursable basis. MPC had earlier announced its willingness to help local governments with their planning as long as it did not interfere with the com­ mission1s primary responsibil ity--metropolitan planning. The staff was inter­ ested in District Number Two 1s proposal, but the attitude of the commission seemed to have changed. MPC had review authority under the A-95 Program and felt that, as a consultant, it would be in the embarrassing position of review­ ing its own work. Through compromise, the Forest Lake request was eventually handled as a pilot project ·to demonstrate how sub-regional planning could be done in a metropolitan area. A small 701 federal grant was obtained and work began, but there were many delays due to turnover in the staff working on that project. As the Forest Lake plan progressed and the Joint Program was producing policies for development of the metropolitan area, here was an opportunity for the two programs to be integrated policy-wise. So, step-by-step, policies for the Forest Lake plan were coordinated with tre Joint Program 1s emerging metro­ po 1 i tan po 1 i c i es. It is significant to note that the Forest Lake program exemplified the type of planning mandated later when the 1976 Minnesota legislature passed the Metropolitan Landuse Planning Act which requires units of local government to prepare and adopt landuse and public facilities plans that are consistent with metropolitan plans.

POSITION PAPERS ON LEGISLATION

As 1967 approached, the Joint Program was completing its work and pre­ paring its final report, Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Development Guide. From the many implications contained in the development policies and the Guide 1s direct proposals, it was clear that new legislation would be needed if this new Guide was to be effective. As a result, a series of Position Papers on Legislation was prepared for distribution. The Position Papers were in seven different areas: the resolution of highway disputes, the Minnesota Municipal Commission, metropolitan parks, local consent and special acts, mass transit, sewage collection and treatment, and metropolitan government. Per­ haps the most unusual recommendation was made in the paper on metropolitan government. Here the MPC recommended establishment, by the legislature, of an elected metropolitan government with representation on a one-person-one­ vote basis. The commission also recommended its own demise by suggesting that

52 MPC staff become the planning arm of this new metropolitan government.

During this maturing period in the life of MPC, the commission 1 s chair­ person was Mrs. Rolland (Myrtle) Hatfield. She was an original member of the MPC and exerted unusual leadership during its ten-year span. She called one of the first area meetings to discuss governmental reorganization which even­ tually led to the formation of the Metropolitan Council.

53 CHAPTER 8 - GOVERNMENTAL REORGANIZATION

At no point in the structure of the American fed­ eral system of government are problems of inter­ governmental relations so marked, varied and dif­ ficult as in the large metropolitan areas, where the activities of all three levels of government function in close proximity. Within such areas, Federal, State, county and municipal agencies, often supplemented by a small host of special pur­ pose units of local government, must carry on their functions in close juxtaposition, subject to an extremely complicated framework of Federal, State, and local laws and administrative regula­ tions.

The quotation is from a report on Government Structure, Organization, and Planning in Metropolitan Areas by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR). The commission was created by the 86th Congress in 1959. The act creating the commission said it was essential that an appropriate agen­ cy be established to give continuing attention to intergovernmental problems. Since 1959 this agency has produced dozens of helpful reports on metropolitan problems for the benefit of those concerned with, and working in, metropolitan areas. One of the first reports of ACIR was the review and analysis of 18 gov­ ernmental reorganization efforts made in the nation during the period 1950- 1961. All of the efforts studied were subject to local referendum, and only 8 of the 18 survived. Most of the 18 efforts were city-county consolidations or consolidations of two or more municipalities.

ALTERNATIVES FOR REORGANIZATION

Shortly after this report, ACIR decided to determine the alternatives that metropolitan areas might have for governmental reorganization. In 1962, ACIR published its report on Alternative Approaches to Governmental Reorgan­ ization in Metropolitan Areas. Ten forms of reorganization were 1 isted. 1. Extraterritorial Powers. Powers that a city exercises outside its ordinary territorial 1 imits. They often include zoning and subdivision regu- . lat ions, and such services as water, sewage treatment, and solid waste disposal. 2. Intergovernmental Agreements. Agreements whereby a governmental unit conducts an activity jointly with one or more other governmental units or

54 contracts for such performance by another governmental unit. 3. Voluntary "Metropolitan Councils." Voluntary associations of elected public officials from most, or all, of the governments of the area. 4. The Urban County. The urban county, besides performing its consti­ tutional and statutory county functions, is also designated to perform munici­ pal functions and services. 5. Transfer of Function to State Government. The transfer and direct performance of an urban function by an executive agency of state government. An example of this would be water supply. 6. Metropolitan Special Districts: Limited Purpose and Multipurpose. Special authorities set up pursuant to state law to perform one or more serv­ ices in al I or part of the metropolitan area. 7. Annexation and Consolidation. Annexation is the absorption ofter­ ritory, usually unincorporated, by a city. Consolidation is joining together two or more units of government of app~oximately equal stature to form a new unit of government. 8. City-County Separation. An action whereby the major city in a county separates from the county and thereafter performs both city and county func­ tions for its area. The county must then maintain its functions and budget on taxation outside the boundaries of the city. 9. City-County Consolidation. The merger of a county and the cities within it into a single government. Often there are separate taxing districts for the urbanized area and the rural areas. 10. Federation (or Borough Plan). A form of governmental reorganization involving a merger of a number of metropolitan municipalities. However, as differentiated from consolidation, the municipalities do not lose their iden­ tity. Metropolitan functions are assigned to the Federation, while local functions remain with the municipalities.

Until the mid-1960 1 s, the most used and perhaps the most effective of these ten procedures was number six, Metropolitan Special Service Districts. The reason for the success of districts was that they were often born of crisis or an urgent need in some critical area such as sewerage, water supply, or airports. Also, the districts were creatures of state legislatures with authority, bonding power, and operational funds. By comparison, and during the same time span, efforts to establish effec­ tive metropolitan planning and development agencies were languishing. Various

55 attempts were made to fill this acute need but met with little success. Such efforts at metropolitan planning ranged from short-lived Chamber of Commerce endeavors to metropolitan planning associations, voluntary councils, and others; but none had the necessary authority for survival possessed by Metro­ politan Special Districts. Efforts at metropolitan planning faced a common peril: they must operate at the whim of the sponsoring parties, and when hard line, real issues emerged, these parties often withdrew support leaving the effort to die or fade into ineffectiveness. In the Twin Cities (as has already been reviewed) the League of Minnesota Municipalities chose the legislative route, using the special service district structure. This was an alternate route to the use of a voluntary agency or the often unsuccessful public referendum procedure.

As we know, the Minnesota legislature provided the league 1 s requested planning legislation, and so was born the nation 1 s first metropolitan planning agency with the status of a political subdivision and a tax levy for operation. This official district approach to planning made the MPC operation unique in two other ways: first, the total metropolitan area was automatically involved in the program and was taxed to ensure continuity in commission work; and second, the commission could keep its objectivity and metropolitan focus while working on its program, with no time out for money-raising or sponsors• pet projects. It eliminated the peril of withdrawn financial support by some dis­ satisfied contributor, that ever-present problem of the association or the voluntary council.

REFERRALS

MPC authority was limited by statute to metropolitan planning plus the coordination of local planning; even the metropolitan plans produced were ad­ visory only. However, as 701 planning funds (authorized under the Housing Act of 1954) came to be used extensively by local government, the federal Office of Management and Budget (0MB) grew concerned about the quality of work being done. Were the local plans produced by 701 funds good plans, and were they in conformance with area plans; or was the federal government with 701 funds merely buttering the bread of local government on a continuing round of plan­ ning and replanning? 0MB wanted good plans that conformed to and supported area plans. Toward this end, the 0MB issued circular A-95 which, in substance, required local government to submit plans to a recognized metropolitan agency

56 to determine if provisions of the local plans were in conformity with metro­ politan plans. Under state law, MPC plans were only advisory, but circular A-95 made the plans, in effect, metropolitan policy by requiring conformity of local plans to the metropolitan plans. In 1966 Congress passed the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Develop­ ment Act. Section 204 of this act provided that all applications for federal loans or grants to assist in almost any project affecting development in the metropolitan area shall be submitted for review ...

to any areawide agency which is designated to per­ form metropolitan or regional planning for the area within which the assistance is to be used ...

Shortly after passage of this act, the MPC was notified that, pursuant to the act. ..

Your agency has been certified by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development as the areawide re­ view agency for your geographic area.

In the eyes of many, this strengthened the role of MPC as a pol icy-making body. In effect, MPC was becoming a metropolitan council without exp I icit authority from the state. Up to this time, many in the state opposed any kind of metropolitan government and in fact, were even hesitant to discuss it. However, the A-95 circular and section 204 of the 1966 act broke down this reticence.

COUNCILS OF GOVERNMENT

During the mid-1960 1 s, while MPC was in the midst of its Joint Program, officials from other metropolitan areas were extremely interested in the or­ ganizational structure of the MPC. Many areas sent representatives to study the agency, its legislation, and its effectiveness. Some were drafting their own legislation and moving toward a solid approach to solving their metropoli­ tan problems. Then the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 started a movement away from legislatively structured metropolitan planning agencies to­ ward what we now know as 11 counci Is of government 11 or COGs. The 1965 HUD Act authorized special grants to organizations of public of­ ficials representing political jurisdictions within a metropolitan area or urban region. The grants were for two-thirds the cost of establishing and maintaining organizations of pol icy and decision makers representing local

57 government. Required regional activities included the making of comprehensive metropolitan plans and developing action programs to carry out the plans. This action by HUD undermined the sound progress being made toward gov­ ernmentally structured metropolitan planning organizations. With HUD 1 s gener­ ous funding, it was easy to establish some sort of metropolitan organization that could qualify, and COGs sprang up all around the country. In 1967 the National Service to Regional Councils (NSRC) was established under the joint sponsorship of the National Association of Counties (NAC) and the National League of Cities (NLC). Early funding for NSRC was provided by grants from HUD and the Ford Foundation. In less than three years, NSRC had 500 members. The COG movement was well underway. Students' of political science predicted a honeymoon period when-all would be well with COGs, and the movement would appear to be the smartest thing to come along in the 20th century. This was true. The honeymoon lasted through the research phase of the COG programs. There is little controversy about research, but the next two phases, planning and implementation, were a differ­ ent story. Problems soon became issues. On the west coast recently, one COG had three of four counties withdraw because the big cities were control] ing the executive board. The counties wanted more 11 say. 11 Another COG in the west had all counties withdraw, leaving only cities and some military establishments. A COG in Michigan had its only county withdraw, taking 80 percent of the COG 1 s population with 1t. The staff, during the controversy, dropped from 26 to 8 people. The acting·director said it had been a year of disaster. These events are typical of the struggles and dissentions going on within COGs across the country. Much of it doesn 1 t get out in the open or degenerate to withdrawal, but no one will claim that the problems are not there. What does this all mean? Simply this: when issues get hard-lined in metropolitan planning, you must have people on the planning agency who are thinking 11 metropol itan. 11 You can•t have people serving who are wearing two or three hats with their first loyalty being a level of government other than metropolitan. If you do, it breeds controversy; metropolitan planning loses its objectivity and is often compromised out of existence. One"COG that I visited in the South had considered many major issues for planning, and all had been vetoed by some level of government represented. They asked what I thought of thiir sponsoring a police school--they felt they could get agreement

58 on that. I pointed out that a pol ice school is an administrative function, not a planning function, and they could hardly justify the existence of a COG for that purpose. It is extremely difficult for a voluntary council to become an effective pol icy and plan-making agency, and practically impossible when it comes to implementing metropolitan plans. A governmentally structured agency is the only answer. As David Loeks often said, 11 You can't drive a spike with a tack hammer! 11 However, Congress doesn't appear likely to legislate policy requiring COGs to become governmental agencies. Genuine efforts by Congress have been made but have been quickly silenced by lobbies of mayors, county boards, and others. The 11 carrot11 approach used by the government in the past to produce pol icy is also gone since the advent of block grants.

In reviewing Stanley Baldinger 1 s book Planning and Governing the Metropol­ ~' Ferdinand P. Schoettle, professor of law at the University of Minnesota, notes that,

the federal government does not have an overall strategy for metropolitan planning. Some recent bills introduced in Congress contain language sup­ porting the council-of-governments approach, while others are silent on the subject. On the other hand, the recent report of the Environmental Pro­ tection Agency concerning water and waste manage­ ment for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region concludes that a council similar to the Minneapolis­ St. Paul Metropolitan Council would best meet the needs of the nation's capital for a regional author­ ity. Certainly the evidence from the Twin Cities is sufficiently strong that the federal government should not, as a matter of uniform national pol icy, advance only the council-of-governments approach to regional problems.

Professor Schoettle in his review (Minnesota Law Review 1972) recommended the Metropolitan Council on two important grounds:

First, its members have a metropolitan perspective which is undistorted by refraction through repre­ sentation of other units of government; second, and more important, it has a majoritarian voting struc­ ture which al lows it to reach authoritative deci­ sions on matters which do not command unanimous support. A regional body established according to a one-man-one-vote criterion with authority to reach final conclusions about debatable propositions

59 seemingly has a better long-term potential as a metropolitan decision-making unit than a regional council-of-governments which characteristically has neither a broad perspective nor authority to act without a consensus.

THE MOVE TOWARD METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT

Why did I spend the time to review the councils of government story? did so, not because I 'm tot a 11 y opposed to the COG approach. feel COGs have functioned well in their initial or research phase and have stimulated much interest in planning at the metropolitan level. Neither am I opposed to the work of the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC, new name for NSRC). For five years I worked with this organization in conducting its national conferences, and I wrote the audio-visual chapter of its communica­ tions handbook. I think MARC is working hard to resolve the COGs' problems. Evidence of this is found in the proceedings of NARC's third annual conference in 1969, which posed some questions pointing toward the 1970 conference to be held in Atlanta. Among the questions were, "Is the next step in regional council program development to receive authority to enforce and carry out its decisions? Can regional councils involve the public and be responsive while remaining a step-child of various governmental agencies in our federal system?" I have covered the COG story primarily to help people in the Twin Cities area to appreciate the metropolitan structure that we have here for preparing and implementing metropolitan plans. In Chapters 3 and 4, I covered the early efforts at metropolitan planning which culminated in the establish­ ment of the Metropolitan Planning Commission. The MPC knew it was not a metro­ politan council and identified this problem very early; nor was it a voluntary council, or COG, so it was able to think metropolitan and keep continuity in its program. When the MPC moved from research to planning, the Joint Program vehicle emerged. During the years of the Joint Program, planning stayed objective due to the program's contracts with local governments and the federal agencies' insistence on coordinated planning. However, many were looking beyond the Joint Program and saying, "What are we going to do about implementation? We need a Council ! 11 The earliest effort in this direction was that of Joseph Robbie, executive secretary to the Interim Commission on Municipal Law. Robbie had been the prime mover in shepherding

60 the Minnesota Municipal Commission Law through the interim commission and the legislature in 1959. His 1961 effort toward metropolitan government was not as successful as his 1959 endeavor. In a speech to the Hennepin County League of Towns and Municipalities in August 1960 he made it clear that he did not advocate metropolitan government in the sense of an "all-encompassing city obliterating the boundaries of existing municipalities and all of the functions of municipal government within the metropolitan area." He did, though, advo­ cate a sensible approach to the coordination of major municipal services. He cited all the metropolitan agencies then in existence providing service for sewers, airports, planning, and mosquito control. He pointed out that "None of these agencies has diluted the purpose, the autonomy, or the strength of a single existing municipality within the metropolitan area." He maintained that the problem was no longer a matter of principle. "The question that re­ mains,'' he said, "is only one of mechanism of governmental structure." The next mention of the need for a metropolitan council was in the Pro­ spectus for the Joint Program in 1963. MPC knew that its planning program was greatly handicapped having no formal government at its level to report to. Then in 1965 things began to happen. It's hard to tell what opened the flood gates, but suddenly everyone was talking metropolitan government, making II studies of the MPC, or looking around the country for some new governmental reorganization pattern to follow. At first it was pretty much a battle of the mayors, a number of whom had proposals for meeting the problem. For example, Milton Honsey, mayor of New Hope, traveled to Toronto to study federation as a means of solving metropolitan problems. Mayor Honsey's proposal was patterned after the Toronto federation. He was very impressed with this organization and pointed out that it consisted of 25 council members representing the 25 units of government in that area. He suggested a Twin Cities council of com­ parable size made up of one representative from each state senatorial district, or 27 members. e Mayor Naftalin of Minneapolis, proposed a multi-service district with authority for seven or eight functions such as airports, sewage disposal, pol­ lution control, mass transit, a zoo, planning and zoning, plus annexation and ·e consolidation. All these would come under one coordinating agency umbrella. ·t Stanley W. Olson, mayor of Richfield, proposed an organization that was ·im more or less a study and coordinating group. It would have no development Powers or taxing authority, but would try to deal with problems in a way that

61 would get necessary laws through the Minnesota legislature and stimulate other action that might be needed. The following is a list, in chronological order, of the other fast moving events that led to the formation of the Metropolitan Council.

12 JANUARY 1966

An educational meeting was sponsored by the MPC for the commission and

staff. The subject was 11 Suggested Changes in the Structure·of Government in

the Metropolitan Area. 11 The meeting had been called due to the many ideas being voiced concerning metropolitan government and a desire to determine if these ideas shared some common ground. Guest participants were: Milton Honsey, mayor of New Hope; Stanley W. Olson, mayor of Richfield; Robert Janes, chairman, Hennepin County Board of Commissioners; Verne Johnson, executive director, Citizens League; Howard Albertson, Stillwater legislator; Clayton LeFevere, attorney, City of Richfield; Thomas Anding, executive secretary,

/ Upper Midwest Research and Development Council; Vern Bergstrom, executive director, Hennepin County League of Municipalities; Ralph Keyes, executive secretary, Association of Minnesota Counties; James Solem, executive director, Ramsey County League of Municipalities; and David Kennedy, attorney, League of Minnesota Municipalities. The mayors presented fairly concrete proposals in the direction of metro­ politan government. County representatives leaned toward voluntary councils.

The discussion might be summed up as 11 a desire for the legislature, or perhaps MPC and the University of Minnesota to do some in-depth research on various methods of governmental reorganization, so that the area could go to the leg- , islature with sound, concrete proposals expressing a consensus." Apparently nearly everyone took the message of this meeting to heart, as many studies got underway immediately and many proposals began to appear.

20 SEPTEMBER 1966

On this date a report was released by a special Chamber of Commerce urban study and action committee. The committee was composed of five members of the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, five members from the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, and five members from suburban chambers. The Chamber of Commerce report called for a seven-county metropolitan service council, created by the legislature, with one council member elected from each senatorial dis­ trict in the area. Functions would be planning, mosquito control, transit, sewers, and a zoo.

20 OCTOBER 1966

On this date Verne Johnson, executive director of the Citizens League, addressed the Ramsey County League of Municipalities in the Falcon Heights village hall. Johnson was concerned with the A-95 referral circular of the Office of Management and Budget and the provision of the federal 204 Program identifying MPC as the area clearinghouse for federal grants. Johnson told

the league that, "the Legislature will have to face up to the fact that we 1 re

going to have a metropolitan council or it will be the MPC.1 1

Johnson 1 s voice was respected in the area; he was conservative, yet prac­ tical. His statement at this meeting sent waves through the metropolitan area. Legislators, local government representatives, influential people in the private sector, and many others valued his opinion. The Citizens League was preparing a report on a metropolitan council, but this was Johnson speaking. At later meetings, his remarks often quieted opponents of metropolitan govern­

ment; for example, he would point out that, 11 We are kidding ourselves if we

think we do not have metropolitan government. We already have it; 1 he would

say, 11 in the form of special districts over which the citizens have I ittle

control, and there is no agency to coordinate or review their activity.1 1 Perhaps Verne Johnson did more than any other person in those days to set the stage for serious consideration of a metropolitan council at the 1967 legislative session.

10 NOVEMBER 1966

A 11 Seminar on Governmental Structure11 sponsored by the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council was held on this date. The seminar was de­

signed to 11 explore the present governmental structure of the area, to discuss the governmental problems that exist here, and to review and summarize the various proposals being made for new governmental institutions through which

these problems can be handled.1 1 As background for the seminar, a report for participants was prepared and ed edited by Ted Kolderie, then of the editorial page staff of the Minneapolis

63 Star and Tribune. This was excellent documenting of background information needed to participate intelligently in the seminar. Items covered in the report included: the present governmental pattern; general considerations for discussion; basic questions in any metropolitan reorganization; alterna­ tives to basic questions; and specific proposals. This seminar was attended by a cross-section of people representing the state legislature, government, business, citizens, associations, and labor. Much publicity was received and answers to many unresolved questions about governmental reorganization seemed to jell during the seminar.

DECEMBER 1966

During 1966 a special MPC task force on the reorganization of the com­ mission had been at work under the able chairmanship of John R. Finnegan.

The task force was endeavoring to simplify the MPC 1 s committee structure and commmission function. Finnegan, executive editor of the St. Paul Dispatch­ Pioneer Press, had been chairman of MPC and was concerned about its structure. As the possibility of a metropolitan council began to seem likely with a broad - base of support developing, Finnegan 1 s task force began to look two ways: to a simplification of operation for MPC if there was no council; and if there was a council, then what of the MPC? The task force announced early in Decem­ ber 1966 that if there was to be a metropolitan council the MPC should become its planning arm and the MPC should be dissolved.

JANUARY 1967

On 16 January 1967 the MPC issued a 11 Position Paper on Metropolitan Gov­ ernment Legislation. 11 The paper recommended a metropolitan government that would be a slight modification of the multipurpose district. The body should be elected and have the powers of taxation, bonding, special assessment, emi­ nent domain, and development. Following closely on this announcement (30 January 1967), Kenneth A. Kumm, chairman of the Metropolitan Planning Commission, appeared before the House Metropolitan and Urban Affairs Committee airing the position of the commission as stated in the formal position paper. So the MPC was officially on record as recommending the creation of a metropolitan agency with development power, with the MPC becoming the planning arm or department. In other words, MPC was

64 recommending its own demise--one of the first known reversals of Parkinson 1 s Law.

The day after Kumm 1 s appearance before the legislative committee, an editorial appeared in the St. Paul Dispatch (31 January 1967) titled 11 More

Unified Metro Voice} 1 The editorial spoke of Kumm 1 s appearance before the legislative committee and reviewed his recommendations. The editorial then went on to say:

That is a fairly specific proposal yet several legislators criticized the presentation as 11 too vague } 1 That reaction suggests that the sever a 1 groups which have been working on proposals for creating a metro agency (including the MPC, the Citizens League, several chambers of commerce, and several leagues of municipalities) had better begin speaking with one voice if any satisfactory legislation is to come out of the current session of the legislature .... Every effort must be made to put a specific bill--endorsed by groups active in the field--before both houses soon. The arguments in favor of a single metropol­ itan agency to replace a multiplicity of single purpose districts are sound. But they cannot be made intelligently with a babble of voices.

9 FEBRUARY 1967

Ten days after the editorial, as if it had been intentionally timed, the Citizens League report on A Metropolitan Counci 1 for the Twin Cities Area was released. It was a broad, thorough and concise report. Absent was the vague­ ness that often accompanies a report on a controversial subject. The league 1 s position was stated as follows in the report 1 s summary of recommendations:

We recommend that the 1967 Legislature create a Metropolitan Council, directly elected by popular vote of the people, to solve the pressing areawide governmental problems of the Twin Cities area in a coordinated manner. The Council would be respon­ sible only for those areawide functions and serv­ ices which cannot be handled adequately by munici­ palities and counties and which are specifically assigned to the Council by the Legislature. The Counci 1 would not have any broad 11 home rule11 type grant of authority. One member of the Metropolitan Council would be elected from each state senatorial district in the seven-county area ....

65 A few days later on February 13, the metropolitan section of the League of Minnesota Municipalities presented its report on metropolitan government. It differed 1 ittle from the Citizens League proposals; yet it was a very impor­ tant and significant addition to the support for a metropolitan council since in most other metropolitan areas, the strongest opposition usually came from municipalities.

16 FEBRUARY 1967

On this date representatives of civic, business, government, and labor organizations, called together by the MPC, voted to dispatch to the Minnesota legislature a showing of general agreement on the issues involved in creating a metropolitan government for the Twin Cities area. They decided to send the legislators a chart summarizing the stands taken formally by eight groups, conferences, and individuals along with a detailed explanation of various pro­ posals. There was a remarkable degree of unanimity and general consensus among those attending the meeting. No effort was made to agree on a specific bill, but a second meeting was called for-mid-March. Also scheduled for March 21 was a meeting with the state legislators to view the Joint Program's new movie, A Mill ion Lights.

28 FEBRUARY 1967

On this date the February 1967 issue of the Citizens League News was

released containing a chart showing 11 Comparisons of 10 Proposals on Govern­

mental Framework for the Twin Cities Area. 11 Six of these were proposals of civic, business, and governmental agencies, one was that of Governor Levander, and three were bills then before the legislature. The newsletter reported broad agreement on metropolitan council proposals. The chart showed unanimous agreement for action by the legislature at this session for some form of metropolitan problem solving agency. This issue of the Citizens League newsletter was timely, as it filled the request of a previous community meeting for a chart showing the unanimity of opinion in the area on issues relating to metropolitan government.

DRAFTING A BILL

Shortly after the September 20th release by the metropolitan area chambers of commerce, a committee was set up to draft a metropolitan agency bill for the

66 upcoming legislative session. Dennis Dunne, chairman of the Minneapolis

Chamber of Commerce 1 s legislative committee, called the committee together. Dunne had also served as chairman of the area chamber group that had prepared the September 20th report. Members of the drafting group included: Lloyd Brandt, manager of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce legislative department; Thomas Anding, Upper Midwest Research and Development Council; Ted Kolderie, Minneapolis Star; Verne Johnson and James L. Hetland, Jr., Citizens League; William Frenzel, representative to the Minnesota House from Golden Valley; Clayton LeFevere, attorney; and Dennis Dunne, chairman of Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce legislative committee. After months of drafting, redrafting, and considerable compromising, a bill was produced with Wi 11 iam Frenzel as its legislative sponsor. Senator Harmon Ogdahl also produced a bill almost identical to the Frenzel bill. These two bills were later combined when submitted to the legislature.

THE BATTLE IN THE LEGISLATURE

The first fight in the 1967 legislature began before the session opened. The Senate Conservative Steering Committee was asked to set up a metropolitan affairs committee. Senator Harmon Ogdahl and others were requesting such a committee so that the Ogdahl Bill would not have to clear the Rosenmeier-domi­ nated Civil Administration Committee. The vote on establishing the metropol i­ tan affairs committee was eight to eight, so no new metropolitan committee was formed. Instead, Ogdahl was made chairman of the metropolitan division of the Civil Administration Committee. In the meantime, two other bills calling for a governor-appointed state agency were submitted in the legislature.· The authors were Senator Rosenmeier and Representative Howard Albertson. The Rosenmeier and Ogdahl Bills had wide differences. The Ogdahl Bill tS.F. 500) called for an elected council that would be a general purpose gov­ ernmental unit with bonding and taxing powers, the power of eminent domain, and freedom of depository selection. The Rosenmeier Bill (S.F. 1254, and H.F. 1508) provided for a council that would be an appointed state agency with a full-time chairman to serve as chief executive officer, This council would have review powers over local planning and over special service districts, but no direct control over the districts. Senator Ogdahl 1 s bill was passed out of his subcommittee, but as predicted, it died in the parent Civil

67 Administration Committee. House File 1508, companion to the Rosenmeier Bill, moved through the House during early May with some amendments, including the addition of taxing power for the council. An attempt to make the council elective failed 62-66. The bill passed 103-20 on 15 May 1967. The next day, 16 May 1967, the Senate moved on S.F. 1254 (H.F. 1508). The bill moved swiftly through subcommittees, and on May 19 it was placed on final passage. A motion to amend to an elective council failed by the vote of 33-33. Rosenmeier and other sponsors of S.F. 1254 were alarmed at the close vote on the elective issue. However, the bill passed. Scanning differences in the two bills, S.F. 500 (0gdahl) and S.F. 1254 (Rosenmeier), it is interesting to note that of the 11 or so differences in powers and structure of the council, sponsors of S.F. 500 gained on five oc­ casions. Taxing power was the only major compromise gained by amendment before passage of S.F. 1254. The. othef changes came as the result of an attorney general 1 s opinion which declared that the council was not a state agency, but a unique agency a step above local government and a step below state govern­ ment with some of the characteristics of both. Since passage in 1967, the council statutes have been amended on many occasions with most of the "gray areas" clarified and new powers and duties added.

68 CHAPTER 9 - THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL (MPC Phase I I I : I mp l ementa ti on)

... the Twin Cities area has demonstrated its interest in having major development projects evolve in an orderly sort of way out of agreed-upon objectives and policies. The support of the Metropolitan Planning Commission for the past ten years; the broad interest of local officials, as reflected in the work of the Elected Officials Review Committee of the Joint Program in 1965-66; and the growing support of the business and civic leadership demon­ strate the seriousness of this area's commitment to a coherent development pro­ gram. The Metropolitan Council Act puts the State Legislature clearly on record for the same objective. Citizens League Report, "Metropolitan Pol icy and Metropolitan Development," 1968.

The Metropolitan Council Act, passed by the 1967 Minnesota legislature, put the legislature on record for the objectives sought by the metropolitan area community, but the compromised structure of the council created a problem. Critics believed that the act had been compromised to death, pro­ ducing an inefficient tool for dealing with the metropolitan issues at hand. Some even suggested that the council do nothing but clean up the work and contracts of MPC and wait for a clarification of legislative intent by the 1969 legislature. Here again was an agency born in the democratic process of compromise--half-a-loaf--yet it was a much-needed tool and had to be used as passed.

CHOOSING THE COUNCIL

Fortunately for the area, Governor LeVander chose as the council's first chairman James L. Hetland, Jr., a talented young lawyer with an ex­ cellent background for assuming the difficult duties of chairman. His experience was wide and varied. As past president and member of the Citizens League, he served on various committees leading up to the creation of the council. He was a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, past chairman and member of the Minneapolis Charter Commission 1957-67, and

69 among other things, chaired various committees concerned with restructuring city and county government and the local courts system. Hetland was not among those critics who wanted to wait for clarifica­ tion of intent by the 1969 legislature. He wanted a sound program of recommendations for further council responsibilities to present to the 1969 legislature, as well as clarification of the act concerning structure. Soon after his appointment in July 1967, and before other members of

the council were appointed, Hetland requested an attorney general 1 s opinion on the gray areas in the council law concerning whether or not the council was a state agency as regarded certain fiscal matters and administrative procedures. The opinion of the attorney general was that the council was not a state agency but a free-floating level of government between the state and local governments. On 8 August 1967 the other 14 members of the council were named by Governor Harold LeVander. These members, their districts, ages, and occupations at the time of appointment were: District Marvin F. Borgelt, 57, treasurer of Bituminous Surface Treating Company. District 2 Milton L. Knoll, Jr., 40, mayor of White Bear Lake, and director of governmental and public affairs, St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce. District 3 Joseph A. Craig, 49, mayor of Coon Rapids and president of the Gergen Company, Minneapolis. District 4 Donald Dayton, 52, chairman of the board, The Dayton Corporation. District 5 George T. Pennock, 55, president and treasurer of G. H. Tennant Company, Golden Valley. District 6 Dennis Dunne, 38, vice president and director of Pub I ic Affairs, Northwest Bank Corporation. District 7 Clayton L. LeFevere, attorney for several municipalities and other governmental units and a consultant to the United States Agency for International Development. District 8 Glenn G. C. Olson, 38, former president of the Minneapolis City Council and senior industrial sales engineer, Northern States Power Company. District 9 E. Peter Gillette, Jr., 32, assistant vice president, Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis. District 10 -- James L. Dorr, 41, west central district manager, Jens Risom Design, Inc.

70 District 11 George W. Martens, 59, former alderman in Minneapolis. District 12 The Reverend Norbert Johnson, 42, senior pastor of of the First Covenant Church, St. Paul. District 13 Mrs. James L. (H. Janabelle) Taylor, program director of the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, St. Paul. District 14 -- Joseph A. Maun, 58, St. Paul attorney in the law firm Maun, Hazel, Green, Hayes, Simon and Aretz. Governor LeVander, in announcing the new council members, said:

When our forefathers came to this land known now as Minnesota, they found great natural beauty, abundant resources, and a challenge. Our breath-takingly beautiful natural scenery is still with us, unchanged and undiluted through the generations. Our extraordinary resources still provide the livelihood for much of our citizenry. And, without a doubt, we are still faced with challenges, just as our forefathers were. But our challenges have changed immensely ... from the dilemma of clearing the land and building farms and roads to the new problems of an exploding urban age. I feel the most challenging problem of this decade and the one to come will be our method of controlling the urban sprawl. Will we control our cities or be controlled? I am most proud today to be able to say that I believe we will meet this challenge with the energy and dedication needed to solve it. I believe that today will mark the most impor­ tant step taken to date in this regard. This is a council founded with the belief that area-wide problems can and will be met sensibly and expeditiously by a body which is concerned with the entire community. of the metropolis, not simply with any specific entity within it. This council was conceived with the idea that we will be faced with more and more prob­ lems that will pay no heed to the boundary lines which mark the end of one community in this metropolitan area and the beginning of another. This council was created, I believe, to do a job which has proved too big for any single community. It a 1so serves to show that the people of this seven-county area and the state of Minnesota, are too big to be slowed by the new challenges of the space age.

71 This council, and this concept will need your help as well as it will need mine. I pledge today to assist the development and im­ plementation of this spirit of cooperation and the operation of the council. I ask that you, the citizens of Minnesota, pledge the same.

The Governor's remarks reflected the feeling and attitude of the metropolitan area's people generally, and specifically of the members he had just appointed to the council. These members were of very high caliber with a selfless dedicatio.n to the task assigned. Few, if any, of these people were politically ambitious. Fewer still were attracted to the job by monetary considerations. After three or four years, the perfor­ mance of this well-chosen group convinced even the most adamant proponents of an elected council that this appointed council was better qualified to establish an effective agency and initiate a sound program.

COUNCIL RESPONSIBILITIES

The Metropolitan Council was a 15-member agency appointed by the governor, with the chairman appointed at-large and the other 14 appointed by districts on a one person, one vote basis. The council was charged with the responsibility of planning and coordinating activity required for the sound development of the metropolitan area. The council was to assume all duties and responsibilities of the MPC provided for in the Regional Planning Act of 1957; prepare and adopt a comprehensive development guide for the area; and prepare special studies and reports on air and water pollution, parks and open space, sewage disposal, taxation, assessment practices, storm drainage, and consolidation of local services. The council was to coordinate activity in the area by:

• appointing from its membership, members to serve on each of the metropolitan and regional agencies; • reviewing metropolitan agency plans with the power to suspend if not consistent with the Metropolitan Development Guide; • reviewing municipal plans, but with no power to suspend; and • reviewing federal loans and grants to governmental units, boards, and commissions.

72 AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Under the council act, the chairman was the principal executive officer, responsible for organizing the work of the council. However, upon recommendation of the chairman, the council could appoint an executive director to serve at the chairman 1 s pleasure as the principal operating administrator for the council. Chairman Hetland recommended that the council appoint an executive director. An exhaustive nationwide search was made for a person to fill this post. When the search was completed, the best qualified person was found to be already in our midst. He was Robert T. Jorvig, coordinator for the City of Minneapolis.

Perhaps no one within the area 1 s governmental planning agencies has made such a variety of planning and development contributions as Robert

Jorvig. In the late 194O 1 s he headed the St. Paul Housing and Redevelop­ ment Agency (HRA) which prepared plans and cleared the area for the Capitol approach development. Jorvig later moved to head the HRA in Minneapolis, where he engineered the Gateway Center Urban Renewal Project. Following this, he became city coordinator for Minneapolis, coordinating all planning, redevelopment, and budgeting for the city. He was in this position when recruited for the role of executive director for the Metro­ po 1 i tan Counc i 1 .

PUSH FOR THE 1969 LEGISLATIVE SESSION

The team of Hetland and Jorvig, together with their dedicated council, decided to move forward with the less-tha~-adequate structure provided by the creating statute. They recognized that additional legislation was necessary in order to resolve many major issues in the area. Their un­ tiring work in preparing for the 1969 legislative session was well rewarded. The legislature was pleased with the council's progress in so short a period of time and with its legislative proposals. Actions affecting the council passed during the 1969 session included:

o establishment of a metropolitan sewer board to own and operate a metropolitan sewerage system according to the

council 1 s sewerage system plan;

73 • empowering the council to adopt guidelines for landuse and development in the area within three miles of the site selected for new major airports; • establishment of a seven-member council-appointed metro­ politan park board; • granting responsibility for developing and implementing a plan for sol id waste disposal to the council, the Pollution Control Agency (PCA), and the seven metropolitan counties; • eliminating local governments' veto over highway plans, and substituting early municipal involvement in highway planning. • establishment of an ]]-member state board to plan, con- struct, and operate the Minnesota zoological garden.

STAFF OPERATIONS

The council inherited a functioning planning staff that had gained national recognition for its work. This was of great advantage to the council. Had the council started from 2ero staff, it would have taken a year or more to assemble a competent group of planners. A work program would have been needed, with time to assess all the issues. The council .,.,as required to prepare a metropolitan development guide, review the plans and recommendatio~s of local governments, and make studies and recommenda­ tions in .a number of functional areas. The MPC was already doing these things unofficially. So the council could move ahead without delay.

THE METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

The final report of the MPC was its Twin Cities Area Metropolitan Development Guide. Of necessity, this was a generalized guide which could serve only as an overall policy document until a more detailed guide could be developed. While the council did not adopt the MPC guide as an interim plan, it did adopt the mapped concept known as "constellation cities" under a new title, "major centers." This served as a frame of reference for dealing with referrals while the council guide was being prepared. The council made two efforts to prepare its own development guide. The first was presented to the Minnesota legislature in early 1971. It was

74 in loose-leaf form, in a binder suitable for expansion. The second guide was a bit more sophisticated and was submitted to the legislature in April 1973. This second guide is still the format being used, with new chapters and updated material added on a continuing basis. Unfortunately in both efforts, the council got caught up in the task of preparing guide chapters in functional areas without an overall de­ velopment chapter. By 1973 there were about a dozen guide chapters dealing with functional areas. It was soon recognized that if these metropolitan functional chapters were to have impact and be properly coordinated, an overall frame­ work chapter must be prepared. The name "development framework'' evo 1ved long be fore the chapter itself was prepared. Under the MPC guide, the development chapter was cal led "total development." This caption was not favored by several counci 1 members as it denoted, to them, that all development might be done by public "development districts" omitting the private developer as the entrepreneur. So the term "development framework" was chosen to replace the MPC term

11 tota 1 development. 11 In a recent article by Oliver Byrum and Robert Hoffman in Practicing Planner (March 1977), the purpose and character of the framework chapter was described. They explained that the development framework chapter

"was to deal with development, and it was not to include functional plans. Nor was it to be extremely detailed. It was intended to be a framework for other planning and decision­ making, but not a substitute. This approach avoided the bugaboo of 11 COIT)prehensive" planning which says that one should consider all things at once, or not plan at all. Since the former is impossible, the latter is too often chosen. The framework does not attempt to make every decision about every function at every place. It is not a compilation of local plans. It sets up a general framework for regional systems planning by establishing general time and space parameters.

Actually, the framework chapter is a metropolitan growth management, or landuse plan for the area. The framework was adopted by the council in

75 March 1975. Prior to this, the council's review authority compelled it to react to area and local plans and programs without an overall frame of reference. The framework guide chapter now places the council in a leader­ ship role which gives direction to planning and development at all levels of government. In 1976 the Minnesota legislature passed a law requiring localities to develop plans in conformance with the council's functional plans which are all now based on the development framework.

ATTITUDINAL SURVEY

Earlier we discussed the "values, goals, policies" planning process developed by MPC in the Joint Program. In order to initiate this process it is necessary to ascertain the values for living possessed by the people. So in late 1963 and early 1964, the MPC conducted an attitudinal survey of some 4,600 men and women in a random sampling of all elements of the area's society. Each interview lasted about 45 minutes and was based on a question­ naire containing about 200 questions. What do the people of the Twin Cities area think of the metropolis? \-/hat do they know about it? How do they use it? What do they like about it? What would they wish to have changed? Why? and By Whom? The answers to these questions were valuable to planners in the Joint Program because they helped in goal formulation in the values, goals, policies planning. The information was called upon and used for more than a decade by both the MPC and the Metropolitan Council. The values held by people of the area are always an important ingredient in any decision-making process. This survey had proven helpful, dependable, and accurate in appraising the values of the area people. In 1974, however, the Metropolitan Council felt that area values should be tested again. The form of questionnaire and questions asked were in the same vein as in the MPC 1963 survey, although the 1974 survey was conducted by a different opinion research company. As expected, there had been little change in people's values during the ten years. Therefore, work done by the council on that assumption was considered sound and depend­ able.

76 ADDED POWERS AND DUTIES

The council had often gone to the legislature for authority to establish functional agencies or for certain coordinating powers in relation to existing agencies. Now, however, new unsolicited functions began to fall to the council since it seemed to be the appropriate agency. Examples of such functions include criminal justice, health, and housing. In criminal justice there was a need for a metropolitan agency to review law-enforcement programs and approve loans and grants to local governmental agencies for carrying out the programs. In health there was a need for a metropolitan agency to coordinate planning of health facilities. State law required hospitals and clinics to obtain a certificate of need from the State Board of Health before new facilities could be built or old facilities expanded materially. The board wanted to delegate this review power and certifica­ tion to the Metropolitan Council. In housing, again, it was primarily a matter of coordinating housing programs at the metropolitan level with state and federal efforts.

HAMMERING OUT THE DETAILS

In the Introduction, I made reference to the Minnesota legislature's willingness to provide compromised legislation when it was believed to be in the public interest, and when those seeking the legislation appeared to be sincere and willing to accept the responsibility that such legislation imposed. I pointed out that our legislature did this rather than waiting indefinitely for ideal legislation which might be impossible to produce in hearing rooms or legislative halls. Improved legislation often must be hammered out a bit at a time by a functioning agency, with revisions in the law following. The work and experience of the Metropolitan Council during its first ten years of operation is an excellent illustration of this theory. have already reviewed the speed and skill of the council in that first year preparing for the 1969 legislative session. In nearly every session since, new legislation has been passed which embodied recommenda­ tions hammered out by the council in its operational process and including suggestions from the metropolitan area's civic and business community. Here are some examples.

77 THE 1971 SESSION

The numerous watershed districts in the region became subject to the council's planning controls. County plans became subject to the same review as municipal plans. The Metropolitan Transit Commission, in developing its program, was instructed to follow the transportation section of the council's development guide.

THE 1974 SESSION

Little legislation of significance to the council was passed in the 1973 session. However the 1974 legislature passed several bills that had substantial impact on the council and on its working relationships with other regional agencies. The 1974 Metropolitan Reorganization Act contained significa~t changes in area regional government. The act:

• reapportioned the council's 14 districts into 16 districts that reflected more-nearly-equal population areas based on the 1970 census; • increased council membership from 15 to 17; • restructured the Metropolitan Transit Commission and Metropolitan Sewer Board according to a uniform organi­ zational setup of metropolitan commissions; • clarified the respective roles of the council and other metropolitan commissions in regional planning, and set forth preparation and review procedures for council and commission plans; • required the council to prepare regulations for deter­ mining "metropolitan significance" and to submit these regulations to the 1975 legislature for approval; • granted the council and MTC authority to approve con­ trolled access highway projects in the metropolitan area; and • required the council to submit its recommendations on solid waste recycling to the 1975 session.

78 In other legislation, an Open Space Bill, called for better tools for environmental planning and protection of environmentally sensitive areas. This legislation provided that the council develop standards and model ordinances which would serve as the basis for ordinances adopted by local units of government. The 1974 session also established a Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission as an advisory body to the council. This commission advises the council in the preparation of a regional plan for parks, in the award­ ing of grants, and in the review of plans for specific regional park sites. The Parks and Open Space Act also authorized the council to issue up to $40 mill ion in bonds to provide grants to park districts, munici­ palities, and counties for acquiring and developing regional recreation open space.

THE 1975 AND 1976 SESSIONS Most of the action in the 1975 session centered around discussion of bills that were eventually passed in the 1976 session. One of these, and perhaps the most significant, was the Metropolitan Land Planning Act. The council had, in its initial legislation, authority to review plans of local government; but not all of the more than 200 local units prepared plans, particularly those on the urban fringe. The 1976 act requires that all units of, local government prepare and adopt landuse and public facilities plans. These plans must be consistent with regional facilities plans. The Metropolitan Significance Act directs the Metropolitan Council to adopt and implement regulations for revi·ewing proposed major development projects in the metropolitan area. These regulations are to establish criteria for identifying which projects are subject to the regulations for review.

THE 1977 SESSION

The 1977 legislature approved several laws of direct or indirect interest to the council. Perhaps the highest priority item was the $24 million appropriated for regional parks acquisition. Other items in­ cluded:

79 o appointment by the council of four new members to the MTC, replacing four incumbents originally appointed by local governments;

o mandating 11 911 11 the emergency telephone service to be operative in the metropolitan area by 1982;

o provision, in the Sports Stadium Act, that the council must report on each alternative site chosen by the

Stadium Commission, review the commission 1 s annual budget, and issue and secure bonds for the stadium.

THE COUNCIL TODAY

A recent important move by the council, not requ1r1ng legislative action, was the production of a metropolitan investment framework (MIF) chapter in the Development Guide. This is a companion to the metro­ politan development framework chapter. The Byrum-Hoffman article (Practicing Planner, March 1977) describes the new chapter as follows:

The MIF examines total public expend­ itures, revenues and debt by level of government and function within the region. It established a regional fiscal monitor­ ing system. There will be biennial preparation of a position paper on the effect and usefulness of state and fed­ eral programs on regional policy. Also, MIF establishes the process for fiscal coordination and management of the regional commissions and will interject fiscal coordination into our A-95 review process. All of this is beginning to establish for us a much more realistic priority system.

The same Byrum-Hoffman article provides a summary of the council 1 s present responsibilities:

Prepare Metropolitan Development Guide (regional plan), including pol icy plans for several regional commissions. Review capital budget, capital improvement pro­ grams and development programs of several regional commissions. Review comprehen­ sive plans of local government. Beginning

80 in 1980, require local governments to change their comprehensive plans so they are consistent with four metropolitan system plans (parks, sewer, transporta­ tion, and airports). Review proposed projects for metropolitan significance impact. After 1980, review capital improvement plans of metropolitan area school districts.

By comparing these responsibilities with those granted in the 1967 council enabling act, we can see how unwise it would have been to withhold enabling legislation until all these future needs of the council could be anticipated. When copying from others' experiences, it is possible to take advantage of their trials and errors. However, when you are carving new trails, as the Minnesota legislature has done in metropolitan matters for several decades, you must use the best tools you have at the time and continue the trail-blazing process. The review of recent legislation for the metropolitan area shows how new tools have been granted by the legislature when it felt that the area had been faithful and productive in its endeavors. In summation, I would like to quote from one of those many outsiders who have written about our Minnesota Experiment. The following is the preface to Chapter 5 of a book by John Fischer, Vital Signs USA:

Minnesota is the best governed state in America. It also is the most imaginative, farsighted, and ambitious. Its finest contribution to the art of politics--the latest of many--is a new kind of metro­ politan government, more sophisticated and successful than anything of the kind attempted elsewhere. Already it is being recognized as a beacon for the rest of the country--and even for people overseas, from Tokyo to London, who are searching for some way to make their giant cities livable.

81 CHAPTER 10 - SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS IN THE GOVERNMENTAL REORGANIZATION PROCESS

Man 1 s greatest discovery is not fire, or the wheel, or the combustion engine, or atomic energy, or any­ thing in the material world. Man 1 s greatest dis­ covery is teamwork by agreement. Brewster Jennings

In previous chapters there have been noted many examples of teamwork by agreement that have drawn national attention to our state and metropolitan area. The best example of this is the sequence of events leading to the pas­ sage of the Metropolitan Council Act in 1967. Here everyone was convinced that the time for a metropolitan council had come; there was a strong consensus for some sort of metropolitan agency; yet there was a chance that the opportu­ nity could be 11 blown 11 without well-organized teamwork. The teamwork was at­ tained and a metropolitan council bill adopted. The reward for the effort was legislation which afforded an opportunity to the area to set the pace nationally for an efficient, effective, and in­ novative metropolitan government. Some feel this is what triggered the name

11 Minnesota Experiment. 11 There were other earlier examples of cooperation and teamwork in the metropolitan area that set the stage for, and really can be considered a part of, the long-range Minnesota Experiment. For example, the creation of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Sewer District tMSSD) and the Metropolitan Airports Com­ mission (MAC) were excellent examples of intergovernmental cooperation (Min­ neapolis and St. Paul) with legislative sanction. The legislation for the Metropolitan Planning Commission came about

through the efforts of the area 1 s municipalities. They wanted metropolitan planning to provide a framework for local planning. So they combined their efforts under their state league and for three sessions of the legislature made their wants known. They were finally heard. It was their teamwork, I believe, that did it. 1977 is the 50th anniversary of the first major effort at metropolitan planning in the area. This was another teamwork effort on the part of govern­ ment, the University, and individuals. It failed; yet its success was in hoisting the flag for metropolitan planning.

82 There are many other things that have contributed to and made possible the Minnesota Experiment. These are significant relationships that can best be understood by looking at the individual agencies or actions involved.

FOUNDATION AND FEDERAL GRANTS

The Ford Foundation has brought financial assistance to Minnesota for a number of years through educational institutions and individual grants. How­ ever, it made a substantial, specific grant to the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council (UMRDC) at a time when economic information about the region was necessary to make intelligent development decisions. The Ford Foundation also financed trips by C. David Loeks, the executive director of MPC, to metropolitan areas in this country and abroad. The locally-based Hill Foundation (now the Northwest Area Foundation) was also a major contributor to the work of UMRDC. Federal grants for the same period were also of great importance as the Minnesota Experiment developed. Section 701 of the Federal Housing Act of 1954 provided planning funds for local government and metropolitan areas. It was the salvation of the MPC during its first two years when local revenue was meager. In subsequent years, federal grants contributed substantially to planning programs of local government, the MPC, and the Metropolitan Council. Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 provided funds to both Minneapolis and St. Paul for their housing and redevelopment projects which, among other things, produced the Capitol Approach Urban Renewal Project in St. Paul and the Gateway Center Urban Renewal Project in Minneapolis.

MUNICIPAL AND COUNTY LEAGUES

The League of Minnesota Municipalities (LMM) and the Association of Min­ nesota Counties (AMC) have made substantial contributions to planning and de­ velopment in the metropolitan area. The story of Ralph Keyes, executive director of AMC, and his single-handed drafting of the County Planning Act in 1959 has already been related. Keyes also made valuable contributions to the County Planning Guide published by the MPC. The work of the LMM in sponsoring legislation creating the MPC has already been mentioned. Both the LMM and the AMC have established metropolitan units of their organizations. Combined, these two metropolitan bodies would constitute for the area what are known

83 today as "councils of governments.'' In effect, they are councils of governments serving in an advisory capacity to agencies in the metropolitan area. They were also part of the team that created the consensus for a metropolitan council. They continue to make valuable contributions toward good planning and development in the metropolitan area.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS

Besides many active local leagues and a large state league, there is also a Council of Metropolitan Area Leagues of Women Voters lCMAL). CMAL has been very active for a number of years and has made numerous valuable contributions toward producing better government. For example, it has produced publications and newsletters dealing with metropolitan area problems. Among these was a 1966 publication titled Minnesota Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. This report is a good run-down on metropolitan and local government in the area. CMAL also produced two other reports under the titles Metropolitan Maze I l1967) and Metropolitan Maze 11 (1971). These pub] ications dealt primarily with the Metropolitan Council, its uniqueness, its problems and functions. The members of CMAL are devoted to their task, questioning but also help-· ing. They are tenacious about tasks assigned to them. For example, Hester Prins, a CMAL observer, began attending meetings of the MPC early in its his­ tory, and when I retired in 1972, she was still attending nearly every meeting of the Metropolitan Council. My experience with CMAL, as well as with the League of Women Voters in ·other parts of the country where I have worked, has shown me that where this organization is active, there is often a citizenry well-informed on govern­ mental issues.

THE CITIZENS LEAGUE

The Citizens League of the Twin Cities area is as unique as the govern­ mental agencies it has helped create. Throughout the country, in planning and civic circles, people ask questions about the unique nature of the Citizens League. Perhaps I would have been one of the questioners a few years ago when I was working in other parbs of the country. My experience with citizens leagues, tax payers leagues, and governmental research bureaus in other cities has not always been pleasant. Too often their subjective approach to their work placed them in a reactionary role

84 regarding any program or proposal that might cost money. Whether or not the proposal would solve governmental problems and eventually save millions was

not the question-- 11 We must show our members that we have saved them money this year! 11 Apparently this has not changed too much in recent years through­ out the country, or there wouldn't be the wide interest shown in our Citizens League. Throughout this writing, I have made many references to the Citizens League and the many-faceted roles it plays in the area. Yet I have said little about the league itself, what it is and how it works. The widespread interest in the Citizens League created so many and varied inquiries that it became difficult for the league to answer them adequately. In response to this prob­ lem the league invited all those groups interested in its program to an in­ tensive briefing session in April 1976 at the Spring Hill Center in the Twin Cities. Forty persons from 19 different regions throughout the country at­ tended.

The Citizens League began informally in Minneapolis during the 1940 1 s. It centered around an emerging group of young businessmen concerned with good government. In 1952 the league was formally organized. Local businesses guaranteed $30,000 a year for three years for its operation. Staff members were hired and research began.

Early, the Citizens League found itself reacting to issues such as 11 Should there be an additional three mills for parks? 11 The change in this role came when the league criticized a program submitted to it, but then offered a sub­ stitute proposal which was eventually adopted. This experience taught the league that it could be effective in generating its own proposals. The league was first known as the Citizens League of Minneapolis, then of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, and about 1965 it became metropolitan in scope and membership, known only as the Citizens League. One of the participants at the Spring Hill briefing pointed out that an important contribution of the league is its ability to 11 remove the partisan/ political element from the issue side of local public affaiirs. 11 The Citizens League of the Twin Cities area has built for itself a per­ manent place in the decision-making process by doing an outstanding job of study and analysis and providing recommendations that challenge the community 1 s point of view. The league was one of the principals in the teamwork that produced the Metropolitan Council Act and has been active since in getting needed additional legislation.

85 THE ROLE OF BUSINESS

The central cities• Chambers of Commerce had long been in support of their cities• redevelopment projects and planning endeavors, Minneapolis through its Downtown Council and St. Paul through its Metropolitan Improvement Committee. When sentiment began to pick up for a metropolitan council, Dennis Dunne, chairman of the Minneapolis chamber's .legislative committee, felt that the chamber had a significant role to play in the scene that was developing. It was clear, however, that the job of involving the business community of the entire area could not be done by the Minneapolis chamber alone. Late in 1965, Dunne made arrangements to discuss the matter with John Hay, executive direc­ tor of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. Hay was enthusiastic about joining forces with Minneapolis in the effort. After seven weeks of planning, the two chambers called a joint meeting with the suburban chambers and the Upper Mid­ west Research and Development Council. As a result of this meeting, a 15- member urban action committee was formed with Dunne as its chairman and Ron Pratt of St: Paul as secretary. By September 1966, this committee had an eight-point program recommending a metropolitan council to submit to the sev­ eral chambers. The proposal was endorsed by the central cities• chambers and five major suburban groups. This represented 73 percent of the membership of all the metropolitan Chambers of Commerce. With this strong support for an elected metropolitan multipurpose opera- . ting district, Dunne organized a group to draft a bill for the 1967 l~gislature. Dunne and his committee followed through and did a superb job of lobbying in the legislature for their bill, seeing it through to its compromised con­ clusion. Three from the committee became members of the Metropolitan Council:

Hetland, Dunne, and LeFevere; Hetland was named the council 1 s first chairman.

POLITICAL PARTIES

Both political parties supported the concept of a multipurpose metropoli­ tan body with powers to coordinate planning and development in the metropol i­ tan area. Since 1966 was an election year, the metropolitan agency proposals were in the party platforms. The Democratic-Farm-Labor (DFL) proposals were more specific than those in the Republican plank. Yet both planks were surprisingly close. Each

86 candidate for governor, Harold Levander and Karl Rolvaag, had his own personal proposal, yet stood behind the plank in his party 1 s platform. Three other Minnesota governors have been on record favoring the metropolitan approach to planning and development problem solving. During the 1957 campaign for the establishment of a metropolitan planning commission, Governor Orville L. Freeman (DFL) threw his support behind the metropolitan planning bill being sponsored by Senator-Elmer Anderson (GOP, later governor). This bipartisan support assured passage of the bill. Gov­ ernor Freeman, in addressing the Metropolitan Planning Commission at its first meeting, stated that the commission had an unprecedented opportunity to plan for a great future for the Twin Cities metropolitan area. In 1961, Elmer Anderson, then governor, sponsored a conf~rence on metropol­ itan issues. The conference focused on the importance of the metropolitan approach to problem solving. Wendell Anderson supported Metropolitan Council legislation while a member of the Minnesota legislature. Later, as governor, he supported legis­ lation that clarified the role of the council and gave it additional responsi­ b i 1 it i es. So, we find that the metropolitan approach to problem solving was not only supported by the Minnesota legislature, but that there was consistent, strong support from both political parties.

THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE

The work and character of the Minnesota legislature has been discussed in nearly every one of the preceding chapt~rs. In brief, the record shows that:

• the legislature is cooperative and understanding with the public, but it is not a patsy; • the legislature is willing to listen if the people have done their homework and the issues are clear; • the legislature is willing to experiment if the stakes are not too high and if the results may be rewarding; • the legislature favors protecting the environment and producing a high quality of 1 ife for Minnesota citizens; and • the legislature needs no precedent for legislative action. The cri­ terion is whether it is reasonable, needed, and affordable,

87 This appraisal, in a strict sense, cannot be assumed to be legislative pol icy. Personnel and parties active in the legislature change from time to time. On occasion, the legislature has been known to lose its objectivity, temporarily, and when this happens, the press is there to keep everyone honest--which it does! A good example of this was an editorial appearing in the Sunday St. Paul Pioneer Press (26 June 1977). Late in the 1977 legislative session a rider attached to a bill provided for a reduction in the terms of four veteran mem­ bers of the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) from four years to 18 months. The Metropolitan Council is authorized to appoint members to the MTC. Action by the council in filling these positions prompted.the editorial which severely criticized the legislature and the council for their action. When the Metropolitan Council was created, it was hoped by those who had worked for its creation that an effort would be made to maintain some sem­ blance of non-partisanship on the council. Among the first appointees made by a Republican governor were two known active DFL members. Several other members chosen from the civic community had no quickly identifiable political affiliation. During the first five years of council operation, I can recall no action by the council that had any political overtones. In spite of the action of the 1977 legislative session on the MTC, I would have to stay with my original view of the legislature. My appraisal is from the long look, over a period of years and decades, when political control shifted from one party to the other or there was a fair balance of each. From that vantage point, I would say the legislators deserve the title of "innovative experimenters" given them by many journalists who have been writing about the Minnesota Experiment.

PLANNING GROUPS

There are two planning groups in the state that, very quietly, have per­ formed valuable service to the state and the metropolitan area. These are the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Planners (MAIP) and the Minnesota Planning Association (MPA). Both organizations have conducted educational sessions for themselves and the area on current issues and problems. MAIP is an organization of professional planners affiliated with the American Institute of Planners {AIP). Their concerns are more than their own professional interests. They are concerned with new techniques in development of plans, and with the integrity of the profession as it relates to government.

88 The MPA is an organization, primarily, of public officials who are in­ terested in planning at the local and regional levels. The function performed by MPA at the state level is similar to that performed by the American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) at the national level. The concern of MPA is to keep the operating local official apprised of changes in the law and other regulations that might affect his operation. MPA provides its members with publications on these matters and has at least one statewide planning confer­ ence each year. An example of the quiet way in which MAIP and MPA have been of service to the area was their development of new state planning laws for local government. For many years state laws for local planning were almost nonexistent. When a local need arose, some piecemeal state planning laws were passed, but these were not comprehensive in nature. Most planning commissions lacked the legal tools to perform their normal functions. The MAIP and MPA undertook the proj­ ect of preparing good state enabling legislation for local planning. They worked with committees of the state legislature over a period of several ses­ sions. By the mid-196O's, their work was done, and the suggested legislation adopted. One person, Lawrence Irvin, provided the continuity for this effort--he was with it from beginning to end. Irvin, Minneapolis director of planning, was the secretary-treasurer of MPA and later, president of MAIP. He, almost singlehandedly, coordinated the efforts of the two agencies to produce the much needed legislation.

UNIVERSITY RELATED GROUPS

In Chapters 4 and 9, I dealt extensively with the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council {UMRDC) and its contribution to the Minnesota Experiment. I might add that the UMRDC represented the top-level people in business and industry in the Twin Cities area and throughout the upper midwest. The weight and influence they had in their support of the metropolitan council concept will never be known, but it was substantial. For many years the University of Minnesota, through its various depart­ ments and faculty, has been active in state and metropolitan community affairs. For example, Robert Jones, professor of architecture, was one of the prime movers in the endeavor to establish a metropolitan planning and development association in 1927. Clarence Ludwig, professor of political science and

89 secretary of the League of Minnesota Municipalities, played an unusually important role in the establishment of the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) as described in Chapter 4. James Hetland, professor of law, served numerous community agencies, including the Citizens League, and became the first chairman of the Metropolitan Council. Arthur Naftalin, professor of political science, served as director of administration at the state level and later, as mayor of Minneapolis, exerted a strong influence on action for a metropolitan council. There is an endless list of others including David Graven, former Univer­ sity professor of law, and Stanley Kegler, a University associate vice presi­ dent, both of whom have served on the Metropolitan Council. In an effort to formalize this kind of University activity, the regents of the University of Minnesota established the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) in the spring of 1967. It was hoped that CURA would help make the University even more responsive to the needs of the larger community and increase the constructive interaction between faculty and students on the one hand and those dealing directly with major public problems on the other. In so doing, the center facilitates change in programs and priorities for the faculty and students at a time of great change in the wider community. Hence, all CURA programs are pilot, experimental, or short-term. CURA's work in the area of urban and regional studies (environmental quality, landuse, housing, transportation, fiscal studies, and intergovern­ mental affairs) has grown in importance during the past ten years, as was the • original intention. The center is a valuable resource in the metropolitan area's effort to tie the University into its ongoing planning and development programming.

THE METROPOLITAN PRESS

The metropolitan press was one of the most significant factors in the move toward the metropolitan approach for solving urban problems. Long before there was anything like a consensus among the area's people and institutions for a metropolitan approach, the metropolitan newspapers were editorializing on the subject. For example, on 2 January 1965 an editorial appeared in the

Minneapolis Tribune titled "The Future of Metropolitan Planning. 11 It voiced concern about the role of MPC and its relation to local government. The edi­ torial asked:

90 Is the MPC to grow into a policy-making agency responsible for carrying out the metropolitan plan now being prepared? If so, it probably ought to be fully representative of the various public interests in the Twin Cities area .... What's missing is any clear voice speaking for the purely metropolitan point of view. Why not let the MPC play the role fully?

As a consensus began to grow for some sort of metropolitan agency, the centra) cities' papers pretty much agreed on an elected body with powers to plan and control a variety of functions. The first ring suburb's newspapers were generally in accord with the central cities' press. However, those papers serving the fringe and rural areas still opposed anything resembling metropol­ itan government. The central cities' press had a number of highly capable writers, both reporters and editorial, who covered metropolitan developments almost daily. These included Ted Kolderie, Jonathan Friendly, Peter Vanderpoel, Peter Ackerberg, and others. In 1968, when the council was developing its metropolitan sewerage plan and preparing for the 1969 legislative session, many of the earlier opponents to the council bill reversed their attitudes and praised the council's work and activities. These included harsh opponents in the legislature and many representatives of the suburban press. This reversal of attitude was extreme­ ly helpful to the council in obtaining the large package of new legislation which it requested of the 1969 legislative session.

SUMMARY

There were perhaps other significant relationships that were a part of the teamwork that produced the Metropolitan Council. What I have tried to do here is to show that the Metropolitan Council didn't just happen overnight. It was not something that was dreamed up in a smoke-filled room and foisted upon the people the next day using "political boss" or "steam-roller" tactics. Neither was it created hurriedly by a knight in shining armor riding into the legislative halls on his fiery steed saying, "Onward and upward! We must have a Metropolitan Council!" The Metropolitan Council is a product of the people, its agencies and institutions. It was born of compromise, in the democratic process. At first it was a bit weak and anemic, but it grew in strength and stature as time went

91 by. Now its program and related work are heralded as the 11 Minnesota Experi­ ment.11 All who have had a part in this effort should be proud. But the council is not an end in itself! It is a commencement--a new problem-solving tool that had been missing. However, if the council is to maintain its stature and credibility in the metropolitan community it must prove itself, continuously, with selfless dedication plus objective, non-political action by all of its members. The Minnesota Experiment must continue. Those metropolitan problems and issues that have been pigeonholed should now be brought out and confronted. New horizons are ahead--new goals must be set.

92 CHAPTER 11 - CONTINUING THE EXPERIMENT

The future of Minnesota will be influenced greatly by the legacy of the past, by the con­ ditions of the present, and by national and international factors beyond the state's control. But Minnesotans can take some sig­ nificant actions to help shape the future of their state community. Among these are the decisions made every day by individuals, by organizations, and by government that will influence the life styles of Minnesotans for many years to come. January 1977 Report of the Commission on Minnesota's Future

This bit of philosophy explains, at least in part, the reason for the Minnesota Experiment. This belief of Minnesotans that they do have some control over their destiny and that they can face problems with creative ideas and ingenious solutions, has attracted much attention to our state in recent years. In 1973 the legislature established the Commission on Minnesota's

Future. The charge to the commission was 11 to prepare, for consideration by the Governor and the Legislature, a proposed state growth and development strategy. 11 This was to include preparing reports and assembling relevant information regarding the state's future and to examine the long-range plans of the ~tate departments and agencies, including the University of Minnesota, state colleges, and junior colleges. Special reports have been produced in these areas over the past four years. The commission has also co-sponsored two legislative symposiums, one in 1975 and again in 1977, titled "Minnesota Horizons. 11 Seldom does the legislature, as a group, hav~ the opportunity to be briefed on the status of the state--its people, its economy, its natural and human-made environ­ ments. These symposiums provided an opportunity for the individual legislators to participate in a comprehensive review of where we are going as a state. At the 1977 symposium, leaders of the Minnesota legislature expressed great appreciation for the valuable briefing. They inferred that, too often, the legislature is pressed to act on bills with inadequate informa­ tion, and added that this kind of briefing would allow the legislature to

93 face the coming session with considerable confidence. However, they warned that the magnitude of the problems ahead would require "bold,

imaginative action11 by future legislative sessions. Many of the problems before the legislature each session are metro­ politan problems. The legislature has an excellent track record in metropolitan affairs. However, there are a few rather troublesome problems that still exist in the area, and will require the suggested bold, imagina­ tive action. Here are a few of the problems.

ELECTED vs. APPOINTED METROPOLITAN COUNCIL

This subject has been before the legislature in each session since creation of the Metropolitan Council in 1967, including the recent 1977 session. The subject no doubt creates a dilemma for the legislature that it would like to resolve once and for all. The April-June 1977 issue of Perspectives, a quarterly publication of the Metropolitan Council, contains an article dealing in depth with this subject. The author is Robert C. Einsweiler, planning consultant, who is highly qualified to speak on the subject. Einsweiler has a long history of involvement with metropolitan affairs in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. He served as director of planning and assistant director of the MPC, and as director of planning for several years with the Metropolitan Council. Einsweiler points out:

The spirited public debate on an elected versus appointed Metropolitan Council is now entering its eleventh year. While a good deal of time has passed, the focus of the debate remains un­ changed. That is, which selection process would yield the most able and productive Metro­ politan Council members? The question is important, yet concentration on that issue has led to a rather narrow discussion and to the exclusion of other, more important, considera­ tions.

The article then reviews the matter of the council 1 s relationship with local government and with the state. Einsweiler then concludes:

The most significant question, then, is do we see an emerging council role toward greater

94 autonomy with a greater capacity to allo­ cate resources across functions within the region, or do we see the role more tightly linked with state operating agencies? That should be the basis for voting on election or appointment.

Einsweiler feels that, however the question is answered, the relationship with local governments will not change much. Others have commented on this problem, including the Citizens League. Einsweiler poses a new and interesting approach. Hearings are how being held on this subject by the Minnesota legislature.

THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL--ADMINISTRATION

The position of chairman of the council was set up originally as a half-time or part-time job with a full-time executive head for council staff operation. Each of the three council chairmen chosen so far have had different backgrounds, but for the job of Council policy head and presiding officer their experience was more than adequate. During the term of Albert J. Hofstede, the second chairman, the position gradually changed from part-time to full-time. This situation created a problem with staff; they weren 1 t sure just who was in charge, the chairman or the executive director. When John Boland became chairman, he was full-time from the start. He was eager to learn all he could about the council operation and to become a good chairman. This involvement compounded the problem with staff that Hofstede had experienced. Eventually Robert Jorvig, executive director for seven years, announced his resignation with the statement that Boland was qualified an~ experienced enough to handle the job as executive head of the council as well as chairman. Boland then announced his intention to assume the duties of executive director. The

Council Act makes the chairman the council 1 s executive head with the option to have an executive director if he chooses. It appears that Boland is doing a good job and is to be commended for carrying such a heavy workload and critical responsibility. The problem I raise is not in the present situation, but rather when there is a political change in the administration of the governor 1 s office. This would undoubtedly cause a change in council leadership. If the

95 position of combined chairman and executive head is to be the future pattern, then the method of choosing a new chairman must change. Selecting a chairman in this situation must follow the same nationwide search method I that W6S c0nducted in filling the position of the first executive director. If this is not done and an unqualified inexperienced person is placed in this position, it would mean playing politics with an agency that has become a very critical and important part of our metropolitan life. The position, then, must be looked upon as a professional career, not a temporary, part-time job or stepping stone to political office. As the law now reads, an experienced chairman could resign; then a new chairman could appoint the experienced past-chairman as the executive director, thus creating two top-level political appointments. The operation of an agency such as the Metropolitan Council should not be subjected periodically to the possibility of long gaps or slow­ downs in good management due to unnecessary political maneuvering for the top executive job(s). It seems the format for the top council official should be settled once and for all. If we need an executive director one time, perhaps we need one at all times. If we do not need an executive

director, then the "chairman-executive head11 approach should have some built-in safeguards to guarantee continuity in the efficient top management of the council and particularly at the time of transition from one admin­ istration to another and from one chairman to another. Perhaps this is an area for study with firm recommendations to be transmitted to the legislature very soon. In the light of ten years of experience with the council and its growing responsibility, shouldn't the legislature rethink the provisions of the original Council Act concerning the strong role of the chairman?

GOVERNMENTAL REORGANIZATICN

Urban dwellers, it seems, should expect to live in a community that provides a full range of urban services. In 1971, the Metropolitan Council made a survey of "local governmental services" in 186 cities, villages, and townships. Nine basic urban services were used. Among townships, only two of the nine services were provided by 50 percent or more of the units; the remaining seven services appeared in only one-third or less of the

96 units. Among municipalities, three-fourths performed six of the nine services, and half had eight. The entire seven county area, except for a small part of southern Dakota County, is now either incorporated or the townships have urban powers. Shouldn't we look at a reorganizational plan that would pull together logical groupings of local units of government into responsible local entities with resources adequate to perform urban functions? Shouldn't the entire metropolitan area be included in some municipal corporation? In 1975 I attended a luncheon seminar sponsored by the American Society of Public Administration, the Metropolitan Area City Managers Association, and the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Planners. The subject for the seminar was "Making Decisions about Urban Growth." The general conclusions at the seminar seemed to be that "the big problem in getting well-planned growth in the metropolitan area is the lack of well-managed government at the local level." Participants at the seminar commented as follows:

Stephen Aln£s, associate editor, Minneapolis Star: "My city, [Mahtomedi] is too small to have the necessary resources to cope with planning, ed­ ucation, and other needed functions." Bob Jorvig, executive director, Metropolitan Council: "We need good planning and management at the local level if the metropolitan frame­ work is to be effective. A bill is being submitted to the Minnesota legislature asking that planning be required of all local govern­ ments. If they do not respond, then efforts will be made to get financial aid from some­ where, plus staff help from the Metropolitan Council. 11 George Hite, Dayton-Hudson Properties: •~ne of the problems faced by private developers is the need for more depth of good management in local government. 11 Jim Willis, city manager, Plymouth: "The dis­ couraging thing in government is that the 11 do-nothing11 communities profit at the expense of the alive and active communities." John Cottingham, city manager, Coon Rapids: "When a well-managed community tries to set bounds for development in an effort to get

97 orderly, economic growth, the effort is often voided by having a non-planning, do-nothing neighbor which gets the scatter development anyway. 11

The bill to which Mr. Jorvig referred was the 1976 landuse planning bill which passed the Minnesota legislature and is now being implemented. This is a big first step along the way. We soon will h2ve well-planned cities with plans coordinated with metropolitan plans. But well-planned is not necessarily well-managed and developed. There is the matter of adequate resources and full-time competent employees to manage the plan and coordinate the development. In the 1975 legislative session, a bill was sponsored by Senator John Chenoweth which required all metropolitan communities under 5,000 population to consolidate with some neighbor by mid-1977. This affected 109 of 196 area municipalities and townships. The reaction to the bill was a great cry in defense of small communities. It is true that big is not always better, but small is often too little. The Citizens League in 1974 issued a report titled Local Government in a Ti~e of Transition. It was an excellent report covering all aspects of the problem and making a series of formal recommendations. As far as I know, there has been little response to the report or its recommendations except, perhaps, the effort of Senator Chenoweth. A major proposal was that a citizens commission be appointed to study the organization of local

government in the metropolitan area. The league 1 s report commented on its recommendation as follows:

Because of the broad nature of the issue, we think that any study of the organization of local government in the metropolitan area will be unsuccessful unless the members of the study group are able to concentrate their full attention on that one subject. More­ over, we think that any study undertaken by an existing local governmental agency, such as the Metropolitan Council, for instance, will be somewhat limited in its potential effectiveness because of the suspicions officials of other local governmental agencies would undoubtedly have that such a study would primarily benefit the agency undertaking the study. For this reason we believe it is im­ perative that any comprehensive study of local

98 government be directed by a citizens commission and not by a commission com­ posed of representatives of existing local governmental bodies.

It seems the time has come for a serious consideration of the Citizens League's recommendations. Such a citizens commission might consider: What is "local government," or what is "local" in a governmental sense? What is the minimum size for an efficient municipality? Should all municipalities be required to meet the standards required by the Minnesota Municipal Commission for new incor­ porations?

FISCAL DISPARITY

The term "fiscal disparity" is used to describe the difference which exists in the taxpaying capabilities of the various taxing jurisdictions in the metropolitan area, and the differing needs for local governmental services by the residents of these jurisdictions. Taxpaying capability and the need for governmental services vary greatly from community to community and from school district to school district. For some time the Metropolitan Council and Citizens L_eague worked on this problem, and eventually produced legislation known as the Fiscal Dis­ parities Bill, or the Weaver Bill. -· The Fiscal Disparities Act provides for a sharing of 40 percent of all metropolitan commercial-industrial growth according to a formula based on population, wealth, and property value. The act was challenged in the courts but was declared constitutional. There was some resistance at first to the act by the 11 have11 communities. However, for several years now, the distributions under the act have been made without much comment. Another look at fiscal disparity might be suggested, considering some of the problems that have been developing, particularly with school districts. School budgets are being cut, pupil state-aid is down, some nearly new unpaid-for schools are being closed, teachers are not being rehired, and mergers of districts are being considered. School districts that were happy with their almost autonomous position_for many years now look a bit longingly toward assistance of some sort from other budgets or some kind of intergovernmental fiscal arrangement. It is clear that the disparity

99 problem has not dissolved or gone away with the advent of the 40 percent formula. Perhaps it would be feasible to increase the disparity percentage 5 percent a year for 12 years, so that by 1990 fiscal disparity among our communities could be further reduced.

THE LAND VALUE TAX vs. AD VALOREM REAL ESTATE TAX

Perhaps the most time-worn phrase in the halls of Congress and state

legislatures is 11 tax reform. 11 What a cumbersome thing to tackle, and how futile most past efforts have been! The most troublesome tax of all is the one providing the bulk of the revenue for local government--the ad valorem (according to value) real estate tax. Originally, this tax was progressive in that its use resulted in direct functional benefits to the property. In recent years, it has

become a highly regressive tax. We keep trying to fi X it as conditions change, but 1 i ke the rotten garden hose, when we fix it in one place, it bursts in another. Many experts say it can 1 t be fixed. In 1971 , Rolland Hatfield then state auditor, pointed out that the legislative effort that year to hold down the property tax did not work due to the many special

exemptions. Of course exemptions are another effort at 11 f i xi ng. '' There is also the perennial problem of tax exempt property protected either by statute or the constitution. There have also been many efforts to fix this leak-in-the-garden-hose, but with meager results. The ad valorem tax rewards dilapidation and slum conditions, and works against the best efforts for planning a quality environment. Perhaps we could find a new basis for taxing real estate. Maybe the answer would be a combination of taxation and assessments. A substitute

tax plan for consideration is known as the 11 land value tax. 11 Here the land (not the buildings) is taxed for its potentially highest use or publicly planned use. The land tax forces the right development on the land and rewards a high quality of maintenance. In Brisbane, Australia, where this form of taxation has been used for many years, officials brag that they have no slums, and they have a high degree of private development and redevelopment. The land tax is also being used in New Zealand and British Columbia, and on an experimental basis in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

100 To supplement the land value tax, a schedule of assessments and service fees could be established to require tax exempt property to pay for a fair share of the governmental services rendered to it. Such action would bring equity into the taxing process, and would produce automatic cooperation with governmental planning and development. Many are becoming impatient with the use of the worn out, regressive ad valorem tax. For example, a bill in the 1977 Minnesota legislature called for the outright repeal of the property tax. Perhaps when something can no longer be fixed, it is time to get rid of it! To my knowledge, there has never been a serious, exhaustive study of the land value tax by the Minnesota legislature or any other Minnesota agency or group. Since sentiment seems to be building for repeal of the ad valorem property tax, and since trying to fix it consumes more and more time in each legislative session with no permanent results, wouldn't it be ad­ visable to make a study of the land value tax as it might apply to Minnesota, so that we will be aware of the potential of at least one major taxing alternative?

THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY

The Minnesota Experimental City was conceived in the 1960 1 s by Athelstan Spilhaus, then dean of the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology. It came about as the result of a task force on pollution which Dean Spilhaus headed. In 1965 he wrote an article describing the idea. To activate it, an organization was set up for study and recommenda­ tions. The idea was called the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). Local contributions plus a federal grant got the study started. After four years of intensive study, the MXC idea was presented to the 1969 Minnesota legislature. Committees from each house were charged with bringing recommendations to the 1971 session. An authority was recommended and authorized at the 1971 session. It provided for an 11 member body to be appointed by the governor. The authority worked hard to bring its recommendations to the 1973 legislative session where it recommended sites, appropriate financing, and steps to implement the recommendations. However, the Minnesota Pol Jut ion Control Agency (PCA) voted eight to one to urge the legislature

101 to abandon the project. The authority ceased operation when its enabling legislation ran out 30 June 1973. There may have been some sol id reasons for this abrupt action over a much heralded and much studied proposal--a proposal that had again put the state in the role of an innovative experimenter, and had the nation as well as the world watching. Since then, Japan and other nations have moved in the direction of the experimental cities concept. The PCA's opposition had little substance. It also seemed paradoxical that the PCA would vote down a concept originally conceived as an effort for pollution control. The PCA pointed out that a better course for the legislature to take would be to spend the money helping existing cities with their many problems. This, of course, is what the experimental city concept was al I about, only on a long-range and more permanent basis. Since 1973 much valuable.time has been lost, and, in the meantime, the ugly head of the energy crisis has emerged to frighten us all. Energy is another area of concern to the MXC. Many other urgent problems of common interest to MXC and PCA have not gone away. Neither have the .. problems of existing cities been helped by the state in any special way as result of the abandonment of the project. Shall we continue to try to solve all of our urban problems by running along behind, trying to correct mistakes as they are made (but never really catching up); or shall we experiment co~prehensively with all aspects of urban life, and then, with knowledge and experience help our cities prevent urban problems not just solve the old ones? There certainly should be some substitute for doing nothing in this critical area. Some have suggested an urban experimental laboratory fashioned somewhat after the extensive agricultural experiment station and programs that operate on a continuous

basis. Shouldn 1 t the idea of an experimental city have another review?

COMMISSION ON MINNESOTA'S FUTURE

In the opening paragraphs of this chapter, I discussed the Commission on Minnesota's Future and its function. The commission was set up for only a four-year period, 1973-1977. Its operation ceased 30 June 1977. A final recommendation of the commission was the establishment of an institute for the analysis of public choices to carry on the work it had

102 started. No action was taken on the committee's recommendation by the 1977 legislative session. However, as enthusiastic as members of the

legislature seemed to be at the 1977 symposium, 11 Horizons I I , 11 I am sure there will be support for a continuing effort of some sort. If the state would not favor a wholly state-financed institute, perhaps we should con­ sider a joint effort--for example, a privately financed institute with some financial help and sanction from the state. As another possibility, the function could become a department in some state agency, su~h as legislative research or the State Planning Agency. Many concur that it has been good to have an agency monitoring potential future problems of the state and reporting regularly. Wouldn't it be in the state's interest to continue it in some form?

, THE STANDARD METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREA

The Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) is an area created by the federal Office of Management and Budget (0MB) to identify the metropolitan areas in the United States. Except in the New England states, an SMSA is a county with a central city(ies) having a population of at least 50,000. Adjacent counties are considered a part of the SMSA if they are socially and economically integrated with the central city(ies). In the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, this definition increased the size of the-Twin Cities SMSA from five counties in 1960 to ten counties in 1970. For the 1960 census, the SMSA was Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Dakota, and Washington Counties. The 1970 census added five more counties to the SMSA namely Scott, Carver, Chisago, and Wright Counties in Minnesota, and St. Croix County in Wisconsin. Scott and Carver Counties have been a part of the Metropolitan Council area since 1967. Questions arise now about adding the other three counties to the council for convenience and for planning. For example, regional planning agencies are often required to review federal grant applications for all counties in the SMSA. This would create problems in this area, as the Metropolitan Council has no plans or policies for the three new counties, particularly St. Croix County in Wisconsin. Adding St. Croix County would require an interstate compact or other agreement before it could be included in the Metropolitan Council area.

103 Staff at the council have indicated that some minor problems have been encountered in establishing some new programs with the federal govern­ ment when it was assumed that the council would include all ten counties in the 1970 SMSA. These problems were resolved, however. Some contact has been made with the three counties by Metropolitan Council staff, but little interest was indicated by any of them in having more than a neighborly relationship. It now appears that there may be more and more pressure from the federal government to include all ten counties, especially with the 1980 census only two years away. There is also the problem of the metropolitan framework in the

council 1 s Development Guide, which controls development and the extension of urban services. In some instances, the controls may encourage the leapfrogging of development into the non-council counties causing premature urban development in predominantly rural areas.

Wouldn't it be in the area 1 s interest to begin formal dialogue between the Metropolitan Council and the three new counties (Chisago, Wright, and St. Croix, Wisconsin), to discuss all the problems that the new SMSA alignment might imply or produce? The two Minnesota counties are already a part of other state planning regions.

SUMMARY

The eight items just reviewed are not all new. They fall into several categories. For example, the Minnesota Experimental City and the Commission on Minnesota's Future are programs that had successful initial efforts and appeared to be destined to continue for some time. However, their authorizations had termination dates, and they were allowed to expire. Fiscal disparity has been met with a law that partially wipes out the tax disparity among units of local government, but a formula for increasing its effectiveness is suggested. The land value tax, local government reorgani­ zation, and elected versus appointed Metropolitan Council are all unresolved issues which are important to the solution of many other problems. The new questions posed deal with the powers of the chairman of the Metropolitan Council and the enlarged SMSA for council operation.

104 I call these matters to the attention of the metropolitan area because as a citizen, a professional planner, and a former Metropolitan Council executive, I am deeply concerned. I know that all of these matters cannot be given immediate attention, but most of the items deserve at least an early review or reappraisal. I have expressed considerable faith in the Minnesota legislature and its willingness to go along with legislation if it is in the best interests of the state, and if the sponsors are willing to assume the responsibility that the legislation implies. think this appraisal is still valid. If enough community concern is shown on any of the eight items, legislative action will follow. Vehicles for legislative action include continuing legislative committees, and the recently established annual legislative sessions. Is there enough community interest in these items to get the attention of the legislature? can not see how the metropolitan community can turn its back on most of these issues and still feel we are continuing the Minnesota Experiment. To live up to our past, we must continue to face frontally the area's major problems. Timidity or political expediency will not do

it. The 11 bo 1d, i magi native act i on 11 referred to by 1eg is 1at i ve 1eaders at Horizons I I must be brought into play. In the past, action on issues has been obtained through community

11 teamwork-by-agreement. 11 Such interest and community teamwork can again be productive, and may be necessary for obtaining the desired action. This brings to a conclusion the brief history of fifty years of experimental planning and development in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. My temptation along the way was·to make a thesis or two out of each chapter. I hope University of Minnesota graduate students in political science, planning, and other related fields will choose for their research some of the problems, issues, and subjects identified herein. This paper is also intended to introduce such students to the Vance Papers which are temporarily housed in the offices of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota. I hope this brief history will produce another important result; that is, to help every agency, institution, or individual that has been a part of this process to see more clearly the significance of each

105 contribution. I hope it will inspire them, and others, not to rest upon their laurels but to face the challenging horizons and set new goals-­ goals that will forever keep us striving for a better quality of life

and 11 for the perfection of all our citizens. 11

106 APPENDIX A - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VANCE PAPERS

The Vance Papers are the personal files of John E. Vance collected over a period of 40 years in government service. They contain basic materials in the areas of urban planning, contemporary urban problems,and government re­ organization. Major emphasis in the files is on the working papers and docu­ ments of the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Council. In addition, there are local newspaper clippings on items related to Twin City metropolitan government and urban problems. The clippings cover 1958 through June of 1977. Many local newsletters and reports are also included in these files. An idea of the breadth of the files can be obtained by reading through Suggested Subject Areas for Research in this Appendix.

TIPS TO RESEARCHERS

The Vance Papers have been annotated and indexed as an aid to the re­ searcher. They consist of 16 file drawers, A-Q. At the front of each drawer there is a contents sheet for that drawer, plus an index for all 16 drawers. The drawers are arranged in their historical or chronological order. There are several ways to use the files:

1. You may use drawers A through J to follow the story of planning in Minnesota, depending largely on the Vance Papers. 2. You may use the clippings in drawers Kand L (1958-1977). If you had no other source of information but these two drawers, you could still do an excellent job of research. Copies of news­ paper stories can be obtained from the large newspapers• micro­ film files if you know the exact date and edition plus some idea of the head] ine. Drawers Kand L contain clips from all papers, big and small, urban and rural, filed chronologically. If you have an approximate date in mind, pull that file and you're in the midst of delightful research. Instead of one or two clips, you have dozens. 3. Another approach is researching through newsletters. These are in drawers N and 0. For example, the Metropolitan Planning Com­ mission and the Metropolitan Council newsletters give you 20 years of history. Much of the material is condensed, digested, and readily usable.

107 4. A fourth approach is researching through minutes--the official record. File drawer P has all the minutes of the Metropolitan Planning Commission and its committees, 1957-1967. The cor­ responding information for the Metropolitan Council is found in files 0-7 and 0-8. These files give weekly summaries of actions of the Metropolitan Council and related agencies. 0-7 is a file of newsletters called Action Briefs and 0-8 is newsletters titled Review.

So you have four ways to go with your research. Go the way you I ike best. I ike to use them all!

SUGGESTED SUBJECT AREAS FOR RESEARCH

The subjects listed are grouped under eight classifications. Vance File references are listed for drawers A through J. Additional material will be found in the clipping file drawers Kand L, newsletter file drawers N and O, and minutes file drawer P.

I. GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE A. The Control of Municipal Incorporation, Annexation, Consolidation and Detachment An analysis of the operation of the Minnesota Municipal Com­ mission (MMC) - its uniqueness and effect on landuse planning, Vance File References: B9, Ell, B8a, B8b

B. Responsibility at the Municipal Level A study - to determine the minimum size of municipalities needed to provide normal governmental services; and to provide a framework for governmental reorganization to accomplish the needed consolidation. Vance File References: Ell, E2e-1

C. Decentralized New Towns for Defense A study to determine the advisability of developing new towns for defense purposes. Decentralization of defense industries and dispersal of population. (The Russian Program) Vance File References: E15, E2e, A12, C20

D. Controlled Size of Metropolitan Areas An analysis: Should metropolitan area growth be stopped at a certain point by state law and federal policy, for defense reasons? Shouldn't metropolitan areas be given a chance to

108 catch up on their redevelopment and concentrate on ''quality of 1 ife11 rather than struggling to keep up with unhaltered growth? Vance File References: E15, E2e, A12, C20

E. Voluntary Councils and Metropolitan Development A study and analysis of voluntary Councils of Governments (COGs), their role and limitations in metropolitan planning and development. Vance File References: E2e, E3, E4, ES, ElO

F. The Minnesota Experiment A study and analysis of the so-called "Minnesota Experiment." Definition, significance, and bibliography. Vance File References: M2-8, A3-1962-67, A2-1969

I I. FISCAL EQUITY IN TAXATION A. A solution to Regressive Property Taxation A study of the "land value tax." It taxes the land--not the buildings. Eliminates rewards for dilapidation. Vance File References: E2a, E2c, E2d, M9

B. Effect of Urban Growth on Rural Land A study of the Minnesota Green Acres Law protecting farm land from premature inflation. Also, a report on similar efforts in other states. Vance File References: E2a, G6g, E2c, E2d See also Minnesota Statutes

C. Still a Problem - Fiscal Disparity A study to determine a method of further reducing fiscal dis­ parity at the local level in the Twin Cities area. Should 40 percent be only a beginning? Could we gradually attain 100 percent? Does the present school problem foretell future trouble with disparity? Vance File References: E2c, F13, J12, H8

I I I. TRANSPORTATION A. Mass Transit's Role in Urban Development Private versus public ownership. The energy crunch and tran­ sit's future role. Subsidizing transit, trucking, railroads, and airlines. Vance File References: 05c, E2a, CB, 05a, J12, 056, MO, J5b, JSc

109 B. Cooperative Transportation Planning A study showing methods used in the Twin Cities area to co­ ordinate transportation planning. TCATS, Joint Program, etc. The interregional network. MDOT--local conflicts. Vance File References: F3, F23a, F21d, C7, C10, MG, JSa, JSb

C. Changing Problems in Air Transport An analysis of the factors affecting decisions on expansion of airport facilities. The Twin Cities experience. The energy crunch and air transport. Vance File References: B2a, B2b, H3

IV. PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT A. Landuse Planning - A Unique Approach A study of the problems and accomplishments of the Joint Pro­ gram for Landuse and Transportation Planning, 1962-1967. Vance File References: D, 013, M10

B. Evolution of Metropolitan Planning - Twin Cities Area A study of the developing need for metropolitan planning. The . struggles and successes over 50 years in the Twin Cities met­ ropolitan area. Vance File References: C, D, 02, F, G2a, G2b, 07, 08, M12

C. Governmentally Structured Metropolitan Planning A study comparing the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) and its accomplishments with the work and accomplishments of voluntary Councils of Governments (COGs). Vance File References: C, D, P2, PB, E2e, E3, E4, ES, E10

, D. The Big City's Role in Metropolitan Planning and Development A study of the planning and redevelopment programs of St. Paul and Minneapolis and their effect on metropolitan planning and development. (Could be two separate studies, one on each city.) Vance File References: B10c, 012, B11a, B11k, Mj, Ml

E. Attitudes on Planning - Minnesota Governors A study of the records of Minnesota governors, their attitudes and action for planning--state, metropolitan,and local. Their contributions to the Minnesota Experiment. Vance File References: A14, ASa, ASe, A6, C28, M2a, M2b, M3

F. Subregional Planning in Metropolitan Areas A study to determine the effectiveness of intergovernmental co­ operative planning by development districts within metropolitan areas. Pros and cons. Vance File References: C10, C12, C9 110 G. The Value of Regional Economic Studies A study of the Upper Midwest Research and Development Council (UMRDC)--lmpact of studies on planning and development. Role of UMRDC in governmental reorganization in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Vance File References: G6a, G6h, C18, C20

H. A New Approach to Planning - Values, Goals, Policies A study of the change in approach to metropolitan planning pro­ duced by the Metropolitan Planning Commission, 1962-1967. Sig­ nificance and impact on planning profession. Vance File References: D2, 02

I. A New Tool for Guiding Metropolitan Growth - The Metropolitan Development Guide An analysis of the Metropolitan Development Guide used by the Metropolitan Council. Its uniqueness, effectiveness, and prob­ lems. Its development framework. Vance File References: D10, G2a, G2c, J10

J. A New Planning Dimension - Social Planning A study and analysis of the blending of landuse planning with social planning. A look at the social elements, health, the aging, criminal justice, the environment, the arts, and commu­ nication. (Cable TV and 11 911 11 Emergency Telephone Service) Vance File References: F15, H8a, H8d, F17, Fl~, H4, HS, H14

K. Values and the Planning Process A study and analysis of attitudinal surveys as a prerequisite to planning. Why? Comparison of the two surveys made in Twin Cities area: 1963 Metropolitan Planning Commission and 1974 Metropolitan Council. Vance File References: D6, 02

L. The County's Role in Regional Planning A study of the Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC) and the Metropolitan Inter-County Council. The 1959 County Planning Act. Appraisal of counties' role in regional planning and development. Vance File References: MSc, C10, C13, G10

M. Slow to Come on the Scene - State Planning A study of the political constraints to the establishment of a state planning agency. Its gradual evolution from meager begin­ nings. Today's operation. Relationship to the Minnesota Plan­ ning Association (MPA). Vance File References: B6d, MSb

111 N. An Important Contribution to Good Development - Referrals A study of the impact of referrals on the work of the Metropol­ itan Planning Commission and the establishment of the Metropol­ itan Council. Review of federal referral pol icy: A-95 and 204 Programs. Vance File References: Jll

0. Fast, Dependable Data - for Metropolitan Planning and Development A study of the use of mathematical landuse models in processing vast amounts of data through electronic data processing (EDP). The importance to metropolitan planning and development of rapid, dependable data. Vance File References: D3a, D3b, 02

P. Housing - A Constant Problem to Planners A study of government involvement in producing housing. Federal laws: The Housing Act of 1949 and subsequent additions. The state's coordinating role. What's happening in Minnesota? Vance File References: H6f, A2-1973-76, F14a, F14d, 06, Bllb, 011, HlOa, HlOd, B10c, 012

Q. Changing Patterns for Landuse Controls A study of the various methods of enforcing a plan or control! ing landuse. Review and history of early zoning, modern performance standards, planned unit development (PUD), subdivision controls, industrial and commercial development districts, and policies through a development guide. Vance File References: H15a, H15b, Q21, H15c, H15d

R. 19th Century Planning - Twin Cities Area A study of early cooperative planning in the Twin Cities area, 1872 to 1920. Evidence of this planning in today's environment. Vance File References: A14, A5d, B4 Also Minneapolis Park Board Files

S. Grants - Their Pump-Priming Effect on Planning and Development A study of federal, state, and foundation grants for planning and development. Their impact, value, and drawbacks. Vance File References: M4

V. METROPOLITAN FUNCTIONAL SERVICES A. Waste Control and Management A study of the Twin Cities area problems with water pollution and sewage disposal. Evolution of a solution over a 40 year period. Evaluation of present system and comparison with similar areas in the nation. Vance File References: M5g, C27, C6, J12, F21a, F21c, E2c, J3, 04

112 B. The Pesky Mosquito A study of the unique manner in which the Twin Cities area has coped with the mosquito problem. Financing, operation, and problems. Example of governmental function provided through Minnesota Joint Powers Act. Contact the Mosquito Control Commission

VI. URBAN GROWTH PROBLEMS A. Federal Urban Growth Policies Needed A study to determine why the federal government does not have a well defined urban growth policy. Each Congress passes urgent urban legislation--each act has its pol icy implications. These policies are often in conflict. Firm policies are needed for disciplined action. Vance File References: E15, A12

B. The Experimental City A study to determine why the project was allowed to die. Why the attitude of Minnesota Pollution Control Agency? Why the action of the Minnesota legislature? With the energy problem, isn 1 t the Minnesota Experimental City needed more now than before? What about an urban experimental station at the Univer­ sity of Minnesota similar to the agriculture experimental pro­ grams? Vance File References: M7

VI I. LEAGUES AND THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY A. Citizens Can Be Heard A study of the Citizens League, a unique organization for keep­ ing the area informed about governmental matters. Its role and history in metropolitan problem solving. Vance File References: O1Ob, G8a, G8b, O1Oa, O1Oc

B. For Better Government and Planning A study of municipal organizations, county, metropolitan, and state leagues in Minnesota. Their role in governmental reorgani­ zation at the metropolitan level. Formation of the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Council. Vance File References: Gll, M5d, M5e

C. Women on the Government Scene A study of the Leagues of Women Voters--local, metro, and state. Their organizations, their motivation, and their devotion to good government. Vance File References: G9

11 3 D. Business Action for Better Communities A study of Chamber of Commerce activity in the Twin Cities area. Also, a look at the Minneapolis Downtown Council and the St. Paul Metropolitan Improvement Committee. The role of business in governmental reorganization at the metropolitan level. Vance File References: B11g, B11k, B10a, B10e

VI I I. THE MASS MEDIA A. The Twin Cities Area Press A study of the effectiveness of the metropolitan press. Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of two major newspapers for the area versus one dominating newspaper. The role of the press in bringing about governmental reorganization in the metropolitan area. A look at and evaluation of the news service of the elec­ tronic media: TV and radio. Vance File References: E18a, E18j

114 APPENDIX B - A GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS FOR THE AGENCIES AND PROGRAMS MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK

ACIR Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (federal) AIP American Institute of Planners AMC Association of Minnesota Counties ASPA American Society of Public Administration ASPO American Society of Planning Officials BPR Bureau of Public Roads CAC Citizens• Advisory Committee CMAL Council of Metropolitan Area Leagues (of Women Voters) COG Council of Governments CRP Community Renewal Program CURA Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (University of Minnesota) DED Department of Economic Development (Minnesota) DOT Department of Transportation (federal) EDP Electronic Data Processing EORC Elected Officials Review Committee HHFA Housing and Home Finance Agency (federal, now HUD) HRA Housing and Redevelopment Agency HUD Housing and Urban Development Agency (federal) LOGIS Local Government Information Systems LMM League of Minnesota Municipalities LW League of Women Voters MAC Metropolitan Airports Commission (Twin Cities area) MAIP Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Planners MDOT Minnesota Department of Transportation MMC Minnesota Municipal Commission MPA Minnesota Planning Association MPC Minnesota Planning Commission (Twin Cities area) MSSD MJnneapolis-St. Paul Sanitary District MTC Metropolitan Transit Commission MWCC Metropolitan Waste Control Commission MXC Minnesota Experimental City NAC National Association of Counties NARC National Association of Regional Councils NLC National League of Cities NSRC National Service to Regional Councils 0MB Office of Management and Budget PCA Pollution Control Agency PUD Planned Unit Development SMSA Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area SPA State Planning Agency (Minnesota) TCATS Twin Cities Area Transportation Study UMES Upper Midwest Economic Study UMRDC Upper Midwest Research and Development Council 204 Clearinghouse Function for Federal Grants 208 Water Quality Management Programs--Federal Act 1972 701 Federal Local Planning Grants--Housing Act 1954

115 I I APPENDIX C - PUBLICATIONS OF THE METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION

PUBLICATIONS DURING MPC 1 S PHASE I (1958-1962)

Twin Cities Metropolitan Planning Commission, February 1958 The Challenge of Metropolitan Growth, (MPC Report Number One), December 1958 Development Districts (local Planning Bulletin No. 1), February 1959 MPC Annual Report 1958, April 1959 Metropolitan Population Study, (MPC Report Number Two), August 1959 Metropolitan Water Study, Part I, (MPC Report Number Three), February 1960 MPC Annual Report 1959, March 1960 Guide to Subdivision Control (Local Planning Bulletin No. 2), April 1960 Metropolitan Land Study, lMPC Report Number Four), April 1960 Metropolitan Economic Study, (MPC Report Number Five), June 1960 Metropolitan Economic Stud --Summar, July 1960 Metropolitan Water Study, Part I I, MPC Report Number Six), July 1960 Metropolitan Sewerage Study, (MPC Report Number Seven), August 1960 Metropolitan Transportation Study, Part I, (MPC Report Number Eight), August 1960 Metropolitan Population Study- Numbers and Distribution--Summary, January 1961 Metropolitan Population Study, Part I I. Numbers and Distribution, (MPC Report Number Nine), February 1961 Street & Highway Standards (Local Planning Bulletin No. 3), March 1961 Street & Highway Standards--Summary, March 1961 MPC Annual Report 1960, March 1961 Metropolitan Parks--An Initial Investigation, (MPC Report Number Ten), April 1961 Metropolitan Parks--Summary, April 1961 Metro olitan Population Study, Part I I I. Basic Characteristics, (MPC Report Number Eleven , March 1962 MPC Annual Report 1961, March 1962 Selected Determinants of Residential Development (Background Document No . 1 ) , March 1962 Selected Determinants of Industrial Development (Background Document No. 2), March 1962 MPC Newsletter, Vol. I, No. 1, 1958; Vo. I, Nos. 2-6, Vol. 11, Nos. 1-2, 1959; Vol. II, Nos. 3-4, 1960

MAJOR REPORTS OF THE JOINT PROGRAM (1962-1967)

Meeting the Challenge of Metropolitan Growth: A Prospectus for the Joint Program, Report Number One, January 1963 4,000,000 By 2,000: Preliminary Proposals for Guiding Change, Report Number Two, December 1964 Goals For the Development of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, Report Number Three, November 1965 Selecting Policies For Metropolitan Growth, Report Number Four, January 1967 Metropolitan Development Guide--Twin Cities Area, Report Number Five, Apri 1 1968 117