For the first time this decade, the U.S. Census Bureau will report today that the populations of Minnesota's two big central cities, as well as those of a number of their first-ring suburbs, are rising, even as growth in newer suburbs farther out is tapering off.

Pointing to trends in building permits, local officials have insisted for some time that these changes have been happening. But this is the first time the nation's top arbiter of population trends has agreed.

Throughout the decade, the Census Bureau has recorded population declines in Minneapolis, St. Paul and older suburbs such as Edina, Bloomington, St. Louis Park and Hopkins. But now they and others are on the rise.

It's a change being seen in a number of similar metro areas, said demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"A lot of older cities in the Midwest and Northeast are seeing greater gains or reduced declines," he said. "St. Paul actually flips, from 'down' to 'up.' And it may not just be a blip. Four-dollar gas may go a long ways toward slowing movement to the suburbs."

The change for the two central cities may be related to a shift in methodology that seeks to do a better job of tracking the tidal wave of college students who are leaving home and moving into dorms and other housing near campuses, said Greg Harper, a Census Bureau demographer in Washington.

But for inner-ring suburbs, he said, the reason probably has to do with trends in real estate that are bringing more high-density development to suburbs.

Behind the change

Paul Krumrich is on the cusp of this change -- a man living on the seam between the suburbs and the city.

Having grown up, as he puts it, "in a pseudo-Farmington or -Lakeville in Wisconsin," he has chosen at age 35 to live 17 stories up in a sleek glassy tower a few steps away from a light-rail station in Bloomington.

"I can go for a 7-mile run beginning right outside my door, and see deer and beaver deep in the woods," he said. "But I'm a 20-minute train ride from downtown -- and I don't have to drive home from the bar."

It's a trend playing out in several inner-ring suburbs.

"We have a high-end Omaha developer pulling permits right now for high-end rentals, even as McGough [developer of Reflections, the development Krumrich bought into in 2006] is getting to the point of proceeding with a third tower," said Larry Lee, Bloomington's development chief.

"We expect that 3,000 people will live near that light-rail station before too much longer -- not huge compared to all of Bloomington, but a substantial neighborhood, enough to support a Starbucks. This is a market sector that is very much alive."

Demographers have been warning the housing industry for years that a profound market shift was coming, with far fewer white-picket-fence, soccer-league families.

In April 2006, in a newsletter called the "Hot Sheet," the Builders Association of the Twin Cities published predictions that the number of "move-up buyers," ages 35 to 49, would plummet in the last half of this decade, even as the numbers of apartment dwellers (ages 20 to 29), first-time buyers (ages 25 to 34) and "downsizers" (60 and older) would soar.

Both Twin Cities grow

Today's release of census estimates, which cover the period up to mid-2007, is not the first to hint that that was truly coming to pass. For the past couple of years, population growth in the hypergrowth suburbs of the 1990s has been tapering off. And last year, the 2006 estimate for Minneapolis was up by just a sliver, about 300.

But this year, St. Paul is up by nearly 1,000, to 277,251, and with Minneapolis up by more than 2,300, to 377,392, the two combined see their first increase of the decade.

At the same time, some inner-ring suburbs encouraging high-rises and other forms of high-density development are being credited with bumps upward for the first time this decade.

St. Louis Park, for instance, with big new projects such as Hoigaard Village along a future light-rail line to the southwest, is up by more than 600, to 44,028, after seeing small declines throughout the decade. Bloomington is up by a whisker -- 151 -- but it's the first increase of any sort after losses of thousands earlier.

Metropolitan Council estimates due out within a week or so are considered more reliable guides to what's happening within individual cities. But the census numbers go out across the nation and affect a city's reputation.

"Perception is important," Frey said. "And when 'negative' turns to 'positive,' people feel good."

David Peterson • 612-673-4440