Counterpoint | Duluth in 2035? Here’s why hope is the better bet.

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To declare that Duluth is “limping along on nostalgia,” as Howie Hanson did in an Aug. 11 commentary (“Cold lake, cold future”), ignores the progress of the last 20 years.

I use 20 years as a benchmark because that is about the time I moved here from southern Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota Duluth. The forecast for 2035 by a local cynic isn’t a trajectory; it’s a falsehood told and believed by those who mistake the challenges of growth for wishful(?) signs of decay. Duluth isn’t just surviving; it’s moving forward, and the foundation is as strong as it has been in my lifetime. But like any city, Duluth has its challenges and issues to overcome.

The assertion that we treat Lake Superior like a “backdrop” is unfounded. For two decades, our strategy has been to leverage the lake not as a commodity but as the anchor for a quality of life that retains and attracts talent and investment, and not just for tourism like the writer claims. Duluth’s tourism isn’t a distraction; it’s an economic supplement that has funded the revival of our parks, trails and public spaces. Tourism makes it possible that a city of 86,000 can have world-class mountain biking trails, Canal Park, the Cross City Trail, the Lake Superior Zoo, the Great Lakes Aquarium, upgrades to Wade Stadium and the Lakewalk. These amenities aren’t just for tourists; they are for residents, and tourism revenue even supports the general fund. It is disingenuous and tilting at windmills to pit tourists vs. residents to score cheap political points.

And what about the people who work here? The claim that Duluth is merely a low-wage tourist town is an exhausted talking point that ignores the data. The presence of three distinct colleges gives the city unique access to a skilled workforce, which we are now leveraging through the “Duluth Promise.” As Superintendent John Magas describes it, this isn’t just another program but a “robust pipeline of on-ramps and off-ramps” designed to prepare young adults for thriving careers with local employers in high-demand fields like health care, manufacturing and business technology. It’s already working. Students are getting hands-on experience and career opportunities, like the high schooler who landed a marketing internship with a local tech company or the student who found a career path at Cirrus and now says, “I want to be here. If everything still works out right and is good, I want to stay in Duluth.” Or look at the Lincoln Park Craft District, converting many old unused buildings and warehouses into more than 30 artisan shops, breweries and restaurants opening in the last decade alone. This isn’t the sign of a city “bleeding talent”; it’s the mark of a city that talent is choosing to stay and invest in.

The housing crunch is real and is a direct symptom of success. People want to live here. Demand is high because Duluth offers a unique combination of urban amenities and natural beauty. We are seeing more housing development now than at any point in the last 30 years, with more than 1,000 new housing units recently completed or in the pipeline. We should also explore strategies that go beyond just meeting the numbers outlined in our housing report; we should explore or invest in housing models that de-commodify a portion of our housing market. This means supporting innovative approaches that ensure long-term affordability and stability for residents like coops, community land trusts or other shared equity housing. We are not on the precipice of another billboard campaign of “will the last one to leave please turn out the lights.”

Is the work done? Certainly not. But the challenges we face today are not the specters of decline; they are the price of our success. The housing crunch, the strain on infrastructure, the building and growing of a 21st-century economy from a Rust Belt port town — these are the complex, necessary growing pains of a city that people are choosing to move to, not flee from.

The narrative we choose for our city matters. We can (and should) choose to reject the corrosive culture of cynicism and grievance that offers no solutions and only deepens division. The choice for 2035 and beyond is clear: We can be paralyzed by grievance, or we can be motivated by hope. Let’s choose to build upon our past successes, to become a national hub for innovation and technology, and to be a city where everyone who wants to stay or move here can find their home and their future. That is Duluth’s trajectory.