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Greater Minnesota feels left behind. That's the headline version of the story that was reported one year ago in the wake of a Minnesota House election that produced a partisan map more divided between rural and urban regions than any in modern memory.
All but a sliver of the territory within the Interstate 494-694 beltway emerged from that election with DFL representation in the state House. All of Greater Minnesota but the Iron Range and a few regional centers went Republican red, as did control of the chamber. Republicans took a 72-62 majority.
Politicians have quibbled in the ensuing year over whether voters' rejection of DFL incumbents in 10 Greater Minnesota districts – and inner-ring suburban voters' spurn of Republican candidates -- was deserved. But about this, there can be little disagreement: Metro and Greater Minnesotans have grown apart in recent decades in important ways – age, income, educational attainment, race and culture. Those trends are persistent; some may be accelerating. And those trends are complicating Minnesota's 157-year-old project in democratic self-governance.
Today and for the next two Sundays, Opinion Exchange will examine the state of Minnesota's internal union, past, present and future. It's not a disinterested look. The Star Tribune has long held that Minnesotans' willingness to function as "one state" – to aggregate their resources, pursue shared goals and provide public services at the state rather than local level – has been a key ingredient in this state's prosperity and quality of life.
Our view is that no part of Minnesota should be left behind. No part of Minnesota can reach its full potential unless the whole state does. And all of Minnesota would benefit from a narrower rural/urban divide.
That effort must start with understanding what separates the two populations, and what does not. Much has been made of the income gap between the two regions. The median household income gap is wide – nearly $14,000 in 2013, the last year for which data is available.
But nearly as large is the difference in cost of living between the metro area and many places in Greater Minnesota. Lower housing costs outstate compensate in many places for the difference in average wages, according to state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). For example, by DEED's calculus, providing basic necessities for a family of two adults and one child requires an annual income of $55,845 in Hennepin County, compared with $42,065 in Blue Earth County – another nearly $14,000 gap.