Minneapolis, known as the “City of Lakes,” will no longer host the Aquatennial, which has been its signature summer event since 1940. It’s also pulling the plug on the popular winter event known as Holidazzle.
According to the Star Tribune, the Minneapolis Downtown Council is “backing out” of organizing the two signature events. The Downtown Council has cited “budgeting challenges and competing priorities” for its decision to back out of the events. However, there is another, more likely reason – the on-going crime problem that has negatively impacted the public’s desire to choose entertainment options in Minneapolis.
“Where we do need to improve is safety and advocacy. Where we do need to improve is our long-range plan and making it happen to make Minneapolis the best city that it could possibly be.”
Adam Duininck, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council
Officially, the Downtown Council and the city remain hopeful that another entity will step forward and agree to coordinate and promote the events, but that seems unlikely. Last year the Downtown Council had hoped the Holidazzle would attract over 100,000 people downtown, but attendance was well below that estimate, closer to 65,000. As a comparison in 1992, the Holidazzle event drew an estimated 750,000 people to downtown Minneapolis.
The real problem
It’s time we stop burying our heads in the sand and blaming “COVID.” The problem lies with the lack of public safety.
Most people have no patience for crime and disorder – and they shouldn’t. Whether it’s a relatively minor run in with an inebriated homeless person in the stairwell of a parking garage, being harassed by aggressive teens at a bus shelter, having one’s car broken into or stolen, or something even more serious like being assaulted or robbed after a show on Hennepin Ave, far too many Minnesotans have experienced these things in recent years in downtown Minneapolis – and they’ve vowed not to return. The worst part is the reaction to their concerns – as if they are exaggerated or their expectation of safety is unrealistic.
People aren’t wrong for having this expectation, and they aren’t wrong in believing that Minneapolis has failed to maintain an acceptable level of public safety. City leaders have been wrong in failing to heed the warning signs, and the city is paying a price for it – perhaps a catastrophic price.
The recent documentary by Rick Kupchella, A Precarious State, focused heavily on the impact this lack of public safety has had on the economic health of Minneapolis. The downtown business sector, which was once the economic engine for the state, is a shell of its former self. Vacancy rates in many office buildings have fallen to dangerous levels, and as one real estate expert related, some of the buildings are selling for less than it would have cost to recarpet them in more stable times.
The city’s plan for this business sector collapse seems to be centered on flipping downtown from a business centered area to a neighborhood. Leaders envision converting office buildings into apartments and converting the Nicollet Mall into a pedestrian walkway and park. While optimistic, these plans all seem to be ignoring the obvious – you can’t achieve that without first re-establishing public safety.
Safety is the foundation
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, coined Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in 1943. In it, Maslow described that just after the basic necessities of life (like food, water, and air to breathe), humans need safety and security to thrive. The necessity of safety serves as the building block for other needs like community, creation, and achievement. While academic, Maslow’s hierarchy is also pretty common sense, and it shouldn’t be lost on Minneapolis political leaders.
When it comes to providing safety there just isn’t any substitute for the police, and Minneapolis’s political leadership has been far too slow to acknowledge this – or to acknowledge their role in undermining their own police department. The anti-police atmosphere the city’s political leadership helped create in 2020 has not served anyone well – not black or white, rich or poor, business owner or customer, resident or visitor – no one.
The lack of support for a properly staffed, proactive police department makes any effort, let alone one as massive as revitalizing Minneapolis’s struggling downtown, a losing effort.
Many continue to argue that crime is in retreat in Minneapolis, as if losing nearly 40% of its police force has somehow led to more innovative and successful public safety strategies. The truth is that the reported reduction in crime is only realized in relation to recent record highs in 2022/2023. When current Minneapolis crime rates are compared to pre-2020 era data, the results are damning.
Is crime really “down?”
Using FBI Crime Data Explorer information, Minneapolis’s violent crime rate (murder, aggravated assault, robbery and rape) in 2018 was 800/100,000. In 2024, despite reporting suggesting Minneapolis’s crime rate was dramatically falling, the violent crime rate was 1164/100,000 – 45% higher than in 2018. When I shared this data with the Minnesota House Public Safety Committee this past session, a DFL House Member representing Minneapolis dismissed the accuracy of the data because she had not heard others report on it. She’s right, others haven’t reported it – probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative of a “rebounding” Minneapolis.
Minneapolis’s First Police Precinct, which is made up of the downtown business district and the entertainment and arts districts has also struggled compared to “the good old days” of the late 2010’s.
Using the Minneapolis Crime Dashboard to compare crime data from 2019 against crime data in 2024, one can see why downtown is no longer a welcoming place for many. Since 2019 calls for reports of gunshots have increased by 582%, gunshot wound victims have increased by 22%, aggravated assaults have increased by 25%, intimidation has increased by 26%, destruction of property has increased by 50%, shoplifting has increased by 57%, arson has increased by 63%, and motor vehicle theft has increased by 106%. One crime that has decreased, thanks in large part to unhelpful policies that have decriminalized open air drug use, is possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia – down 58% since 2019.
It all adds up to be a big “NO THANK YOU” for a growing number of Minnesotans.
A warning that was ignored
I’ve written many times before, and will repeat it here, it is in our collective best interest that Minneapolis, our state’s largest city, not only survives but thrives. The only way to ensure it does is to re-establish a solid foundation of public safety, and the only way to do that is to prioritize rebuilding Minneapolis Police staffing to a level approaching 1,000 officers.
No one should forget that the city’s first black police chief presented a budget to the Minneapolis City Council in 2019 warning them that Minneapolis would need 1300 officers by 2025. Instead of heeding the warning, many on the Council signed on to the “defund the police” movement and Minneapolis witnessed the defection of nearly 40% of its police force by 2022.
Since then, too many political leaders in the city have hitched their wagons to the theory that a “re-imagined” public safety system will be successful by replacing police officers with other resources like mental health response teams and civilian violence interrupters. These resources have value, but they are needed in support of and in addition to a fully staffed police department, not as a replacement.
Let’s hope that our “City of Lakes” hasn’t slipped past the point of no return. Maybe, just maybe, common sense will prevail.
