Uff-Da! Twin Cities visit ‘audacious’ Charlotte

A large group of folks from Minneapolis-St. Paul were in town Sunday until Tuesday afternoon, on an inter-city Chamber visit. It’s the sort of thing Charlotte civic and business leaders do every year, although this year they stayed home. Here’s a link to the St. Paul Chamber’s Web page, where you can see the agenda.

My friend Curtis Johnson, an educator and author of, among other things, the 2008 Citistates Report, was one of the group. He sent this e-mail report late Tuesday: “The delegation was duly stirred by its contact with Charlotte people. It prompted much discussion about whether Charlotte has audacity and MSP has ambivalence.” He promises more info later.

Is Charlotte audacious? Are the Twin Cities ambivalent?

I sought the opinion of our departmental Minnesotan, editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers, who’s from the Iron Range and lived in MSP for about 10 years.

“Audacious? If you mean Charlotte has more naked self-promotion, then yes,” he said.
“They’re [the Twin Cities] Midwestern, you know.”

For the record, he points out that St. Paul and Minneapolis have distinctly differing personalities. SP is blue-collar, Catholic, and “has more interesting architecture.” Minneapolis is Lutheran and “lots of steel and blue glass.”