Minneapolis’ new generation

Much has been said about the upheaval in the Republican Party. But there may be just as much change happening in the Democratic Party, at least if the Minneapolis City Council election this year is representative of any trends. The generational turnover in the Council has dropped the average age from 52 to 41, by my reckoning, and increased the non-white membership from 1 to 3 of 13 – all of whom are foreign-born.

Is this the future of the Democratic Party? The short answer is yes, but it starts small. Leadership is developed at the local level, and there’s no better place to develop it than the City Council. Minneapolis has a Weak Mayor system, so it’s the council that actually runs things. And not only is the new council much younger, it was generally elected on a platform of social justice and neighborhood development – not downtown.

I may have to stop making fun of our younger sister city.

It’s important to note that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), the elections are not all officially decided at this time. But we can tell who will win, even if the final counting takes a few days. It’s worth the wait to get it right. No matter what, we know that the 13 seats will be filled by 1 Green and 12 DFLers (that’s the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to non-Minnesotans – we don’t just have Democrats here!).

The ages of each council member is hard to find without a lot of digging, but in most cases I can be at least close. Here is the new council and its 7 of 13 new faces, with their ages:

	Old Council		New Council
1	Kevin Reich	45	Kevin Reich	45
2	Can Gordon	58	Can Gordon	58
3	Diane Hofstede	62	Jacob Frey	32
4	Barbara Johnson	57	Barbara Johnson	57
5	Don Samuels	53	Blong Yang	35
6	Robert Lilligren	53	Abdi Warsame	32
7	Lisa Goodman	46	Lisa Goodman	46
8	Elizabeth Glidden	45	Elizabeth Glidden	45
9	Gary Schiff	41	Alandra Cano	32
10	Meg Tuthill	62	Lisa Bender	35
11	John Quincy	51	John Quincy	51
12	Sandy Colvin Roy	63	Andrew Johnson	32
13	Betsy Hodges	39	Linea Palmisano	37
	Average	52		41

If you look at them by their generation the results become even more stark. In one election the council went form a majority of Baby Boomers (8) to a plurality of Gen-X (6):

More importantly, the three new council members who are foreign born – Blong Yang (Hmong), Abdi Warsame (Somali) and Alandra Cano (Mexican) will bring a very different perspective to this diverse city. They are still in the minority, but the leadership development and inclusion of new voices changes not just the city but the entire state. As we become more diverse there are finally new faces at the table, and as the old saying goes, “If you aren’t at the table, you are on it”.

Much was made during the election at the voter rage at being forced to pick upwards of $675M of the tab for the $1B Vikings Stadium. It’s far more than that. Minneapolis has always been a city ruled by the wealthy in one way or the other, funding big civic improvements primarily Downtown. Those days are now over. The new council is going to be much more neighborhood oriented, given what the new members campaigned on. It will be a different city in 4 years, no matter what.

It’s possible to make too much of this generational shift, especially since we haven’t seen what they have done yet. But one thing is clear – there is new leadership being developed and it includes younger and more diverse people than ever before. The DFL is re-invigorating itself without going through the painful process of tearing itself apart first. This can only be a good thing.

At top: The Minneapolis Skyline. They like to show off.