The Minneapolis Miracle: How Smart Policy, Transparent Budgeting, and Civic Stewardship Can Rebuild Our City—Without Raising Taxes

By Becka Thompson

Let’s start with the truth: Minneapolis lost value.

Over the last five years, we’ve watched the city bleed out—not just in storefronts and payrolls, but in spirit and in trust. Entire corridors were hollowed out. Families moved away. Businesses gave up. And behind all of that was a steady erosion of the one thing every city depends on to survive—valuation.

Ward 7, home to Uptown, suffered an 8.6% drop in property value this year alone. That’s not just a statistic. That’s shattered momentum, lost leverage, and a warning shot. While the state added jobs and recovered post-COVID, large swaths of Minneapolis stagnated—or worse, regressed.

Some of this was out of our control. A pandemic. Civil unrest. A global economy. But not all of it. We had choices. And what we chose—again and again—was inaction disguised as process, and ideology disguised as planning.

So here we are. With aging infrastructure, blighted properties, and parks in disrepair. With commercial buildings sitting vacant. With trust fractured.

So here’s what I need you to hear: yes, the damage is real—but so is the opportunity.

If you’ve been waiting for someone to admit that things aren’t working, you’re not alone. And if you’re hungry for a plan rooted in real math, real timelines, and real deliverables—not just “visions” and vibes—you’re in the right place.

We don’t need to raise taxes to turn this city around. We need to use what we already collect more wisely.

That starts with a full audit of city and county inefficiencies. Right now, we’re double-paying for services like homeless programs, mental health services, and health programs —spending tens of millions on overlapping departments at the City and the County that do the same work with different letterheads. We’re funding positions that are more about appearances than impact—titles like ‘Bike Coordinator’ and ‘Truth and Reconciliation Coordinator’ that sound noble but deliver next to nothing.  We are inefficient with the public’s money. Correcting this isn’t political—it’s responsible. I estimate there is between $100–$140 million in recoverable spending over the next five years just by doing business smarter. That’s money that could go directly into business revitalization, youth jobs, and rebuilding the corridors we let collapse.

We need to overhaul how we award contracts. The current system—built around subjective scoring, “preferred vendors,” and check-the-box ideology—has failed. Too often, these “preferred vendors” have relationships with City staff or elected officials. I propose blind RFPs, used in cities like Austin and New York, where merit and cost-effectiveness—not political affiliation—determine outcomes. This is especially problematic for contracts below $175,000. These contracts don’t have to be bid out but can just go to whoever that project manager wants. We have seen the corruption this has led to with the violence interrupter contracts going to friends of council members and city staff.  This one reform could save the city $25–$40 million a year while creating a level playing field for small and emerging businesses that get shut out of the current system.

We need to build housing again. In 2019, we permitted over 4,000 new housing units. In 2024, we permitted a whopping 350. Just last week, I watched the Planning Commission nearly stall our only major housing project of the year—over murals. That means removing outdated, counterproductive mandates—like inclusionary zoning, minimum building heights, and 10-year builder warranties—that make housing unaffordable before it ever breaks ground. Reducing the builder warranty period from 10 years to 3 (in line with national norms) would allow entry-level condos to come back into the market. We can bring rents down—not by subsidy games, but by unblocking supply. We also need to change our regulations to encourage the construction of more ownership housing because this is the single best way for regular people to build wealth. The best rent control is a mortgage.

We have to fix CPED. The agency meant to spark development now stalls it. Permits languish. Projects die in inboxes. Entrepreneurs walk away. We’ve lost hundreds of millions in investment—investment that could be funding jobs, storefronts, theaters, housing. A leaner, restructured CPED—focused on outcomes, not control—can unlock over $500 million in delayed projects and save $8–$15 million a year in administrative waste.

And as we rebuild, we can do it with intention—by channeling those capital dollars through Project Labor Agreements – collective bargaining agreements between building trade unions and contractors that govern terms and conditions of employment for work on a construction project, regardless if they are union or not. By supporting unions, we also support youth apprenticeships, especially for teens who need a pathway out of instability and into real opportunity. This isn’t just about economic recovery—it’s about building careers, dignity, and a future worth staying for. And more skilled labor will reduce the cost of building housing long-term.

But nothing else matters if we don’t enforce the basics. There are more than 2,000 nuisance properties in Minneapolis right now. Every one of them suppresses the value of the homes and businesses around them. The City has processes to deal with these nuisance properties – it just isn’t getting its job done. Left unaddressed, they cost the city an estimated $10 million in tax revenue over five years. And more importantly, they send a message: that we’ve stopped caring.

We haven’t. And we won’t.

Minneapolis should not belong to dysfunction. It should belong to the people who live here. It belongs to the families of Ward 12, who live near boarded-up corners on Lake Street, walk their kids to school, plant flowers in cracked medians, and believe—somehow—that this city can still be what it was meant to be. It belongs to the neighbors who fought for months—just to fix the Cooper Playground. Who pushed against a system that made even the smallest repairs feel impossible. When we fix this, we won’t just get a better playground—we’ll get public spaces that reflect the communities they serve. Spaces rooted in dignity, not delay.

And we can reinvest in the shared spaces that make this city livable. Decades of deferred maintenance in Public Works—aging storm drains, leaking water mains, and outdated flood-control systems—are spilling directly into Lake Hiawatha, choking Minnehaha Creek, and eroding the bluffs and staircases at Minnehaha Falls.

For years, the Minneapolis Park Board has had a restoration plan for Minnehaha Falls—outlined in the city’s capital plan and regional trail master plan. Critical pieces of that plan have never been delivered, because funds keep getting delayed or diverted.

This is where reinvestment matters. By redirecting just a fraction of the tens of millions wasted every year on duplicative bureaucracy, we can finally fund that long-overdue rebuild: repairing trails, replacing century-old drains, stabilizing bluffs, and protecting the crown jewels of our city.

And we know the return: every $1 invested in historic infrastructure yields $3–$5 in long-term economic growth, based on economic impact studies from the University of Maryland and national heritage tourism research. This is not aesthetics. It’s livability, resilience, and a reinvestment that pays for itself many times over.

If we do all of this—restructure bureaucracy, award contracts fairly, fix housing policy, enforce the rules, and reinvest in our shared spaces—we can recover what was lost.

Not just the tax base, but the soul of the city.

I project between $345 million and $525 million in recovered or redirected funds over five years if we just start making common sense reforms. And more than that, I estimate a long-term increase of up to $6 billion in property valuation—spread across commercial corridors, parks, housing, and small business rebirth if we just make the right investments to foster private investment in the City.

Let’s talk about what that really means.

Because in Minneapolis, schools are funded largely through property taxes. So when we rebuild our city’s value, we also rebuild our children’s futures. With $6 billion in new valuation, we could see tens of millions in additional public education revenue—without raising a single dollar in taxes.

That’s the difference between teachers buying their own classroom supplies—or having what they need already stocked.

That’s the difference between one counselor for every 700 students, which means that pretty much no kid gets to see a counselor —or a ratio that lets kids be seen.

It’s updated HVAC systems in our schools. Drama programs, science kits, art teachers, and hot lunches. Not as luxuries—but basics.

And when it comes to housing? These reforms—especially targeted zoning changes and builder-side cost relief—could bring rents down by up to $150 to $200 per month. That’s groceries. That’s childcare. That’s a buffer against eviction.

People want to stay here. They want to build here. They want to raise their families here. But the math of Minneapolis has to work again—for homeowners, renters, businesses, artists, and kids.

The Minneapolis Miracle isn’t about miracles at all. It’s about refusing to settle for decline. Refusing to keep rewarding dysfunction. Refusing to abandon the places we love simply because bureaucracy has forgotten how to serve them.

This isn’t a proposal wrapped in ideology. It’s a blueprint built from data, lived experience, and the belief that we can—and must—do better.

Not later. Now. With what we have. With who we are.

Because if we get this right, we won’t just balance the books—we’ll reawaken the promise of a city that once set the national standard for parks, housing, art, and education.

We can do it again.

Minneapolis can rise. Not in spite of what we’ve endured, but because of what we’ve learned, we chose to build something better.

Street by street. Block by block. Together.

– Becka Thompson

Educator; commissioner; minneapolis cc candidate, ward 12