Minneapolis, Minnesota Blood Testing Facilities
Represents a LabCorp blood testing facility
Represents a Quest Diagnostics blood testing facility
Nearby Labcorp Blood Testing facilities:
- Labcorp Center Distance: 7 m, 6545 France Ave S Ste 641, Edina, Hennepin County, MN, 55435
- Labcorp Center Distance: 8 m, 2716 East 82Nd St, Bloomington, Hennepin County, MN, 55425
Nearby Quest Blood Testing facilities:
- Quest Center Distance: 0 m, 825 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, MN, 55402-2611
- Quest Center Distance: 7 m, 6525 France Ave, Edina, Hennepin County, MN, 55435-2131
Minneapolis Hormone Replacement Therapy Services
The Conscious Evolution Institute is Minneapolis' first choice for quality Hormone Therapy and Restoration Services. With our help, we can help you overcome Hormone Deficiencies related to aging and improve your energy levels and your quality of life. We provide a variety of quality Hormone Products and Services, including HGH, Sermorelin, Testosterone, and HCG.
Our clinic has affiliates located all throughout West Palm Beach and the greater Miami Metropolitan Area that can provide the preliminary evaluation that our clinical specialists need to reveal your underlying health profile and recommend potential Hormone Therapy and Wellness options designed to maximize your vitality.
Minneapolis HGH Therapy for Human Growth Hormone Deficiency
At the Conscious Evolution Institute, one of our keystone therapy options is HGH Restoration, and one of the most effective means to restore youthful HGH Levels is through the use of Bio-Identical Human Growth Hormone Injections. HGH Deficiency is a significant medical condition which is often mistaken for aging. It is under-diagnosed, and too many patients simply resign themselves to aging rather than turn to a specialist that can help them overcome the condition.
Human Growth Hormone is responsible for facilitating optimal cellular metabolism and, as such, it plays a major role in systems throughout the body. When your body no longer produces enough HGH, this leads to health issues such as weight gain and loss of muscle mass, as well as physical and mental fatigue. HGH Deficiency is associated with reduced healing capacity and a weakened immune system. HGH Deficiency is a real medical disorder that becomes more common the older that you get.
If you are over the age of thirty and feel that you may be suffering from Low HGH Levels, we can provide Bio-Identical Growth Hormone Therapy designed to get your HGH Concentrations returned to those associated with your prime in your twenties.
Minneapolis Sermorelin Therapy HGH Alternative
We also provide another fine HRT Product known as Sermorelin Acetate Therapy, which is also effective at restoring HGH Levels for many patients. Age-Related HGH Deficiency is a result of a decline in the release of an HGH precursor hormone known as GHRH, and Sermorelin Acetate is a medical analog of GHRH which completely mimics the effects of the hormone on the human body, including the pituitary.
Sermorelin Acetate is a highly effective treatment, and many feel that it is actually superior to Bio-Identical HGH for patients suffering from Age-Related Human Growth Hormone Deficiency, also known as Secondary HGH Deficiency. This is because Sermorelin is regulated more effectively than HGH Injected into the blood stream, giving the patient's body control of the release of HGH. As such, Sermorelin has a slightly lower incidence of side-effects than Human Growth Hormone.
Also, because Sermorelin is easier to make than Human Growth Hormone, it is also cheaper to produce, which is great for the patient. The final benefit of Sermorelin is that it can be prescribed more broadly, because physicians are allowed to prescribe Sermorelin off-label, while HGH is more tightly controlled.
Minneapolis Low-T Treatment for Testosterone Deficiency
Are you a man over the age of thirty that has been having sexual issues in the bedroom? Have you noticed that your body has gradually lost its ability to sustain muscle mass, combined with an increase in weight gain as well as feelings of anxiety and depression? You may be suffering from Testosterone Deficiency as a result of Andropause, and we can help. The Conscious Evolution Institute has helped men just like you restore their sexual health as well as their psychological and physical vitality. There are a number of products available that can help you overcome your Testosterone Deficiency, including Testosterone Creams, Testosterone Patches, and Testosterone Injections
Minneapolis HCG Weight Loss Therapy
Not all Hormone Treatments that we provide are explicitly aimed at Hormone Restoration. Injectable HCG Therapy, for example, is a potent weight loss therapy that encourages significant weight loss gains when combined with a low calorie diet. HCG Therapy has helped patients across Minnesota and the United States lose up to thirty pounds in a month, and it also reduces feelings of hunger associated with such restrictive diets. HCG Therapy also encourages a healthier body composition, because it facilitates the right kind of weight loss by burning fat for over muscle. If you've tried other diets and they just haven't worked, we strongly encourage you to give us a call and ask about Physician Mediated Injectable Bio-Identical HGH Therapy.
Minneapolis Information
Minneapolis is one of the famous Twin Cities, the other being St. Paul. Together, these two cities combine to be the fourteenth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Minneapolis goes by a number of different nicknames, including the Mini Apple, Mill City, and the City of Lakes. When translated, Minneapolis stands for “water city,” a combination of the Sioux and Greek words for water and city, respectively. In keeping with its nature-oriented name, Minneapolis places an emphasis on maintaining its beautiful public park space, with notable spaces including Matthews Park and Victory Memorial Park.
Perhaps to the surprise of those that are not exceptionally aware of the city, Minneapolis has an incredibly strong economy, and actually has the 5th most Fortune 500 companies per capita out of all cities in the United States. Companies headquartered in Minneapolis include Thrivent Financial, Ameriprise Financial, Xcel Energy, and Target.
One of the things that has led Minneapolis to become such an economically and cultural city is the emphasis on civic duty and community welfare among its citizens. The city and the surrounding area is highly educated, and has an amazing art community, with locales such as the Hennepin Center for the Arts, the Orpheum Theater, and the Minnesota Dance Theater. The city actually has the third most theater performances per capita among all cities in the United States.
The University of Minnesota belongs to both Minneapolis and Saint Paul with campuses in both cities. The mascot of the University of Minnesota is the Golden Gopher. The Twin Cities are the home of three major professional sports teams: The Minnesota Timberwolves, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Minnesota Twins.
All About Minneapolis, Minnesota Geographic Area
Minneapolis (pronunciation: 
i/ËumɪniËaËnR¦pÉolɪs/), nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City", is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, a Dakota Sioux word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.
As of the 2010 census, the estimated population of the city of Minneapolis is 382,578. Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis aeSaint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with approximately 3.3 million residents. The city is abundantly rich in water, with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Among cities of similar densities, Minneapolis has the most dedicated parkland. It was once the world's flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing the fifth highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies. It has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. The community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs and VOLAGs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.
Dakota Sioux were the region's sole residents until French explorers arrived around 1680. Nearby Fort Snelling, built in 1819 by the United States Army, spurred growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the east to settle there. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present-day Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank in 1856. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east-bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.
Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C., but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen." In early years, forests in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber industry that operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood. The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills where Pillsbury and General Mills became processors. By 1905, Minneapolis delivered almost 10% of the country's flour and grist. At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for twelve-million loaves of bread each day.
The city made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers. When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights. A lifelong civil rights activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities by 1946. In the 1950s, about 1.6% of the population of Minneapolis was nonwhite. Minneapolis contended with white supremacy, participated in desegregation and the African-American civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement.
Minneapolis was a "particularly virulent" site of anti-semitism until 1950. A hate group recruited members in the city and held meetings there around 1936 to 1938. The Jewish Free Employment Bureau tried to help victims of economic discrimination with limited success. Formed in 1948, the nonsectarian Mount Sinai Hospital was a place where Jewish physicians and health professionals could practice.
During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal, the city razed about two hundred buildings across twenty-five city blocks aeroughly 40% of downtown, destroying the Gateway District and many buildings with notable architecture including the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with sparking interest in historic preservation in the state.
The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city's defining physical characteristic, which was brought to the region during the last ice age ten thousand years ago. Fed by a receding glacier and Lake Agassiz, torrents of water from a glacial river cut the Mississippi riverbed and created the river's only waterfall, St. Anthony Falls, important to the early settlers of Minneapolis. Lying on an artesian aquifer and flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km2) and of this 6% is water. Water is managed by watershed districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks. Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.
The city center is located at 45 ° N latitude. The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation, but a spot at 974 feet (297 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.
Minneapolis has a continental climate typical of the Upper Midwest. Winters are cold and snowy, while summers are hot and humid. On the Koppen climate classification, Minneapolis falls in the hot summer humid continental climate zone (Dfa) and has a USDA plant hardiness of zone 5a/4b. As is typical in a continental climate, the difference between average temperatures in the coldest winter month and the warmest summer month is great: 60.1 °F (33.4 °C).
The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, heatwaves, and fog. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Minneapolis was 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936, and the coldest temperature ever recorded was na41 °F ( na41 °C), in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983 ae84, when 98.4 inches (250 cm) of snow fell.
The average annual temperature in the Minneapolis aeSaint Paul metropolitan area is 45.4 °F (7.4 °C).
As of the 2010 U.S. census, the racial composition was as follows:
European Americans make up about three-fifths of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian American population is primarily Norwegian and Swedish. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans are not nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish (11.3%), English (7.0%), Polish (3.9%), French (3.5%) and Italian (2.3%) descent.
The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic White, has declined from 92.8% in 1970 to 60.3% in 2010.
There are 10,711 multiracial individuals in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.
Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls. New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England, New York, and Canada, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland and Scandinavians (from Sweden, Norway and Denmark) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America also interspersed. Later, immigrants came from Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Southern and Eastern Europe. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe began arriving in the 1880s and settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. Asians came from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia. The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.
U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2007 show the population of Minneapolis to be 377,392, a 1.4% drop since the 2000 census. The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.
Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta). In 2012, The Advocate named Minneapolis the seventh gayest city in America.
Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.
The Minneapolis aeSt. Paul area is the third largest in the Midwest, behind Chicago and Detroit. The economy of Minneapolis today is based in commerce, finance, rail and trucking services, health care, and industry. Smaller components are in publishing, milling, food processing, graphic arts, insurance, education, and high technology. Industry produces metal and automotive products, chemical and agricultural products, electronics, computers, precision medical instruments and devices, plastics, and machinery. The city at one time produced farm implements.
Five Fortune 500 corporations make their headquarters within the city limits of Minneapolis: Target, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy, Ameriprise Financial and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. As of 2009 the city's largest employers are Target, University of Minnesota, Allina Health, Fairview Health Services, Wells Fargo, Hennepin County, Ameriprise, Hennepin County Medical Center, U.S. Bancorp, City of Minneapolis, Xcel Energy, Capella Education Company, RBC Wealth Management, Macy's, TCF Financial, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Thrivent, and the Star Tribune.
Foreign companies with U.S. offices in Minneapolis include Coloplast, RBC and ING Group.
Availability of Wi-Fi, transportation solutions, medical trials, university research and development expenditures, advanced degrees held by the work force, and energy conservation are so far above the national average that in 2005, Popular Science named Minneapolis the "Top Tech City" in the U.S. The Twin Cities ranked the country's second best city in a 2006 Kiplinger's poll of Smart Places to Live and Minneapolis was one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.
The Twin Cities contribute 63.8% of the gross state product of Minnesota. The area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product and its per capita personal income rank thirteenth in the U.S. Recovering from the nation's recession in 2000, personal income grew 3.8% in 2005, though it was behind the national average of 5%. The city returned to peak employment during the fourth quarter of that year.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, serves Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan. The smallest of the twelve regional banks in the Federal Reserve System, it operates a nationwide payments system, oversees member banks and bank holding companies, and serves as a banker for the U.S. Treasury. The Minneapolis Grain Exchange founded in 1881 is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat futures and options.
The region is second only to New York City in live theater per capita and is the third-largest theater market in the U.S. after New York City and Chicago, supporting the Illusion, Jungle, Mixed Blood, Penumbra, Mu Performing Arts, Bedlam Theatre, the Brave New Workshop, the Minnesota Dance Theatre, Red Eye, Skewed Visions, Theater Latte Da, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts, and the Children's Theatre Company. The city is home to Minnesota Fringe Festival, the United States' largest nonjuried performing arts festival. French architect Jean Nouvel designed a new three stage complex for the Guthrie Theater, a prototype alternative to Broadway founded in Minneapolis in 1963. Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres vaudeville and film houses on Hennepin Avenue now used for concerts and plays. A fourth renovated theater, the former Shubert, joined with the Hennepin Center for the Arts to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, home to more than one dozen performing arts groups.
The Walker Art Center, one of the big five modern art museums in the U.S., sits atop Lowry Hill, near downtown. It doubled its size with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron and is continuing its expansion to 15 acres (6.1 ha) with a park designed by Michel Desvigne across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1915 in south central Minneapolis is the largest art museum in the city with 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. New wings designed by Kenzo Tange opened in 1974 and Michael Graves in 2006 for contemporary and modern works and more gallery space. The Weisman Art Museum, designed by Frank Gehry for the University of Minnesota, opened in 1993. An addition which doubled the size of the galleries, also designed by Gehry, opened in 2011. The Museum of Russian Art opened in a restored church in 2005 and exhibits a collection of 20th century Russian art as well as lecture series, seminars, social functions and other special events.
The son of a jazz musician and a singer, Prince is Minneapolis' most famous musical progeny. With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records, he helped make First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry venues of choice for both artists and audiences. Other prominent artists from Minneapolis include Husker Du and The Replacements who were pivotal in the U.S. alternative rock boom during the 1990s. The Replacements' frontman, Paul Westerberg, went on to a successful solo career.
The Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall under music director Osmo VR¤nskR¤ who has set about making it the best in the country aea critic writing for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 thought that that day they were "the greatest orchestra in the world". In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.
Tom Waits released two songs about the city, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (Blue Valentine 1978) and 9th & Hennepin (Rain Dogs 1985) and Lucinda Williams recorded Minneapolis (World Without Tears 2003). Home to the MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment, the city has garnered notice for rap and hip hop and its spoken word community. The underground hip-hop group Atmosphere (natives of Minnesota) frequently comments in song lyrics on the city and Minnesota.
In 2012, Food & Wine magazine named Minneapols America's best and best-priced new food city.
Minneapolis is America's third-most literate city. A center for printing and publishing,[100] Minneapolis was a natural place for artists to build Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the U.S., made up of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Milkweed Editions, sometimes called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher.[101] The center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.[101]
Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis Millers baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets.[103] During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles.[104] The American Wrestling Association, formerly the NWA Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.[105]
The Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins arrived in the state in 1961. The Vikings were an NFL expansion team and the Twins were formed when the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota. Both teams played outdoors in the open air Metropolitan Stadium in the suburb of Bloomington for twenty one years before moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in 1982, where the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. The Twins moved to Target Field in 2010. The Minnesota Timberwolves brought NBA basketball back to Minneapolis in 1989, followed by the Minnesota Lynx WNBA team in 1999. The Lynx play in the Target Center and won the WNBA Championship in 2011.[106]
The downtown Metrodome, opened in 1982, is the largest sports stadium in Minnesota, with one major tenant, the Vikings. The Metrodome is the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four. Runners, walkers, inline skaters, coed volleyball teams, and touch football teams all have access to "The Dome". Events from sports to concerts, community activities, religious activities, and trade shows are held more than three hundred days per year, making the facility one of the most versatile stadiums in the world.[107]
The state of Minnesota authorized replacements for the Metrodome with three separate stadiums that totaled around $1.9 billion. Six spectator sport stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena.[108] The new Target Field is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer.[109] The Gopher football program's new TCF Bank Stadium was built by the university and the state's general fund.[109] Several plans were advanced for a new Vikings stadium.[110] In 2012, the Minnesota Legislature agreed to build a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome, possibly with a retractable roof, giving the Vikings a 30 year lease. The agreement costs $975 million: of this, the Vikings share is $477 million and the public's share is $498 million ae the state of Minnesota is to pay $348 million, and Minneapolis must pay $150 million.[111] Including interest and operating costs, the city's share over 30 years is $678 million.[112][113]
Major sporting events hosted by the city include Super Bowl XXVI, the 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, the 2001 NCAA Men's Division 1 Final Four and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships.[114][115][116] Minneapolis has made it to the international round finals to host the Summer Olympic games three times, being beaten by London in 1948, Helsinki in 1952 (when the city finished in second place), and Melbourne in 1956.
Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, De La Salle, and Marshall high schools.[104] Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.[117]
The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America.[120] Foresight, donations and effort by community leaders enabled Horace Cleveland to create his finest landscape architecture, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards and parkways.[121] The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (84 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway.[122]
Theodore Wirth is credited with the development of the parks system.[123] Today, 16.6% of the city is parks and there are 770 square feet (72 m2) of parkland for each resident, ranked in 2008 as the most parkland per resident within cities of similar population densities.[124]
Parks are interlinked in many places and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area connects regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary is located within Theodore Wirth Park. Wirth Park is shared with Golden Valley and is about 60% the size of Central Park in New York City.[125] Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 500,000 visitors each year.[119] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha, a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem.[126]
Runner's World ranks the Twin Cities as America's sixth best city for runners.[127] Team Ortho sponsors the Minneapolis Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K which began in 2009 with more than 1,500 starters.[128][129] The Twin Cities Marathon run in Minneapolis and Saint Paul every October draws 250,000 spectators. The 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race is a Boston and USA Olympic Trials qualifier. The organizers sponsor three more races: a Kids Marathon, a 1-mile (1.6 km), and a 10-mile (16 km).[130]
In other sports, five golf courses are located within the city, with nationally ranked Hazeltine National Golf Club, and Interlachen Country Club in nearby suburbs.[131] Minneapolis is home to more golfers per capita than any other major U.S. city.[132] The state of Minnesota has the nation's highest number of bicyclists, sport fishermen, and snow skiers per capita. Hennepin County has the second-highest number of horses per capita in the U.S. While living in Minneapolis, Scott and Brennan Olson founded (and later sold) Rollerblade, the company that popularized the sport of inline skating.[133]
Minneapolis is a stronghold for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party. The Minneapolis City Council holds the most power and represents the city's thirteen districts called wards. The council has twelve DFL members and one from the Green Party. R. T. Rybak also of the DFL is the current mayor of Minneapolis. The office of mayor is relatively weak but has some power to appoint individuals such as the chief of police. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards and levy their own taxes and fees subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits.[134]
Citizens had a unique and powerful influence in neighborhood government. Neighborhoods coordinated activities under the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), which ended in 2009.[135] Minneapolis is divided into communities, each containing neighborhoods. In some cases two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are commonly known by nicknames of business associations.[136]
The organizers of Earth Day scored Minneapolis ninth best overall and second among mid-sized cities in their 2007 Urban Environment Report, a study based on indicators of environmental health and their effect on people.[137]
Early Minneapolis experienced a period of corruption in local government and crime was common until an economic downturn in the mid 1900s. Since 1950 the population decreased and much of downtown was lost to urban renewal and highway construction. The result was a "moribund and peaceful" environment until the 1990s.[138] Along with economic recovery the murder rate climbed. The Minneapolis Police Department imported a computer system from New York City that sent officers to high crime areas. Despite accusations of racial profiling; the result was a drop in major crime. Since 1999 the number of homicides increased during four years.[139] Politicians debated the causes and solutions, including increasing the number of police officers, providing youths with alternatives to gangs and drugs, and helping families in poverty.[140]
Under chief Tim Dolan from 2006 to 2012, the crime rate steadily dropped, and the police benefited from new video and gunfire locator resources, although Dolan was criticized for expensive city settlements for police misconduct.[141] While violent crime dropped (from 6,374 in 2006 to 3,720 in 2011[141]), homicides rose by 105%[142] and rape was at the highest rate among large cities.[143] U.S. News & World Report said in 2011 that Minneapolis tied with Cleveland, Ohio as the 10th most dangerous city in the United States.[144]
Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter schools. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and Somali.[145] About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities.[146] Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute.[147] Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.[148]
Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes.[149] The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management.[150] A Big Ten school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the fourth largest campus in the U.S. in terms of enrollment.[151]
Augsburg College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges. Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the private Dunwoody College of Technology, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business, and Art Institutes International Minnesota provide career training. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. Capella University, Minnesota School of Professional Psychology, and Walden University are headquartered in Minneapolis and some others including the public four-year Metropolitan State University and the private four-year University of St. Thomas have campuses there.[152]
The Hennepin County Library system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008.[153] The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885,[154] faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to temporarily close three of its neighborhood libraries.[155] The new downtown Central Library designed by Cesar Pelli opened in 2006.[156] Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection.[157] At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.[158]
Half of Minneapolis aeSaint Paul residents work in the city where they live.[159] Most residents drive cars but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto.[160] Alternative transportation is encouraged. The Metropolitan Council's Metro Transit, which operates the light rail system and most of the city's buses, provides free travel vouchers through the Guaranteed Ride Home program to allay fears that commuters might otherwise be occasionally stranded if, for example, they work late hours.[161]
On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.[162]
Minneapolis currently has one light rail and one commuter rail line. The Hiawatha Line LRT serves 34,000 riders daily and connects the Minneapolis aeSaint Paul International airport and Mall of America in Bloomington to downtown. Most of the line runs at surface level, although parts of the line run on elevated tracks (including the Franklin Ave. and Lake St./Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport. The 40-mile Northstar Commuter rail, which runs from Big Lake through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at Target Field, opened on November 16, 2009.[163] It utilizes existing railroad tracks and will serve a projected 5,000 daily commuters.[164]
Minneapolis' second light rail line, the Central Corridor will share stations with the Hiawatha Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East/Metrodome station, travel east through the University of Minnesota, and then along University Avenue into downtown St. Paul. Construction began in November 2010 and expected completion is in 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line, will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected in 2017.[165]
Minneapolis ranks second in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle,[166] and was named the top bicycling city in the 2010 "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking.[167] Ten thousand cyclists use the bike lanes in the city each day, and many ride in the winter. The Public Works Department expanded the bicycle trail system from the Grand Rounds to 56 miles (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway, the Light Rail Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 34 miles (54 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps.[168] Many of these trails and bridges, such as the Stone Arch Bridge, were former railroad lines that have now been converted for bicycles and pedestrians.[169] In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city.[170] By 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota launched with about 60 kiosks for bicycle sharing,[171] and 19 pedicabs were operating downtown.[172]
A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.[173]
Seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, the Minneapolis Skyway System, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurants and retailers connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.[174]
Minneapolis aeSaint Paul International Airport (MSP) sits on 3,400 acres (1,400 ha)[175] on the southeast border of the city between Minnesota State Highway 5, Interstate 494, Minnesota State Highway 77, and Minnesota State Highway 62. The airport serves three international, twelve domestic, seven charter and four regional carriers[176] and is a hub and home base for Delta Air Lines, Mesaba Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines.[177]
Five major newspapers are published in Minneapolis: Star Tribune, Finance and Commerce, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the university's The Minnesota Daily and MinnPost.com. Other publications are the City Pages weekly, the Mpls.St.Paul and Minnesota Monthly monthlies, and Utne magazine.[178] In 2008 readers of online news also used The UpTake, Minnesota Independent, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Downtown Journal, Cursor, MNSpeak and about fifteen other sites.[179] The New York Times said in 1996, "Now there are T-shirts that read, 'Murderapolis,'" a name for the city that members of the local media have mistakenly attributed to the paper.[180]
Minneapolis has a mix of radio stations and healthy listener support for public radio but in the commercial market, a single organization Clear Channel Communications operates seven stations. Listeners support three Minnesota Public Radio non-profit stations, the Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota each operate a station, the networks broadcast on affiliate stations, and religious organizations run two stations.[181]
The city's first television was broadcast by the Saint Paul station and ABC affiliate KSTP-TV. The first to broadcast in color was WCCO-TV, the CBS affiliate which is located in downtown Minneapolis.[182] The city and suburbs are also home to affiliates of FOX, NBC, PBS, MyNetworkTV, The CW and one independent station.[183]
A statue of Mary Tyler Moore downtown on the Nicollet Mall commemorates the legendary 1970s CBS television situation comedy fictionally based in Minneapolis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It marks the site where producers filmed the series' iconic opening sequence in which character Mary Richards, played by Moore, throws her hat up in the air. The show was awarded three Golden Globes and thirty-one Emmy Awards.[184] Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh were from Minneapolis on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210.[185] American Idol held auditions for its sixth season in Minneapolis in 2006[186] and Last Comic Standing held auditions for its fifth season in Minneapolis in 2007.[187] In Young Adult, a 2011 screenplay by Diablo Cody, Charlize Theron lived in a Churchill riverfront apartment.[188]
The Dakota people, the original inhabitants of the area where Minneapolis now stands, believed in the Great Spirit and were surprised that not all European settlers were religious.[190] Over fifty denominations and religions and some well known churches have since been established in Minneapolis. Those who arrived from New England were for the most part Christian Protestants, Quakers, and Universalists.[190] The oldest continuously used church in the city, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in the Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood was built in 1856 by Universalists and soon afterward was acquired by a French Catholic congregation.[191] Formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov, in 1902 the first Jewish congregation in Minneapolis built the synagogue in East Isles known since 1920 as Temple Israel. St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral was founded in 1887, opened a missionary school in 1897 and in 1905 created the first Russian Orthodox seminary in the U.S.[192] The first basilica in the United States, and Co-Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Basilica of Saint Mary near Loring Park was named by Pope Pius XI in 1926.[190]
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Decision magazine, and World Wide Pictures film and television distribution were headquartered in Minneapolis for about fifty of the years between the late 1940s into the 2000s.[193] Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye met while attending the Pentecostal North Central University and began a television ministry that by the 1980s reached 13.5 million households.[194] Today, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in southwest Minneapolis with about 6,000 attendees is the world's largest Lutheran congregation.[195] Christ Church Lutheran in the Longfellow neighborhood is among the finest work by architect Eliel Saarinen. The congregation later added an education building designed by his son Eero Saarinen.[196]
Religions outside the Judeo-Christian mainstream also have a home in Minneapolis. In 1972, a relief agency resettled the first Shi'a Muslim family from Uganda. By 2004, between 20,000 and 30,000 Somali Muslims made the city their home.[197] In 1972, Dainin Katagiri was invited from California to Minneapolis aeby one account, a place he thought nobody else would want to go aewhere he founded a lineage which today includes three SÅutÅu Zen centers among the city's nearly twenty Buddhist and meditation centers.[198][199] Atheists For Human Rights has its headquarters in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in a geodesic dome.[200] Minneapolis has had a chartered local body of Ordo Templi Orientis since 1994.[201]
Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community.[202] More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis aeSaint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States.[203] Catholic Charities is one of the largest providers of social services locally.[204] The American Refugee Committee helps one million refugees and displaced persons in ten countries in Africa, the Balkans and Asia each year.[205] In 2011, Target Corp. was #42 in a list of the best 100 corporate citizens in CR magazine for corporate responsibility officers.[206] The oldest foundation in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over nine hundred charitable funds and connects donors to nonprofit organizations.[207] The metropolitan area gives 13% of its total charitable donations to the arts and culture. The majority of the estimated $1 billion recent expansion of arts facilities was contributed privately.[208]
Minneapolis has seven hospitals, four ranked among America's best by U.S. News & World Report aeAbbott Northwestern Hospital (part of Allina), Children's Hospitals and Clinics, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) and the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview.[209] Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Shriners Hospitals for Children and Allina's Phillips Eye Institute also serve the city.[210] The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is a 75-minute drive away.[211]
Cardiac surgery was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than two hundred patients had survived open-heart operations, many of them children. Working with surgeon C. Walton Lillehei, Medtronic began to build portable and implantable cardiac pacemakers about this time.[212]
HCMC opened in 1887 as City Hospital and was also known as General Hospital. A public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center, the HCMC safety net sees more than 350,000 clinic visits and 97,000 emergency room visits each year and in 2012 provided about 18% of the uncompensated care given in Minnesota.[213]
Funded in part by assessments on commercial properties, in 2009 Ambassadors of the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (DID) began working on 120 blocks of downtown to improve its cleanliness, friendliness and acceptability of behavior. They are employees of Block by Block, a company in Nashville, Tennessee that serves 46 U.S. cities.[214]
Utility providers are regulated monopolies: Xcel Energy supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy supplies gas, CenturyLink is the landline telephone provider, and Comcast is the cable service.[215] In 2007 citywide wireless internet coverage began, provided for 10 years by US Internet of Minnetonka to residents for about $20 per month and to businesses for $30.[216] The Minneapolis Wi-Fi network earns $1.2 million annual profit and as of 2010 has about 20,000 customers.[217] The city treats and distributes water and requires payment of a monthly solid waste fee for trash removal, recycling, and drop off for large items. Residents who recycle receive a credit. Hazardous waste is handled by Hennepin County drop off sites.[215] After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over one thousand miles (1609 km) of streets and four hundred miles (643.7 km) of alleys aecounting both sides, the distance between Minneapolis and Seattle and back. Ordinances govern parking on the plowing routes during these emergencies as well as snow shoveling throughout the city.[218]
As shown below Minneapolis has 10 sister cities:[219][220]
And informal connections with 
Hiroshima, Japan
Minneapolis once was sister cities with 
Winnipeg, Canada.[221]
Word Count: 7388
