At a March 32 meeting of the Streets.MN Board, it was announced that Streets.MN was considering an offer to relocate to Los Angeles unless a new modern state-of-the-art server was built in Minnesota. The Board said in its press release:
We have lived with our server for nearly 18 months (which is 30 years in non-internet time), sharing it with lots of other web-based services, and served millions of words, tens of millions of letters, and billions of bytes. While the server (see image on upper right) was state-of-the-art when it opened in late 2011, it has become uncompetitive with servers in other peer cities, such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and San Francisco, which have all provided their leading blog with new hardware. We lack basic features like a high-definition LED readouts on the front of our server. A schematic of the user interface of the proposed new server is shown on the lower right. In short, Streets.MN cannot remain competitive in recruiting new writers with its existing server infrastructure.
We have received inquiries from a group in City of Commerce, California, which has offered us a new server if we would simply relocate. As everyone knows, Los Angeles lacks a blog. While we love Minnesota, we have been presented with an impressive offer which we are hard pressed to turn down in the absence of a new facility locally. The lease on our current server expires at the end of this season, at which time we will need to seriously consider our options.
The Board further said that if Streets.MN moves, it will just do a search and replace for all posts: replacing the words Minneapolis with Los Angeles, and St. Paul with Long Beach and expect that everything else will remain meaningful to our new readers. The Board expects readers to purchase Personal Seat Licenses to pay for the server.