Governing Magazine has an article on Gentrification in America. Minneapolis is a league leader, ranking third behind only Portland and Washington. Quoting from the article:
Minneapolis: After experiencing little change during the 1990s, 39 Minneapolis neighborhoods gentrified over the past decade.
Key drivers of the city’s transformation are fairly typical of other gentrifying cities. Kjersti Monson, the city’s director of long-range planning, cited the role of infrastructure investments, particularly light rail, the parks system and new sports stadiums downtown. The timing of these investments, she said, coupled with recent national trends in valuing urbanity, set the table for the city’s demographic shift.
“There has been a huge renaissance downtown,” Monson said, “and it has brought a lot of wealth, empty nesters and investors.” Young professionals seeking urban amenities also are attracted to the area’s affordability.
Gentrification in Minneapolis. (Source)
Methodology from the article:
For this report, an initial test determined a tract was eligible to gentrify if its median household income and median home value were both in the bottom 40th percentile of all tracts within a metro area at the beginning of the decade. To assess gentrification, growth rates were computed for eligible tracts’ inflation-adjusted median home values and percentage of adults with bachelors’ degrees. Gentrified tracts recorded increases in the top third percentile for both measures when compared to all others in a metro area. (Read complete methodology)