In reply to Alex Cecchini.

Just a few comments:

"– A higher share of Minneapolis residents commute and shop within Minneapolis than commute to SLP (or any other individual suburb)
– A higher share of SLP residents commute or shop in Minneapolis than the other way around."

Absolutely, but since that's bringing more commerce into MPLS than the other way round I don't see how it translates into bigger subsidy for SLP than MPLS? It's mutually beneficial, we get a route in, you get our labor and entertainment/shopping dollars. I think commuters double the population of downtown MPLS every weekeday, that brings a lot of lunch money, hotel occupancy, etc. in.

"– Of those moving within the city, a good chunk get by without using freeways for most trips. Many don’t even drive (~25% walk, bike, or bus to work, 31% of all trips according to UMN research). People in SLP drive on much more expensive infrastructure to places like West End for a higher percent of their trips than Minneapolis."

While we're certainly more car dependent, freeways are not the primary routes of getting from one side of SLP to the other. ( or one side of Edina to the other) Very few residents of SLP are using 100 or 394 to get to the West End. Our primary routes are Louisiana, Cedar Lake Rd, Minnetonka Blvd, and Hwy 7.

"– Freeways through the central cities enabled people (and businesses) who would otherwise have lived in those cities to move out. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25098858 Point being, the economic activity freeways allow in the city by people coming in would likely occur without them anyway, most likely higher than our current reality (the study notes that without the freeways our population would be 8% higher, with presumably more businesses as well)."

Yes, in the history of central city depopulation the freeway system played a central role in promoting suburban sprawl. But freeways didn't drive people who wanted to live in the cities out into the suburbs, they provided an infrastructure for people who wanted to live in the suburbs and work, shop, and seek entertainment in the city. Sure if you trapped people in the city you'd have more population. As for economic activity, I'm not sure highways are necessary, but they're currently an asset in the absence of alternatives. Do you have any idea how much food, fuel, manufacturing and business supplies are trucked into the cities every day? It's not just about people driving in to do stuff. Almost all commercial activity would be impossible were it not for everything that gets trucked in every day. Yes, we could have commerce without freeways but that's no more true for the city than it is the suburbs, we all had streets and railways before Eisenhower.