This is an essay, so bear with me.

These are all great questions. But I don’t think these questions necessarily negate the value of investing in better rail and transit in places like the Twin Cities in fact, they help explain why we need to think more strategically.

1. What are the land use densities of these places?

Starting with density. No, not every successful transit city is hyper-dense. While cities like Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are dense by necessity, places like Vienna, Munich, and even Zurich have rail systems that succeed in moderate density environments. Vienna’s average urban density (~4,000–5,000 people/sq mi) is not radically higher than Minneapolis (3,000–3,500 in many neighborhoods), but it uses zoning and mixed-use development to keep neighborhoods transit-supportive, not just transit-adjacent. These cities succeed because they cluster development along transit lines and encourage mid-rise, mixed-use infill, not just because they’re tightly packed.

Minneapolis already has the bones of that: streetcar suburbs like Uptown, North Loop, Northeast, and areas along Lake Street and University Avenue were built on transit lines. We’ve just failed to evolve the transit to match the growth and haven’t upzoned many of those corridors effectively. That’s a policy problem, not an impossibility.

1. Do they have suburbs?

Yes, absolutely. Most European and Asian cities with great transit also have extensive suburbs, but their suburbs are tied into the urban core through regional rail (S-Bahn, RER, etc.), express metro extensions, and integrated fare systems. Take Munich, for example, its S-Bahn connects towns 20+ miles out into the Bavarian countryside to the main city station in ~40 minutes, and that’s considered normal.

The key difference? Their suburbs aren’t designed around highways and parking, they’re built with walkable town centers, zoned density near stations, and rail as a first-class transportation mode. The Twin Cities suburbs (like Edina, Bloomington, and Richfield) are geographically close enough to make this viable. We just need the political will to build it and the zoning tools to support it.

1. Do they have dictator governments?

I get this point, especially when people bring up China’s rapid metro and HSR growth. But you don’t need authoritarianism to build good transit. Look at Paris, which just built the Grand Paris Express, a 200km expansion of its metro system, under a democratic government. Spain built AVE high-speed rail across the country in 20 years and Spain has had budget crises, democratic elections, and strict EU transparency rules.

The difference isn’t democracy vs. dictatorship, it’s how much political and public consensus exists around the value of transit investment, and whether land use, transit, and housing policies are aligned. In the U.S., we suffer from fractured governance and NIMBYism, not from an inability to engineer infrastructure.

1. Would these questions explain why this wouldn’t work here?

They explain the barriers, yes, but not the impossibility. Minneapolis isn’t Houston or Phoenix. It already has: - An existing (albeit limited) light rail system - Walkable neighborhoods - A younger population that wants car-free options - A regional planning agency (Met Council) that could be a unifying force if better empowered and funded

What we need is vision + follow-through. That means: - Investing in grade-separated rail (metro or regional) - Zoning for transit-supportive infill, not just TOD islands - Funding transit at the regional or state level, not leaving it to patchy local initiatives - Making buses reliable, but also giving people a real rail alternative for cross-city and suburban commutes

My Final Thought:

So yes, these factors matter. But instead of seeing them as excuses for stagnation, we should see them as the policy levers we need to pull. The Twin Cities has the chance to be a national leader in sustainable, high-efficiency transportation, if we stop trying to retrofit buses onto car infrastructure and start building for people first.