It feels like Minneapolis as we know it is gone.
Maybe it'll come back, but it's gone for now and probably won't ever be the same.
I visited Uptown last night--the latest Minneapolis scene for protest and occupation.
Casey and I parked along Lake Calhoun/Bde Maka Ska. As soon as we got out of the car, another car stopped alongside us. The male driver in sunglasses just looked at us, laughed, and then tore off.
Along the lake walk were the usual bikers and walkers but also jeering adolescents, loud music and vehicles roaring by.
Then we spoke to a local.
A homeowner on the lake was out watering her flowers. I asked how she felt living here. She talked for 20 minutes.
She (white) and her husband (Latino) are in their 40s-50s and work as doctor/researchers at the U of MN. They moved here three years ago from Boston, then before that New York.
She started by showing me the glass on the street directly in front of where she watered those flowers.
"A car was broke into there Friday, then another Sunday," she said.
Two cars, same spot, both in the middle of the day.
She and her husband have had their garage broke into and people trying to break into their house. A neighbor's teenage daughter was catcalled by a peeping Tom as she was changing.
There's a sense of no where to turn for help. A recent call to police about the car break-ins was never followed up on.
Crime is one thing. She's lived in other, larger cities. It's the energy here, she said, that really gets to her.
"There's so much tension here," she said.
She described she and her husband recently walking to the movie theater in Uptown and being harassed about their race by two black boys. Drivers have yelled to her while she's out in her yard. People are on edge, she said.
Then she summarized it all by saying, "I've never felt so unsafe before."
By now her husband was outside as well, agreeing with sentiments of his own--after having grown up in Argentina and living in New York himself.
Minneapolis isn't ruined or without all its many charms and enjoyments. But it feels like its heyday of First Avenue, the joy of the lakes, the groundbreaking work at the U of MN, the small city energy of downtown have all been cut down and clouded.
Ordinarily, one would say it's a rough patch that the city will get through--and it probably will. But I don't think it'll ever rise up to be the same. Too many people such as this couple are going to leave. The new systems in place following eventual and needed city reforms won't help if they don't have the people and tax base to support them.
Plus, we're reaching a new era where people with resources aren't limited even to their own country. There's a rising movement of Americans eying international locations in developing countries that are safer and less taxing (literally and figuratively).
But while most Americans will stay in the country, why would they choose Minneapolis? It's hard to see how this city bounces back from this. If it does, it won't be soon.