Humphrey School News on-the-go

Professor Ann Markusen comments on support for emerging artists in this article about the culture of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Research assistant Anne Gadwa also is quoted in this interview.

According to Ann Markusen, professor of urban planning at the University of Minnesota, investment in these organisations can have a long-term pay off: "It brings artists into the region. And the presence of a writers' centre, or subsidised loft space for painters, often invigorates neighbourhoods.�

Gadwa, who is now pursuing a degree in urban planning at the University of Minnesota, says she misses the excitement of New York. But, as she lounges in a hair salon with scarlet walls and dangling chandeliers, she says she has no regrets. "A friend of mine put it well: New York provides the intensity you might see in ‘the other woman'. Minneapolis-St Paul is like the girl next door. You might pine for the other woman, but then one day, you see that the girl next door has everything you really need or want. And you realise you've fallen for her.�