Only outsiders and strangers—and those who name baseball
teams—would call St. Paul and Minneapolis "twins." The rest of
us call them "The Cities," recognizing that though they sit
right next to each other and on the same river, they pull in
decidedly different directions. St. Paul: older, tighter,
neighborly; Catholic, Irish, Hmong; Alexander Ramsey, Henry
Sibley, and James J. Hill; the Capitol; the more conservative of
the two. Minneapolis: younger, sprawling, hip; Lutheran,
Scandinavian, Somali; C.C. Washburn, Charles A. Pillsbury, and
T.B. Walker; the University of Minnesota; the more liberal of
the two. The competition between St. Paul and Minneapolis, which
their mayors play up, is sometimes funny and other times crazy-
making. (Wouldn't every citizen's life be improved if, for
example, the cities adopted the same snow emergency rules?)
Together, however, St. Paul and Minneapolis did and do centrally
shape Minnesota's economy, personality, and identity. Together,
they pump the blood and oxygen that make M