MINNEAPOLIS — The rich tend to stay rich and the poor tend to stay poor, according to new data from the Income Distributions and Dynamics in America report. 

“That’s been the case in the United States for some time,” said Edward Goetz the director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota. 

He said he isn’t surprised that Minnesotans in particular do not tend to move to income brackets but notes that purchasing power and other factors within those categories have changed. 

“The most troubling aspect is the racial and gender differences that are found in the study,” said Goetz.

That data, which has been compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, shows the gender wage gap is still apparent, and there are disparities in BIPOC populations when moving through income brackets. 

“We’ve been trying to create opportunities to kind of change that and close some of those disparity gaps,” said David McGee is the executive director of Build Wealth Minnesota who says he sees that data play out everyday. 

“There’s some generational challenges and patterns that we’ve gone through,” said McGee. “There’s a fear factor of discrimination, or maybe even if there isn’t, there’s historically been so much discrimination.”

He said underserved communities sometimes don’t realize their worth. 

“We’ve been basically given salaries that just go that we’re willing to accept,” said McGee. “And I think employers know that. But I think time is coming where that season have to change.”

He says that change needs to happen now. 

Both McGee and Getz agree that the solution for these gaps is to invest in helping underserved communities. 

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MINNEAPOLIS — On May 17, 1954, a unanimous Supreme Court decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case made it unconstitutional for public schools to separate children based on race.  

Seventy years later, artificial intelligence is bringing the case to life in a new way. Scholars say it comes at a critical time. In many areas, including several Minnesota counties, schools have steadily re-segregated.

Within seconds of visiting the new, interactive multimedia website called Brown Revisited, you begin to hear the pivotal arguments and opinions that shaped the case in 1954, despite the fact that audio recordings weren’t allowed in the court until 1955.

The site, and AI audio, was created by the Oyez Project, a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. 

“We heard the first audio clip and were blown away,” said Tim Johnson, a University of Minnesota Professor, Supreme Court scholar and advisory to the Oyez Project. “We knew at that point that we had something where we could really, truly, bring history to life.”

In a video explaining how the A.I. audio came together, Spooler explained how professional voice actors were used to read actual transcripts from the case. They then used snippets of real, historical recordings from the Supreme Court Justices and attorneys, such as Thurgood Marshall, to clone their voices and overlay them using A.I.

Kent Erdahl: “Universities have spent a lot of time trying to police A.I. for obvious reasons, but do you think that this type of technology also needs to be embraced?” 

Tim Johnson: “One hundred percent. If you can use this technology for good, then we should use it for good. Look, we know we have deep fakes, whether it’s a deep fake of Joe Biden or a deep fake of Donald Trump. We’re trying to do ‘real fakes.’ We’re not trying to fake you out and make Thurgood Marshall say something he never said. We just want to put his voice to something he actually said so you can hear him during a time in history when you, quite literally, couldn’t hear him.”

And now that we can hear them, Johnson says he’s already seen how it helps students – and even himself – better understand the case.

“We know that Brown is famous,” he said. “We know that it says that we’re going to let little African American children go to school with little white American children. But that’s not (the same as) hearing Thurgood Marshall’s voice. That’s not hearing John W. Davis’ voice arguing in favor of segregation. That’s not hearing Chief Justice Warren announce the opinion that says, ‘The doctrine of separate but equal has no place.  Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’

This historical aspect of what we’re doing here, I think, is a complete gamechanger for teaching about the law – teaching about the Supreme Court – to students across the country.”

It also comes as many students find themselves in schools that have grown more segregated.

Though states stopped separating school children based on race 70 years ago, socioeconomics and other factors have caused segregation to grow across the country, and  the academic consequences for marginalized students have too.

“What we’ve seen happen in recent decades is what we refer to in the legal community as de-facto segregation,” Johnson said. “It is in our faces, it is here in Minnesota and it’s not just in the Twin Cities, there are some highly segregated school districts in Northern Minnesota as well, where it’s between Native American students and the rest of the communities. 

So the issues here – bringing Brown back to life – is going to make us think about these cases, think about how our State Supreme Court is ruling, think about how our school districts should deal with these issues.”

Late last year, the Minnesota Supreme Court said that de-facto segregation could be unconstitutional even if the state didn’t cause it. But proving it would require evidence from parents showing the segregation itself is a substantial factor in harming their kids education.

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MINNEAPOLIS — After years in legal limbo, the Minneapolis 2040 plan is back.

There are several pieces to it, including adding public transit, jobs and multi-family affordable housing in neighborhoods meant for single family homes. Experts say the more places there are to live keeps the cost of living down in the Twin Cities.

Except, there are more factors at play like too few building permits being pulled and it means rent prices may go up. 

“We need more supply to meet that demand,” said Cathy Bennett, who leads the Twin Cities Housing Alliance. The organization is only a few years old and is a non-profit tackling the industry’s challenges. 

“So that those who are most vulnerable to housing instability have a chance to be able to get into a home,” said Bennett.

She says the metro is short some 18,000 units, but as high interest rates, labor shortages and the need for single-family homes skyrocket, developers are pulling fewer permits to build apartments. 

“You have developers who are really pulling back in terms of new projects,” said Cristian deRitias a senior director and deputy chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

deRitias says say doubling down on density keeps rent from rising. 

“Even if those additional units cost more to produce, they’re going to put downward pressure on the entire existing market, so you need to continue to add supply in order to prevent rents from rising,” said deRitias.

On average, rent across the city is around $1,500 to $2,500. That could go up even more since the latest data from Housing First Minnesota shows a severe decline in overall activity with permits pulled for just 6 units – a 168% decrease compared to this same time last year.

In comparison, construction firms pulled permits for 987 multifamily units in July of 2022.

That could go up even more — since the latest data shows only six permits were pulled in March, compared to 987 two years ago. At that time, multi-family construction had surged ahead in the metro area, making up nearly 70% of permitted housing units year-to-date.

“Which actually helps the economy overall and to be able to put more money towards food, child care and education,” said Bennett. 

The Twin Cities Housing Alliance says Minneapolis has very supportive housing policies, like its 2040 plan, that has encouraged so much building, the inflation rate locally has stayed low. And since it can go into effect again, builders may be encouraged to come off the sidelines and start pulling more permits for multi-family projects. 

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