Professor John Adams and a team from the University's Geography Department have turned up evidence that Minnesota's regional trade centers are showing the same low-density sprawl in recent years as the Twin Cities metro area. As part of the ongoing TRG Study, Adams also identified "a crescent of growth" within the state, stretching from Fargo-Moorhead to Brainerd, through the Twin Cities, to Mankato and Rochester.

Adams presented his team's latest findings February 14 at a workshop titled "Urbanization of the Countryside—Low-Density Residential Development near Minnesota's Regional Centers."

According to the researchers, places that have grown quickly typically are situated closer to prosperous and growing population centers, possess valuable resources, and have found ways to capitalize on scale efficiencies in production. Moreover, when growth is underway, the growth often fuels a shift of resources and value to the area.

"Once places gain the edge over their competitors, they flourish, while others reach a plateau and go no further while still others drop off the map," Adams says. "As the map of economic opportunity slowly is transformed, residents relocate, and newcomers to the state—immigrants and domestic migrants—settle in places that appear to offer promise and opportunity."

Adams's team selected 20 of Minnesota's 49 regional trade centers outside the greater Twin Cities area as representative samples to probe the relationship between land development and transportation, specifically how regional centers are evolving beyond their traditional role simply as distribution points for a rural economy. For instance, half a century ago, Adams points out that people on farms lived differently than South Minneapolis residents. Now, it is not unusual for a farm owner to rent the land and commute to a job elsewhere.

"We've been trying to fit today's reality into yesterday's concepts and terms" Adams says, "rather than be forward thinking."

Specifically, the definition of what is "rural" and what is "urban" has changed, he adds. For example, one needs to look no further than the now-imperceptible boundary between the Twin Cities and Mankato, most certainly evidence of low-density development in recent years.

To assess the growth or decline of an area, the researchers identified the sample regional centers as "key cities" as well as nearby cities, towns, and townships within the commuting field of each key, and examined related population trends and commuting activity. For each minor civil division within each commuting field they tracked population changes over 30 years—from 1970 to 2000—and also studied trunk highway access and traffic flows.

Though over half of Minnesota's 5 million inhabitants reside in the Twin Cities metro, Adams says it's also important to study the state's regional centers to get the most accurate picture of what is going on.

So far, Adams has found that the growth and decline of the state's recreational and job centers don't fit into traditional patterns. What's more, there appears to be a slow aggregation of people into regional centers while, at the same time, people are spreading farther out from within those centers.

Ultimately, the study may, according to Adams, be used to help better plan Minnesota's trunk highway system, which has seen increased traffic loads in all of the sample areas. Near fast-growing regional centers, some highways may even be approaching capacity.