The Twin City District: A Unique Form of Urban Landscape

Abstract

HE cultural landscape of the St. Paul-Minneapolis urban district presents a picture of almost unique character. Multiurban districts are, of course, fairly common; but the peculiar character of the Twin City district is the type of twinning found there, that of two almost complete cities separated, not merely politically but geographically, and yet in close contact with each other along one common zone. The situation is radically different from that of other urban districts that may appear similar on small-scale maps. Particularly is it to be distinguished from that found at many pairs of river towns facing each other-each with, perhaps, half a commercial core-across a dividing stream, for example Omaha-Council Bluffs. St. Paul and Minneapolis each lie on both sides of the Mississippi, the latter being fifteen miles upstream from the former (Fig. I). Likewise the situation is different from that in which one dominant city is bordered by one or more subordinate cities, with commercial cores only partially developed or even atrophied; for example New York-Jersey City. Manhattan, to be sure, presents the unusual feature of two separated cores of skyscraper districts within a single city, but these are definitely differentiated in form and function, being in fact merely separated portions of an original unit core. Finally, the connection between the Twin Cities is not merely that of an arterial highway built up as a ribbon of urban form across the separating rural landscape, as Bethlehem-Allentown, Pa., or, perhaps, Dallas-Fort Worth, Tex. Rather, it is a connection through a common zone, perhaps half a mile wide.