The Shame of Our Cities
How Minneapolis-Saint Paul became the Medicaid fraud capital of the USA
Looting, pillage, theft, billions in disbursements, all on the honor system
We are all Somalis now
In the autumn glare reflecting off the harsh glass façade of the Minneapolis public library, temporary fencing encloses a once-welcoming arc of wooden planters and benches. During business hours there is an edgy assortment of dazed, hunched-over, or mumbling manifestations of Minnesota’s social wreckage fogging the sidewalk between the library and this little park. Either the fear or reality of their behavior has seemingly denied the broader public of the opportunity to use it. The library itself, a César Pelli-designed modernist ice cube that opened with great fanfare in the faraway year of 2006, is equally a relic, a monument to the bygone days when Minnesotans could read. “Minnesota nice, Mississippi smarter” goes a billboard around the corner on Washington Avenue in the heart of the yuppified postindustrial North Loop, the work of a local education-focused nonprofit. Only half of Minnesota schoolchildren now read at grade-level. Symptoms of the state’s catastrophic decline, which …
