Burnsville

Burnsville is a city 15 miles (24 km) south of downtown Minneapolis in Dakota County, Minnesota. It is home to a regional mall, a section of Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve, 310-foot (94 m) vertical ski peak Buck Hill, and part of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Burnsville and nearby suburbs form the southern portion of MinneapolisSaint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.7 million residents. The name Burnsville is attributed to an early Irish settler and land owner, William Byrne, whose surname was recorded as "Burns" and was never corrected. The Mdewakanton Dakota were the earliest inhabitants, arriving by the Minnesota River, following water fowl and game animals. The first European settlers were Irish, Scottish and Norwegian farmers who came upriver from Saint Paul. In 1950, just before World War II, Burnsville was still a quiet township with a one-room schoolhouse containing eight grades. After the arrival of Interstate 35 in 1960, the community saw the largest boom in population in the next two decades. Now the ninth-largest suburb in the metro area and a bedroom community of both Minneapolis and Saint Paul, it was fully built by the late 2000s. The Burnsville Transit Station serves as the hub and headquarters of theMinnesota Valley Transit Authority, providing regional bus service to five other suburbs. The city's downtown area is called Heart of the City with urban-style retail and condominiums.

History

The Mdewakanton Dakota were the earliest inhabitants, arriving by the Minnesota River, following water fowl and game animals. Chief Black Dog established his band at a permanent village at the isthmus between Black Dog Lake (which is named after him) and the Minnesota river. The first European settlers were Irish, Scottish and Norwegian farmers who came upriver from Saint Paul. In 1950, just before the World War II postwar housing boom, Burnsville was still a quiet township with a population of 583. After the arrival of Interstate 35W in 1960, the next two decades saw the largest boom in population when postwar pressures forced the community to develop at rapid pace. The city became a regional pull when Burnsville Center opened in 1977 and produced the heavily traveled retail strip on County Road 42. The next decades dealt with managing Burnsville's increasing population and growth which led to providing alternative transportation options, diverse housing projects, and ultimately the "Heart of the City" project. In the late 1990s, the city approached build-out in the late 90s and changed focus from new development to redevelopment and rehabilitation of existing structures. The town clerk recorded variations between "Burns" and "Byrne" but at the 1960s city incorporation, " burnsville" prevailed. There is some ambiguity about whether the name actually derived from Byrne, since there were people with the surname 'Burns' (a Scottish variant) living in the area. In 1858, the Dakota County Board authorized Byrnsville Township in the north by theMinnesota River, east by Eagan and Apple Valley, south by Lakeville, and west by Scott County.

Geography

Most of the Minnesota River is in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge with fish, wildlife, and parkland managed collectively by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Burnsville has an area of 26.93 square miles (69.75 km²) of which 24.91 square miles is land and 2.02 square miles are water. Interstate Highway 35 splits into Interstate Highways 35W and 35E within the city. Other routes in the city include Minnesota Highway 13 and County Road 42. The city has a population of 2,816. The U.N. World Heritage Site is in Burnsville. The Minnesota River flows into the Mississippi River at its confluence with Lake Agassiz. It was carved 12,000 years ago by the Glacial River Warren, which ran through the city's northern border. It is one of the largest rivers in the United States, with a total length of more than 2,000 miles (3,500 km) The city's population is 2,716. It has a land area of 24.93 sq miles (64.52 km²), of which 2.23 sq miles is water. The City of Burnsville is located in the Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District, which includes the Black Dog and Lower Minnesota River Watershed Districts. The Black Dog Watershed is managed by the Dakota county Soil & Water Conservation district. The Lower Minnesota river Watershed was created by the state of Minnesota in the 1950s.

Demographics

The earliest settlers were roughly 250 Mdewakanton Dakota who lived permanently at Black Dog camp. Starting in the 1850s, Old stock Americans from the east coast and French Canadians moved into eastern Dakota County near Saint Paul. A decade later, major European immigration began with settlers from Ireland, Scotland, and Great Britain. By the 1900s there were a few Scandinavians from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, but these ethnic groups were mostly concentrated near Lakeville. Irish descendants maintained the majority through the early 1950s owing to the town's origin, overall land ownership, and the practice of marrying within ethnic clans. The early 20th century's permanent population remained very low as the Minnesota River's lack of bridges and streetcar connection isolated the area from development. The lakeside houses around Crystal Lake and Orchard Lake attracted various immigrant and first-generation wealthier people to temporarily settle or own land in the town limits. In 1960, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded the population of Byrnesville Township at 2,716 and soon after, the postwar growth was dramatic, filling the city with second- to third-generation European descendants from Minneapolis. From 1960 to 1970, the population rose to nearly 20,000 and by 2000, the population was roughly 60,000. As of the census of 2010, there were 60,306 people, 24,283 households, and 15,656 families residing in the city. The gender makeup of the city was 48.7% male and 51.3% female.

Economy

Burnsville is a 15- to 30-minute drive from many regional attractions and services, such as the Mall of America, Valleyfair Amusement Park, Buck Hill Ski Area, the MinneapolisSt. Paul International Airport, downtown Saint Paul and downtown Minneapolis. Many employers, including Northern Tool + Equipment, Abdallah Candies, and UTC Aerospace Systems, are in the industrial areas in the southwest and the north, with corporate headquarters and modern warehouses in services and manufacturing. Retail shopping is along County Road 42 and Highway 13 in the west and east sections of the city with local shopping nodes positioned throughout. Burnsville Center is a 1,275,703-square-foot (118,516.7 m2) regional mall. The 1150-seat postmodern Burnsville Performing Arts Center, now The Ames Performing arts Center, opened in January 2009. The "Heart of the City" project is a downtown development policy driven by smart growth and new urbanism. Its approval in 2007 was controversial. Grande Market Square at Nicollet Avenue and Burnsville Parkway is the cornerstone of the Heart ofthe City project, and features a Doron Jensen-signature restaurant. The city's biggest employer is its school district, Independent School District 191, followed by Fairview Ridges Hospital, UTAS Sensor Systems, Pepsi-Cola Bottling, YRC, Mackin Educational Resources, Cub Foods, Frontier Communications, and AMS Holding. Its unemployment rate is 3.7%. The city has a population of about 4,000.

Arts and culture

The Ames Performing Arts Center has two theatres, a 1000-seat Proscenium Stage, and an art gallery. The Garage located near City Hall is a nonprofit music club and teen center that has attracted music acts nationally and internationally. The Burnsville Fire Muster originated in the 1970s as a showcase and short parade for a local fire equipment collector. In 2004, the Guinness Book of World Records cited the namesake event of this celebration, a fire truck parade, as the longest of its kind in the world at that time. The Ames Per performing Arts Center is at 12600 Nicollet Avenue in the Heart of the City. It has a theatre, art gallery, and studio space. It is located in the heart of the city on the corner of Nicollet and Ames Avenue in Ames, Minnesota. The center is open to the public on weekdays from 9am to 5pm and on the weekends from 8am to 11pm. It also has a theater, art galleries, and a studio space for musicians. The garage is located near the city hall and has a music club, teen center, and other activities. It was established in 1980 and has attracted musicians nationally and international. The community holds a fire muster every August or September. The event now includes a large parade, music concerts, and fireworks. The fire muster is a New England fire muster tradition, the event now takes on the New EnglandFire Muster tradition. The parade is the longest in the history of the world.

Parks and recreation

Burnsville has over 58 playgrounds and roughly 11 recreational lakes. Crystal Lake is the city's major recreation lake, allowing boating, fishing, jet-skiing, and swimming. The most heavily used lakes are Keller Lake, Crystal Lake, Kruse Lake, and Aligmanet Lake (split with Burnsville's neighbor Apple Valley, MN). In mid-2021, after finding numerous large goldfish in Keller Lake, Burnsville warned residents against public goldfish release, citing ecological concerns. Goldfish are a regulated invasive species in Minnesota and their release into public waters is illegal. Burnsville Ice Center has two large professional ice rinks. It has an annual participation of nearly 1,300 in the baseball leagues for grades K-12, 8090 boys' basketball teams in grades 312, and over 400 in flag and tackle American football in grades 28. There are also traveling teams for boys' and girls' basketball, girls' fast pitch softball, and 8th grade boys' football, which play against similar teams from around the state at a higher competitive level. Other adult sports are provided through theCity's recreation department, other recreational organizations, and minor league groups. The city contains 1,800 acres (7.3 km²) of parkland throughout 79 parks and is managed by the Burnsville Parks Department, which follows a Parks & Trails Master Plan. Only a third of the parkland is developed and for recreation, with the remainder preserved as natural habitat. The border with the Minnesota River is within the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

Government and politics

Burnsville operates as a Statutory Plan B city under the Minnesota Legislature. Government consists of an elected city council of one executive mayor and four council members. The mayor's term was changed from two to four years in 2000. The city manager is in charge of administrative duties, including employment of the city. Burnsville is in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district and is represented by Angie Craig, a Democrat. It is in multiple districts in both the Minnesota Senate (51, 56) and Minnesota House (51A, 56A,56B, 56B) The city is one of many Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan municipalities that must regularly submit a Comprehensive Plan detailing infrastructure and development progress to the Metropolitan Council. It has been home to the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority since it was established in the 1990s. It was named after a former mayor, Elizabeth Kautz, who has been reelected eight times, and has served for over 27 years. The Burnsville Heart of the City is a redevelopment project of commercial areas near Burnsville Parkway and Nicollet Avenue. In the 2008 mayoral election, her opponent cited the 1,000-seat regional performing arts center component as misuse of public funds toward arts. In 2010, Burnsville was named one of the best places to live in the United States by the American Planning Association. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has named Burnsville one of its top cities to visit in the past year, and Burnsville has been named a top city to visit by the National League of Cities.

Education

Burnsville Independent School District 191 includes Burnsville as well as parts of Savage and Eagan. About 20% of Burnsville's students attend Independent Schools District 196 schools. About 10% of the district's students go to Independent School districts 194 and 194. Good Shepherd Lutheran School is a Pre-K-8 Christian school of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Burnsville. The district has two 912 high schools, three 68 middle schools, ten K-5 elementary schools, and ten middle schools. It also has a high school, a middle school, and two elementary schools. The high school is called Cedar Alternative High School. The middle schools are called Eagle Ridge Middle School (in Savage) and John Metcalf Middle School, (Closed in 2020) The elementary schools are named Joseph Nicollet Middle School and Eagle Ridge Elementary School. They are all located in the Burnsville area. The school district also has two middle schools and one elementary school in the town of Eagan, which is in the neighboring town of Savage. It has ten elementary schools in the city of Savage, and one in Eagan's town of Waukesha, which has one in Waukegan. It is the only school district in the district that does not have a middle or high school. The schools are located in Savage and Wauwatosa, with the high school being in Wausau, and the middle school in Wawatosisa. The elementary school is located in Wautosisa, with an elementary school and high school both in W Sauk County, Wisconsin.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Burnsville, Dakota County, Minnesota = 85.1. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 5. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 30. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Burnsville = 3.1 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 64,317 individuals with a median age of 36.6 age the population dropped by -1.81% in Burnsville, Dakota County, Minnesota population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 2,579.18 residents per square mile of area (995.82/km²). There are average 2.45 people per household in the 24,045 households with an average household income of $67,225 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 6.90% of the available work force and has dropped -2.96% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 27.18%. The number of physicians in Burnsville per 100,000 population = 130.4.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Burnsville = 30.4 inches and the annual snowfall = 43.2 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 89. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 199. 83 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 48, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Burnsville, Dakota County, Minnesota which are owned by the occupant = 64.66%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 27 years with median home cost = $176,620 and home appreciation of -13.25%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $11.20 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $5,980 per student. There are 17.5 students for each teacher in the school, 773 students for each Librarian and 883 students for each Counselor. 8.85% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 26.77% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 10.22% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).