The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has published an article describing the situation at the corner of N. Lyndale Ave. and West Broadway on the city's north side.
The famously liberal paper has identified the cause of the location's violence problem as two adjoining businesses, a Merwin Liquor store and a Winner gas station. These two establishments are described as the "epicenter" of violence in the city because 10% of the killings in Minneapolis since 2010 have taken place within a half-mile of that intersection.
While the businesses are about the general size for those with similar operations, an area described as having a radius of a half-mile covers a little over 502 acres. The size of the average farm in Minnesota is about 377 acres. The distance from the center of this circle to its circumference would amount to a little over 1000 paces. So two geographically small businesses are to blame for a crime wave in a much larger, densely inhabited area. At the same time, the employees and ownership of the two businesses aren't accused of murder or robbery or encouraging others in those activities. The issue appears to be the people that frequent that area.
This is actually often the response to criminal and anti-social activity by many cities, like this one. The businesses themselves are very limited in their tactics to address what happens off of their own property.
If the city is able to close the two businesses, as seems to be its intent, what will be the result? First of all, those individuals that produce the violence are unlikely to enroll in nursing programs or divinity schools. They are far more likely to move their operation to another nearby spot that supplies liquor and potato chips. The crime problems of Minneapolis are a product of the city's residents and its administration, not two businesses in a rough neighborhood.
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