BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
The Richfield Historical Society has a motto on its website home page—Proudly Suburban since 1854. The 1854 part refers to the fact that Richfield claims to be Minnesota’s oldest suburb. The “Proudly” part indirectly references the fact that suburban had become something to be slightly ashamed of, in the late 20th and early 21st century. But Richfield aims to change that, it seems, by cleverly doing city planning to eliminate all the “bad” things about suburbia while retaining the good. And one of its main tools in that endeavor is art.
Art is not the only thing that will make suburbs places one can proudly claim to live and/or work in. Another thing Richfield and other suburbs are belatedly discovering is what is now termed “walkability” and “bikeability.” (And public transit.) Then there’s a metropolitan “good” that seems tailor-made for a suburb, and especially Richfield: gardens, which are lately expected to pull their weight more by being at least partly edible gardens. Gardens, and their commercially minded cousins, farmers markets. And finally that double-edged sword—diversity. And glory be! Richfield’s got that covered, too. And what if your city planners were clever enough to combine all of these things with art? What if they championed, encouraged and even financially supported public art? That’s what gives us another current buzzword—placemaking—and Richfield is all about that these days. And doing it well.
A little historical detour. Richfield became a community in the territory of Minnesota in 1854. The residents held their first town meeting in 1858, on the same day that Minnesota attained statehood, and changed the name to Richfield rather than the unofficial name of Richland, after its major business, the Richland Mill. (They later changed the mill’s name too.) Although not incorporated as a city or village, it was considerably larger than it is today in area, comprising a large amount of present-day Minneapolis south of Lake Street, a large part of present-day St. Louis Park, and all of present-day Edina and the MSP airport. Minneapolis was a small town hugging the banks of the Mississippi, but this position greatly favored trade, so Minneapolis grew quickly in the next 50 years, while Richfield remained a farming community. It seemed only right that Minneapolis’ borders would grow too.
In 1867, the state legislature annexed the land from Lake Street to 46th Street to Minneapolis. In 1883 it annexed more land: Lakes Harriet and Calhoun and surrounding parcels. In 1886, Hennepin County created the new city of St. Louis Park, taking yet more land from Richfield as well as the unincorporated county. In 1887, the legislature did one more annexation—of the land between 46th Street and 54th Street. And finally, in 1889, residents of west Richfield broke away themselves, to create the new village called Edina, a loss of nearly half the area of Richfield. At this point, town managers became alarmed and started discussing incorporating as a village to better protect their borders, but they didn’t actually get around to it until 1908. The last northern slice off of Richfield was due to its own residents, who aimed to dissolve Richfield entirely and annex it all, but a compromise was reached. Later in that century, Ft. Snelling and Hopkins each nabbed a parcel, and then finally, well into the 20th century and just before Richfield started to boom, the airport was built, further carving away at its southern border. City Council Member Susan Rosenberg, in an article in the Star Tribune, said, “I always say if we could have maintained our borders, it would be Richfield-St. Paul.”
Richfield now comprises almost exactly seven square miles of land, and it’s moderately dense for a suburb, with a population of over 35,000. In fact the city of Richfield’s motto is “the urban hometown.” Richfield, like most of Minnesota, eschews gated communities, and has turned away from upscale shopping enclosures, preferring instead to use any spare swathes of land for parks and recreation, and preferring to keep the housing affordable but pleasant. Richfield Public Schools have four elementary schools, and one of them is a STEM magnet and one is a dual-language school. One of the negative stereotypes of suburbs, at least the “good” suburbs with secure housing stock and low crime, like Richfield, is that they are not racially diverse. Yet with a white population of 69%, Richfield is only six percentage points higher than Minneapolis, which is more than 10 times its size in population, and is 12 percentage points lower than the state as a whole.
Richfield, unlike most cities of its size, has both a historical society and a fully functioning arts commission. Maybe this is why Richfield has so much public art—murals, sculptures, and other objects. They even have a walking tour of public art, self-conducted. You just download the brochure with the route (http://www.cityofrichfield.org/home/showdocument?id=1446 ) and do the tour. And remember we mentioned the farmers market? Richfield was an early entrant in the farmers market craze, and its excellent original market is now 26 years old. It is located in a city park—Veteran’s Memorial Park—which also is the site of the Richfield Art Center. The Arts Commission has art activities in conjunction with the farmers market every week. Richfield also has a lot of parks for such a small city, and there are further art classes and activities at most of them.
Richfield also has a second farmers market at Lyndale Gardens. In 2011, the vacant Lyndale Garden Center site was purchased by a developer group called The Cornerstone Group, with incentives from the City of Richfield. Their plans, which are partly realized, but still not complete, are to create a combination of commercial space and public space for the city. The garden center was torn down and the first anchor tenant was an expansion of Lakewinds Food Cooperative, which built a new building for the purpose. Peace Coffee also opened a branch store there. Forecast, the public art nonprofit, has teamed up with the developer—with the Minnesota State Arts Board providing a grant—to launch a project called RARE—Richfield Artist Residency Engagement. The eventual goal, which has apparently missed some deadlines along the way but is still very much in play, is to build a public amphitheatre in the Lyndale Gardens site. The artist in residence is tasked with organizing the community to create a massive mural on this amphitheatre, and along the way, to continually engage community members in making art for the public space. It’s all part of Richfield’s master plan to be the exemplary new kind of suburb for the 21st century.
