Golden Valley Sees Monstrous Gain in Workers During the Day

Golden Valley’s office complexes, retail establishments and other workplaces cause the number of workers to more than triple during the day, according to recently released Census data.

About 205 percent more workers come into the city than live here, based on estimates from the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. In all, commuters increase the city’s population by 21,378 people—from a resident population of 20,184 to a population of 41,562 during the workday.

Golden Valley’s strong results were impressive even by the standards of a region that overwhelmingly performed well. St. Louis Park has 27 percent more workers come in than live there. In Minnetonka, the difference is 67 percent. Farther away, Edina has a 91 percent difference.

The situation is less rosy for Lake Minnetonka communities, cities south of Eden Prairie and Bloomington and communities north metro of Golden Valley. Crystal loses 6,900 workers during the day, while Robbinsdale loses about 1,200.

Use the map above to compare how Minnesota cities fared. The map is colored according to each city’s “employment-residence ratio”—which compares the number of workers in a community to the number of workers who live there.

Ratios greater than 1.0 mean more people work in a community than it has workers living there. A community with a ranking of 1.19, for example, would have 19 percent more workers working there. By contrast, communities with ratios less than 1.0 send more residents to other communities to work than they receive.

The colors mean:

• Red: .23 to .5
• Yellow: .5 to 1
• Blue: 1 to 1.5
• Green: 1.5 to 5

The map only includes communities with either 2,500 workers living there or 2,500 workers who go there to work.