Your preconceptions of Minneapolis might be shattered when you see its booming new downtown. The focus of a $2 billion Big Build initiative to invest in revitalization and redevelopment, the city center has seen a real estate rush fueled by population growth in the Twin Cities region. And the city is squarely confronting the challenges that come with growth in its Minneapolis 2040 plan, choosing to increase housing density via upzoning and focusing on equity, affordability, and sustainability.

But then again, Minneapolis has always floated under the radar. It really shouldn’t. The city boasts an award-winning park network, an envious bike trail system, and excellent recreational activities—despite the frigid winters. Combined with relatively affordable homes (bungalows and four-bedroom homes in the high $300,000s, according to Zillow) and a local economy that supports big firms like Target and 3M, Minneapolis hits the mid-size metro sweet spot: more accessible than larger cities, at a fraction of the cost.

Governor DeSantis’ office rightfully faces tough questions from the public, press, and state and federal lawmakers regarding data transparency following a series of public missteps and controversies, including my removal from the dashboard and associated data I built and managed for the Florida Department of Health.

Historical data has been removed or become inaccessible, and researchers are now being told they won’t be given access to data previously published for at least another year. The dashboard I built and managed for months continues to crash under its new management, with data going missing or showing questionable numbers, and the interface itself constantly glitching and disabling features. Reports of mismanagement and misleading numbers plague an office I once helped establish as the gold standard for public data sharing.

The only directive I refused was to manually change data in a misleading way to drum up public support of resuming pre-pandemic level of activities without a science- based assessment of each county’s respective risk or readiness to do so. The request to mislead the public with falsified data made me uneasy, and I immediately reached out to my supervisor, as well as my friends and family, about what happened. It was no secret in our office that Shamarial Roberson asked me to compromise my integrity and use my dashboard to mislead the public about the safety of reopening each county. I had never in my academic or professional career as a scientist been asked to manipulate data to influence public opinion, and I am still caught in disbelief that this person remains employed by DOH, while I have been wrongfully terminated and defamed by the Governor and state employees.

I did what any scientist would when asked to do something wrong – I said no and I made clear that I would not participate in any research or activity using misleading data that could get people sick or worse.

TP45's reach goes into every corner of the land.....

After the state shut down, the predicted tsunami did not arrive. Temporary hospitals sit unused. Ventilators were never in short supply. The death count, though tragically nearing 1,800 today, remains short of what many feared.

Why didn’t Florida see an explosion of cases?

To answer that question, Tampa Bay Times reporters reviewed the methodology behind several prominent models and studied data tracing the virus’ spread into every corner of the state.

Then the Times analyzed cell phone tracking data collected by three companies that paints a vivid picture of how Floridians reacted during the outbreak’s early days. Fifteen experts reviewed the work and shared their observations.