Minnesota's Magic Touch

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Minneapolis leaders are also busily courting new business. The city has joined the University of Minnesota in setting up a new "hightechnology corridor" that will house research and development facilities on 70 acres of now sparsely used land. The purpose is to spawn new small-and medium-size firms that will go on to open plants around the state.

The university is also encouraging its faculty members to start their own companies. Last year the university put up $100,000 to help Mechanical Engineering Professor J. Edward Anderson patent his dream: a computerized transit system consisting of cars running on an elevated track. Says Richard Gehring, president of Automated Transportation Systems, a new firm that will develop the equipment:

"If all we build is 50 miles of rail a year, that's $500 million."

But not all of Minnesota's corporate leaders are pleased with its business cli mate. Earlier this year 3M, the largest Minnesota manufacturer, declared that it will build a major research center outside Austin, Texas, and move two divisions to the area. Among the reasons was 3M's anger over a Minnesota law making firms liable for virtually all problems at the hazardous-waste sites they use.

The 3M defection sparked a renewed debate over Minnesota's hospitality to its corporate citizens. One frequent target of attack has been the state's personal in come tax, which is among the highest in the U.S. Bowing to the criticism, including intense lobbying by a group of 50 chief executive officers known as the Minnesota Business Partnership, state lawmakers in April repealed an income tax sur charge that had helped to turn an estimated $652 million 1982 budget deficit into a $900 million surplus.

To Governor Perpich, that repeal is one more sign of his state's eagerness to promote business. Not only will Minnesota remain a fertile breeding ground for new ventures, he asserts, but it will soon start attracting firms from other states.

"We're working together now," says he.

"Companies are going to come here. I see that clearly."

— By John Greenwald. Reported by J. Madeleine Nash/Minneapolis