Jordan

Jordan is a residential neighborhood in North Minneapolis, bounded roughly by Lowry Avenue to the north, Emerson Avenue North to the east, and West Broadway Avenue to the southwest. Home to about 8,500 residents at the 2020 Census, Jordan is one of the larger neighborhoods in North Minneapolis and shares the demographic profile, the challenges, and the community strengths that characterize the Northside.

The neighborhood sits between Willard - Hay to the southwest and Folwell to the north, with Hawthorne to the east and Cleveland to the northwest. West Broadway Avenue, the commercial spine of North Minneapolis, runs along its southern boundary.

As far as we can tell, Jordan doesn’t have a neighborhood welcome sign — at least, nobody has documented one that we can find. If you’ve seen one, tell us where it is — we’d love to be wrong about this.

Jordan was settled in the late nineteenth century as Minneapolis expanded northward, with working-class families building modest homes on the grid of streets north of downtown. The housing stock — simple frame houses, bungalows, and small Foursquares — reflected their practical means. The neighborhood's name came later, from Jordan Junior High School, built in 1922 and named for Charles M. Jordan, a former superintendent of Minneapolis schools.

For decades, racial covenants and real estate practices restricted where Black families could live in Minneapolis, pushing them into a few small sections of the city. As white families moved to the suburbs — driven by both racial anxiety and the availability of new suburban housing — Black families moved into Jordan and other Northside neighborhoods.

The decades that followed brought the familiar cascade of disinvestment. Banks declined mortgages. Businesses left. Absentee landlords purchased properties cheaply and deferred maintenance. City services — infrastructure repair, code enforcement, policing — did not keep pace with need. The neighborhood aged and struggled, and the gap between Jordan and wealthier parts of Minneapolis widened with each passing decade.

Through this, the community organized. The Jordan Area Community Council, block clubs, and neighborhood churches provided the infrastructure that held the community together when institutions failed. This organizing tradition — born of necessity, sustained by commitment — is Jordan's most important inheritance and its most durable asset.

Jordan is a neighborhood of blocks. Not the neighborhood as an abstraction, but the specific block you live on — the neighbors you know, the houses you watch, the strip of sidewalk you shovel. In a neighborhood where city services have been unreliable and institutions have often failed, the block is the unit of community that functions most consistently. A good block in Jordan — one with committed homeowners, an active block club, and neighbors who watch out for each other — can feel as safe and stable as any block in the city. A struggling block can feel abandoned.

Black residents are the largest group — about 45 percent, by Census estimates — and the neighborhood also has sizable Latino and Asian communities. Families are the dominant presence — this is a neighborhood of children, of grandparents helping with childcare, of multi-generational households and extended family networks that provide support systems the formal economy does not. Homeownership is more common here than in some North Minneapolis neighborhoods, and owner-occupied homes tend to anchor the most stable blocks.

The physical landscape is honest. Tree-shaded blocks with well-kept homes alternate with blocks where vacancy and deferred maintenance are visible. Community gardens have been planted on some vacant lots, turning absence into productivity. Jordan Park provides a central gathering space.

There is no pretense in Jordan. People here are clear-eyed about the challenges and clear-voiced about what they need. The community meetings are well-attended. The block clubs are functional. The expectations — of the city, of institutions, of each other — are high, because they have to be.

Jordan's food landscape is shaped by necessity and community. The neighborhood does not have a developed restaurant scene — dining options are limited to small takeout spots, corner stores, and the West Broadway corridor along the southern boundary. Food access has been a persistent challenge, and community-driven solutions have been part of the response.

Jordan has park space that serves the community, though the investment in North Minneapolis parks has historically been less than in parks serving wealthier neighborhoods. Jordan Park is the primary community gathering space, and residents can access additional parks and trails in the surrounding area.

Schools in Jordan face the challenges that affect North Minneapolis education broadly — the persistent achievement gap, the effects of concentrated poverty on educational outcomes, and the difficulty of maintaining stable, well-resourced schools in communities that have been systematically under-resourced.

Hmong International Academy (PreK–5), next to Jordan Park, provides elementary education within the neighborhood. The district's boundary maps put most of Jordan in the attendance areas for Olson Middle School and Camden High School; check the district's school finder for a specific house. Many Jordan families use the district's open enrollment system to access magnet programs and schools in other parts of the city. Charter schools provide additional options, though the quality and stability of charter options varies.

Community-based educational organizations — after-school programs, tutoring, mentoring, and cultural education — provide critical supplemental support for neighborhood youth. These organizations, often run by community members, reflect Jordan's tradition of building its own institutions when existing ones fall short.

Jordan's housing market is among the most affordable in Minneapolis: the median sale price was $231,000 in 2025, according to Minneapolis Area REALTORS, against $350,000 citywide. This affordability is the neighborhood's most tangible draw for homebuyers — in a city where the median home price has climbed beyond many families' reach, Jordan offers homeownership at a fraction of the cost of South and Southwest Minneapolis neighborhoods.

The housing stock is older — frame houses and bungalows from the 1890s through 1940s, built for the working-class families who first settled the area. Conditions vary significantly. Owner-occupied homes tend to be better maintained, while rental properties — particularly those owned by absentee landlords — show more deferred maintenance. Vacant lots and occasional vacant properties are part of the landscape, though community development organizations have worked to fill gaps with new affordable housing.

Jordan is only somewhat walkable, with a Walk Score of 67 and a Bike Score of 76. Downtown Minneapolis is approximately twelve minutes by car. The flat terrain and grid streets make cycling practical, though dedicated cycling infrastructure within the neighborhood is limited.

Metro Transit bus routes serve the neighborhood along Penn Avenue (the C Line), Emerson and Fremont Avenues (the D Line), and West Broadway, providing connections to downtown and other parts of the city. Many residents still rely on cars for commuting, grocery shopping, and access to services.

Street parking is generally available on residential blocks. The neighborhood's grid layout provides straightforward navigation, and the proximity to I-94 and Highway 55 offers reasonable highway access for car commuters.

Jordan is a neighborhood where the most honest thing you can say about change is that it has been too slow and too uneven. The systemic challenges that have shaped this community — disinvestment, crime, educational inequity — did not arrive overnight and will not be resolved overnight. But there are real indicators of change alongside the persistent challenges.