Minneapolis is magical in the summer.

I’ll be walking down a sidewalk and stumble into a passageway made of sunflowers. I’ll be biking up a protected bike lane and whiz past charming homes near quaint clusters of small businesses. I’ll be running around the lake and see sailboats framed beneath the downtown skyline. I’ll be at the annual alley dance party with my neighbors, a little toasted.

Lush urbanity. Postcards once called it the city of lakes and parks — maybe we should revive that slogan.

Bad news has been washing over Minneapolis lately, cramming people’s heads with scary visions of urban decay. For my own sanity, I need to reflect on why there’s arguably no better place to live.

I grew up in Manhattan, a concrete jungle. It is too dense, too big for my taste. Minneapolis occupies a sweet spot. Its plentiful residents and visitors support a constellation of lively districts — big and small, corporate and eclectic — surrounded by tree-lined historical neighborhoods that exude a small-town feel.

There haven’t been this many people living in Minneapolis in half a century. It is not dead or emptying out, despite the implications of a recent primetime documentary.

And as with most places in Minnesota, it blossoms in the summer months.

Go stand in the middle of the Stone Arch Bridge at sunset, where a diverse hum of humanity crosses the Mississippi River surrounded by milling relics and plentiful new housing. This is not some aberration. Bop around sipping beers on an industrial chic strip like Quincy Street NE., or follow the enticing aromas down Nicollet Avenue’s Eat Street, and tell me this is some wasteland.

Growing up as a kid in Minneapolis, Johnny Crow never saw Native American firefighters manning the trucks responding to emergencies in his Phillips neighborhood south of downtown.

Still, it didn’t deter Crow, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, from becoming a firefighter for the city — a decision he looks back on with pride.

“That made a huge difference in the community for them to see a Native man with long hair that looks like me on a fire rig going to 911 calls,” Crow said.

About six months ago Crow, 37, and three other Minneapolis firefighters — Bobby Headbird, 38, Capt. Michael Graves, 41, and fire motor operator Jesse Strong, 45 — teamed up at Fire Station 6 downtown to respond to emergency calls on Engine 10. It’s the first time the city has had an all-Native crew, who spoke about their jobs ahead of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday.

Graves, who was recently promoted to captain, said bringing the crew together was intentional, with the goal of showing Native American kids and adults alike that they can also work for the fire department. The four said they hope it can help build trust between the department and the communities they serve.

“That they would see people that look like them, and kids could see someone to look up to and something to aspire to, that was a big conversation we had,” said Graves, a member of the Red Lake Nation.

Along with responding to fires and emergency medical calls, the group has gone to various community events in the city’s Little Earth and Franklin neighborhoods, which both have high Native American populations. The response has been positive, Graves said, with some captains telling him callers will sometimes say they wish the all-Native crew would be the ones to respond.

“We had a call not far from here where it was unhoused Natives, and when we showed up, they were just completely different than when another crew responded,” Graves said.