streets.mn

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A Car Storage Spot by Any Other Name

Fun fact: etymonline traces the word “park” meaning “to put (a vehicle) in a certain place” directly back to the storage of military equipment on commons grounds. Car storage spots aren’t a human right, but housing is. The way building codes currently are, you must pay for this luxury that is a couple dozen square […]

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Act Now on Hennepin Avenue

In early March 2021, at the third open house, the City of Minneapolis presented two options for the future Hennepin Avenue reconstruction project between Lake Street and Douglas Avenue. Hennepin Avenue was last reconstructed in 1957, so this is a huge opportunity to weigh in on a street we’ll be living with for the next […]

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Streets.mn Virtual Happy Hour: Rethinking Duluth’s Core

Have you ever driven, ridden or walked around in Duluth and noticed how Interstate 35 cuts through the city almost impenetrably?  Perhaps you have noticed the sheer scale of the freeway and overpasses and their seeming lack of relation to the context of the human-scaled surroundings? Maybe you wish there were more natural spaces, softer […]

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Five Facets of Recovery from COVID-19

“It [the pandemic] is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready […]

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No, Large Apartment Buildings Won’t Devalue Your Home

In America, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and apartments killing neighboring property values. Especially big ones that block sun and bring noise and traffic and transients who park on your street full of single family homes. We’ve known this truth for almost a century now. The United States Supreme Court’s […]

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Why West Saint Paul Created a Permit Parking Zone for Two Homeowners

“Parking is a really personal and passionate issue.” That was Gil Gustafson’s admonition to the West Saint Paul City Council last week as he and a neighbor made their case for an arguably very personal residents-only permit parking zone on his block of Livingston Avenue, a block away from an apartment complex on Robert Street. […]

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