Happy New Year! With only a couple of posts last week, your Sunday Summarizer gave herself a holiday break, so here’s what happened on streets.mn for the last 2 weeks:
Getting around and where to go
Introducing the Saint Paul Field Guide to Public Spaces and introducing a new feature for streets.mn from members of the Political Geography of Urban Public Spaces course taught by Dan Trudeau, Professor of Geography. The students say this about their project: “A field guide lets us be curious about the world. The form allows readers to be explorers in their own backyards. It is a medium built around direct inspection and inquiry. It presumes that how we know is just as important as the knowledge itself. More than that, the knowledge is only possible through collaboration—through reaching out of our own experience with others. For that reason, we worked together to create The Field Guide to Public Space in Saint Paul.” streets.mn readers are invited to be a part of that collaboration.
Get out of the metro with Paul and Danielle’s Downtown Rochester DMC Districts Walk. Paul Jahn and niece Danielle take a walk through Paul’s (evolving) hometown and the places and spaces around the Destination Medical Center/Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
Christian Huelsman, transplant from Cincinnati and points east, writes about Where the Alleys Have No Name and those unnamed cities would be Minneapolis and Saint Paul, “Alleys in Minneapolis and Saint Paul are regrettably nameless. They are believed to act as pseudo-private spaces that are “by invitation only” or only public during a neighborhood garage sale, lest you risk a gaze with a queer eye.” But not entirely, for the post finds all the alleys which do have names as well as the stories behind some of them.
Last year, Melissa Wenzel wrote about her challenge to herself to bike every day in January and this year issues the challenge to the rest of us in 30 Days of Winter Biking: January 2019. She’ll be tracking her rides with the #30daysofbiking hashtag and offers this dare/words of encouragement: “Winter biking is NOT easy. It takes time, patience, money, layers, cold noses, frozen eye lashes, and at least for me, a stubborn streak. But the benefits are a healthier, happier me and you.”
Alleys! Historic Hill District. Saint Paul, Minn.
Big Picture
A Report Back From The Untokening from Henry Pan describes the Untokening organization “founded in 2016 as a space for marginalized communities to talk about their lived experiences in transportation planning. The goal is ultimately to make mobility truly equitable and just, with community concerns, voices, and solutions at the center of the table.” Plus, there’s more about the conference held in Detroit, the people who attended, and their real life concerns about getting around.
A Festivus Grievance: We Need a Change in How We Police the Green Line says Dan Choma. This is a call to action and advocacy, “When we let homelessness and poor policing practices take center stage, it is our own story we turn into a tragedy. So lets pick up pens and rewrite this story. Let’s have better policing on the train. And let’s give the police a break by giving these homeless Americans a place to stay so the police at our request don’t have to be perpetually kicking them off the train.”
Untokening conference picture
Link, look and walk – regular features
Look: Chart of the Day: Greenhouse Gas Pollution (in California) which is not Minnesota, “but you get a good sense of the big picture of where CO2 and other climate change pollution comes from.”
Walk: Walking All the Streets of Kenny, Day 2 with Max Hailperin. Our editor notes: “Previously a weekly feature, starting today Max’s walks of Minneapolis will be appearing the first and third Fridays of each month. We hope you continue to be inspired by Max’s adventures!”
Link: National Links: Online Shopping Promised Reduced Traffic from Jeff Wood at The Overhead Wire.
