I love living in Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and mostly Minneapolis. The core of our state offers so many opportunities to so many different kinds of people. But for too long, urban progressives – the type of people who vote overwhelmingly for liberal candidates and causes election after election – have waged a mostly winning […]
The City of Minneapolis is planning to reconstruct a relatively short section of Hennepin Avenue between West Lake Street and 36th St West in 2018. The northernmost block of the project passes through the core of the Uptown Business district, flanked by regional and local shopping and dining options most people recognize – the wonderful […]
You may have heard about the proposal to re-zone the Lowry Hill East neighborhood of Minneapolis (commonly known as The Wedge, not to be confused with the defunct neighborhood newspaper or grocery co-op of the same name). Some people are opposed. I am one of them. I’ve been meaning to write something specific about the merits of […]
It’s 2016 and everywhere you go there are hot takes to be had. Twitter. Comment sections. Planning Commission meetings. You get the picture. Sometimes, serious topics really do deserve these flaming hot takes to call attention to the magnitude of problems. I’m inclined to agree that the recent renovation of over 700 apartments in Richfield, […]
What if the Minneapolis-St Paul region chose to intentionally grow as a truly multi-modal region rather than one dominated almost entirely by private vehicles starting back in the 1950s? What would it look like? A person can dream, right? Admittedly, this post is less about wasting time dreaming of an alternate world as it is about […]
We spend a lot of time on streets.mn talking the core cities and inner-suburbs. It’s easy to forget the hundreds of square miles in our region (or across the state) that are doing very little on land-use and transportation. I’ve been using Lakeville, MN as a case study for these places. Go check out the links […]
Over at the Star Tribune, Steve Brandt did a great job covering the looming Minneapolis residential street reconstruction funding crisis. I’m grateful for the coverage, since the city’s presentation on the matter is a little light on narrative, and not everyone can attend city council meetings to hear the details and political opinions. In a […]
Minneapolis Council Members Lisa Bender and Lisa Goodman have introduced a change to city ordinances to broaden the coverage of Pedestrian Oriented Overlay districts. This includes a ban on drive-through fast food, banks, pharmacies, and other businesses. Eric Roper at the Star Tribune gave a pretty good run-down of the situation, followed by about 500 commenters raising the […]
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 […]
Call them whatever you want; Airbnb, Vacation Rentals by Owner, HomeAway. You’ve probably heard about them in the news. Maybe you even stayed in one and wrote about it for a streets.mn post! Whatever you might call them, I’m talking about the ability to rent out anything from a spare couch to a whole unit […]