Over the last ten years, Minneapolis’ Wedge neighborhood has seen the industrial and parking areas adjacent to the Midtown Greenway transformed into one apartment building after another. It’s a process that’s increasingly familiar to many neighborhoods across the Twin Cities. Here’s a pretend mournful look back at what one neighborhood has lost, and what others may have coming their way. […]
Inspired by the New York Times‘ recent analysis of Manhattan buildings that would not be legal under current zoning, I undertook a far less ambitious analysis of one block of the Wedge neighborhood in Minneapolis. By today’s zoning standards, on this one block, there are 32 apartments too many. Seven out of 23 buildings have too many […]
If you’ve ever wondered what the essential difference is between Minneapolis and St. Paul, I would argue it’s the degree of wackiness happening at public meetings about bike lanes (and how those bike lanes affect things like traffic and parking). Minneapolis has largely accepted them, while St. Paul is still fighting the good fight. I didn’t set out to make movies […]
The year is 1995. A landlord is renovating his triplex when a concerned neighbor appeals to the neighborhood association for help. The organization comes to the rescue, deciding¹ that “because the building has been vacant for over a year, the nonconforming use expires and the building should revert to a duplex.” The neighborhood was Lowry […]
There’s a sizable patch of sidewalk out in front of Leaning Tower of Pizza, and in milder months they rope off almost all of it as a dining area for their customers. The sidewalk is big enough to comfortably share between diners and pedestrians. But Leaning Tower chooses not to. Maybe it’s because outdoor dining […]
There was an article yesterday in the Minnesota Daily (a student newspaper) with the subhead: “Few students apply to neighborhood board organizations in Minneapolis.” I was surprised to see the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association (MHNA) characterized as one of the two “best at involving students in decision-making.” This can’t be true because, unlike the vast majority of […]
Please watch this inspirational video. Then check out this serious pitch from Sam Newberg: At streets.mn, we are dedicated to expanding the conversation about transportation and land use in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota. For nearly four years, with your help, we have done just that. But although we’re an all-volunteer operation, hosting a successful website […]
Reconstruction of Minneapolis’ Hennepin/Lyndale bottleneck has begun. There will be traffic tweaks and some much needed bike/pedestrian improvements, but this reconstruction won’t be a radical makeover of the kind Scott Shaffer proposed over a year ago. Scott suggested we “drop the spaghetti bowl” (a “mess of undulating streets and arcing flyover ramps to and from the freeway, […]
Minneapolis’ Whittier neighborhood has an equity problem. It’s 83 percent renter; half of households are cost-burdened; one third live in poverty. Yet the Whittier neighborhood organization, the Whittier Alliance, is pushing for higher rents and fancier amenities in a new building proposed as affordable “workforce” housing: “I think you’re underestimating the neighborhood in terms of design, character […]
Minneapolis is one City Council vote away from enacting a major, nationally-heralded parking reform, authored by Council Member Lisa Bender. I’ve watched with great interest as the debate has unfolded on Channel 79. To summarize the back-and-forth as uncharitably as possible: utopians on bicycles deployed a slew of crowd-pleasing parking analogies* (1, 2), while some of […]