Author: Matthias Leyrer

Matthias Leyrer

About Matthias Leyrer

Matthias Leyrer is a resident of Mankato looking to restore a fraction of its old glory. He writes about the economic, aesthetic, practical and financial issues facing the city of Mankato going forward.www.keycity.co. Follow him @mjleyrer

When Was The Last Time You Were in Mankato?

The nice part about living in Mankato is that you’re often times overlooked by statewide media. Sure, we’ll pop up here and there for the best hockey town or landing number 10 on nation’s drunkest city list, but despite this marginal attention, we’ve been simply humming along. I have plenty of problems with Mankato that […]

Do We Owe Waldorf Anything?

We’ve all heard that the current administration is hoping to pump $1 Trillion dollars into infrastructure spending in the coming years. This type of rhetoric has been slung by almost every President since I’ve been alive and probably more. “We need to fix our roads and bridges!” often evoking the painful memories of the 35W […]

What About Beauty?

This article was first published on Strong Towns, September 24, 2015 If I had to file a complaint against Strong Towns, it’s that our message sometimes gets wrapped up in data, economics, and the like. It can be somewhat hard to comprehend how all the financing and land values work, and at times, I’ve caught […]

The Rent is Too Damn High in Mankato

Maybe you saw it, maybe you didn’t. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies published an interactive map listing (essentially) the worst place for renting in each state, that is to say, the highest cost place to rent in each state. Guess who scored a big ‘ol fat numero uno for Minnesota. You got it. […]

Free Idea: Main Street Minnesota

You know what I don’t think we have enough of on Streets.mn? Huge, improbable, thought-provoking ideas. We’re all familiar with Nicollet Ave and a lot of the buildings that reside on it. It’s the Main Street of Minneapolis, representing a lot of what’s great about both cities. However, that’s Minneapolis; it’s not all of Minnesota and […]

The Absurdity of the American Car Commercial

The Super Bowl has come and past. Bringing with it a gamut of commercials for everything under the sun from taxes to beer. Unsurprisingly we had our fill of car commercials as well. This is something that I’ve wanted to write an article on for a while, but I just never had a good catalyst […]

I Don’t Want to be Like You, Either

A few days ago was Greater Mankato Growth’s “Day at the Capitol.” Unfortunately the Capitol building is undergoing some much needed renovation so we were actually at the Double Tree in St. Paul. Cool place. Anyway, during a discussion with someone, they told me that “You just want us to all live like you, downtown […]

“People Like Their Cars”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this phrase. “People like their cars!” It’s usually followed with a inane trite like “we’re not Europe or Manhattan.” Actually, now I remember seeing that exact thing in the comment section on a piece for Southerminn.com talking about bringing rail to Northfield: Sidebar: I really wish […]

If You Can’t Pay For It, Don’t Try to Build It

In what I assume is an attempt to blow as much money as possible, Blue Earth County has decided that they are going to extend tiny Highway 12 an additional two miles in preparation for “growth” and a new school. There’s nothing new about a new road being built. But there’s this one pesky problem: they […]