Category: Downtowns

National Links: Community Feedback Needs Reform

Links from The Overhead Wire to urbanist news from around the country/world. This week: reforming the community engagement process, the shrinking urban drugstore market, and the unfolding ecological collapse of the Great Salt Lake.

Metropolitan Opera House and Palace Court, 1914

No Use for a Name: The Untold Story of Alley Identity and Utility in Minneapolis’ Palace Court

(The photograph above, showing the Metropolitan Opera House and Palace Court, was taken by C.J. Hubbard in 1914, Minnesota Historical Society) Historical and contemporary Minneapolis is not particularly known for its public alleys. They have served a more discreet role in the lives of Minneapolitans, unsung for getting private vehicles off city streets. Of course, […]

National Links: Selling Omaha

How Boomers get the housing crisis wrong, why a poor sense of direction could be an early sign of dementia and more “old news.”