What’s Hidden in Your Neighborhood? Seeing Others Matters Now, More Than Ever
Building community happens when we open our eyes to what’s around us.
Category: Justice
Hennepin Avenue: A Parable of Road Design in America
It’s possible you’ve heard this joke before: A motorist, a pedestrian, and a bicyclist are sitting at a table that has a dozen cookies on it. The motorist grabs 11 of the cookies and when the other two are reaching for what they each assumed was their cookie, the motorist exclaims: “Watch out! The bicyclist […]
Barbed Wire and Barricades
We saw the streets of Minneapolis, and the whole country, become militarized last summer as peaceful protests were met with weapons of war by police. Now militarization is occurring again, this time through fences, concrete barriers, and barbed wire that seek to cut residents off from street spaces. For the community to heal and stay […]
Celebrating the 1-year Anniversary of the streets.mn Climate Committee
On December 29, 2019, seven people met at Dual Citizen Brewery in St. Paul, and there we created the streets.mn Climate Emergency Committee. We had a few in-person writing meet-ups before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, and even though none of us could anticipate the events that followed throughout the year of 2020, we maintained […]
What is the End Game? An Airing of Grievances
It’s that time of year again, and what a year it’s been! I usually like writing posts that have some aspect of positivity or future collective goal, but this post is not like that. This is my 2020 airing of grievances. As COVID-19 continued to spread through our community and we neared the peak of […]
Reconnection, Revitalization, and Restitution for I-94 Communities
Saint Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood is a thriving, diverse community and home to many immigrant families and Black-owned businesses. It’s situated between University Avenue and the METRO Green Line to the north and Selby Avenue to the south. Black churches, businesses, and schools set down roots in the area in the late nineteenth and early […]
Will Minneapolis 2040 Live Up to its Promise?
Undoing failed zoning by basing new rules on the development that occurred under that failed zoning is a cycle doomed to repeat past failures. If you want to get the diversity of buildings we used to have, you have to work back from what you want.
Abolish the Police Car
Until we can change the city charter, we must pay the salaries of about 730 police officers. However, nowhere in there does it specify what is necessary equipment for the officers to have. I will argue here that police cars are not only unnecessary but also actively harmful, and should no longer be funded by […]
Metro Transit Staff Letter to Metropolitan Council Leadership
Metro Transit staff have penned an open letter to Metropolitan Council leadership demanding action in response to the killing of George Floyd and the series of subsequent protests. The letter, which was signed by 198 current and former Metro Transit employees and sent on June 26, points out that both its riders and its operators […]
Prose Poem: Biking Under Helicopters
This morning biking under helicopters to get to work I practiced the meditation technique I made up where I pretend by pedaling I am the single source generating the happiness all living things feel, the way a bike would light a lightbulb. I avoid the buildings that are on fire, flow past objects graffitied with […]