I walked this portion of the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood on May 25, 2021, using a route map I drew on March 10, 2020. So yes, a pandemic did happen. I had public health reasons to pause the All of Minneapolis project and restroom access reasons. And I also wasn’t sure I could live up to my […]
What good is “neighborhood character” if it contributes to climate change, car culture and lack of affordable housing?
Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes […]
Minneapolis has oft been accused of not having done enough to preserve its historic structures, particularly in reference to the loss of the Gateway District, and especially when contrasted with successful efforts to save ornamentally clad buildings in Saint Paul. The jeers have endured decades of evolution or devolution in the Twin Cities, depending upon […]
Building community happens when we open our eyes to what’s around us.
Being raised in a family that didn’t default to driving gave me the wind in my hair as a toddler on the back of my mother’s bike; a sense of self-confidence as my father would walk with me to school; the knowledge that I will always have choices in how I get around. But that […]
For the sake of our collective wellbeing—and the just transition that those little hands are relying on us to deliver—we must allow ourselves to plan not for the past that has failed us, but instead, for a shared vision of a healed community in a thriving future.
It’s a day ending in -y, so business owners are concerned about parking again. This time we’re on Hennepin Avenue, between Douglas and Lake. Is it Uptown? Only a certain former city council member could tell you. Business owners on Hennepin got loud enough about the prospect of less street parking in the upcoming reconstruction […]
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 […]
I’ve been daydreaming of Hennepin Avenue’s redo since its reconstruction was first announced a few years ago. Using streetmix (a free browser-based app), I created a cross-section of what I think Hennepin should look like, as a people-oriented community corridor and transit route designed as if science matters. The terrifying scientific consensus on the timeline […]