The Northstar Is Broken. How can we fix it?
Ian Gaida • April 14, 2022 Contributor Ian Gaida offers musings on how to make the Northstar a more useful – and utilized – system.
Category: Suburbia
Ian Gaida • April 14, 2022 
Menards Announces New “Live. Work. Save Big Money” Concept
Sean Hayford Oleary • April 1, 2022 Golden Valley, Minn — following in the footsteps of other lifestyle brands, Wisconsin-based Menard, Inc. has announced ambitious plans to expand its home improvement stores into mixed-use lifestyle centers. “Live. Work. Save Big Money.” is the co-living concept to integrate luxury apartments with everyday low prices on popular brands. Following market trends Although Menards Living […]
National Links: The American Nightmare Mall
Jeff Wood • February 22, 2022 The American Dream mall in New Jersey is a dreadful reminder of America’s consumer culture. The boondoggle suffered from decades of delay, shady business deals and billions of dollars spent in taxpayer money – its eponymous name certainly seems fitting.
Fast Food and Fast-Casual Restaurants in a Post-Pandemic Era
Monte Castleman • February 18, 2022 Fast-food and fast-casual restaurants are surviving the pandemic by emphasizing drive-through or take-out service, a boon for COVID-wary consumers and the auto-focused suburbs.
When the Twin Cities Had Streetcar Boats
Aaron Person • November 8, 2021 Late last month, one of the most unique chapters in Minnesota’s transportation history was permanently enshrined in the public record through the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. The newly-listed steamboat Minnehaha is the lone survivor of the Twin City Line’s once-famous “streetcar boat” service. […]
National Links: The Dark Side of Electrification – Suburbs 2.0
Jeff Wood • April 28, 2021 Every day at The Overhead Wire, we collect news about cities and send the links to our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. […]
Urban Parking, Suburban Style
Peter Schmitt • March 17, 2021 I recently attended an open house put on by the City of Minneapolis to discuss two options for the upcoming reconstruction of Hennepin Ave from Douglas to Lake Street. In a sign of progress on street design in Minneapolis, both designs reduce car traffic to a single lane to promote traffic calming and to provide space […]
Suburbs of the Month: Excelsior, Deephaven, Shorewood and Tonka Bay
John Wilson • January 18, 2021 It has been a long time since I’ve posted an installment of my “Suburb of the Month” series on transit in the Twin Cities suburbs, mostly due to my limited ability to take pictures at this time. However, I have a picture relevant to the Excelsior area, and even though it wasn’t my planned next […]
Some Alternative Options in Detached Housing, Part Two
Monte Castleman • January 11, 2021 Many people want to live in a new-construction, detached home, but the traditional way to achieve that – owning your own house and lot – may not be achievable or desirable for all. Part one of this series covered two options: owning the interior only of a detached structure, either a traditional detached townhome, or […]
Some Alternative Options in Detached Housing, Part 1
Monte Castleman • November 25, 2020 There’s many advantages to living in a detached house – they generally offer more space, more separation and privacy from neighbors, and a discrete place to drive up to, look at, and call your own. But there’s definitely drawbacks to the primary ways of acquiring a detached home (owning a house and land or renting […]