We spend a lot of time on streets.mn talking the core cities and inner-suburbs. It’s easy to forget the hundreds of square miles in our region (or across the state) that are doing very little on land-use and transportation. I’ve been using Lakeville, MN as a case study for these places. Go check out the links […]
Endosymbiosis in biology refers to the idea that organelles of eukaryotic cells (like mitochondria and chloroplasts) were originally free-living micro-organisms that combined symbiotically (to mutual benefit). In Chapter 7: Good Roads of The Transportation Experience: Second Edition, we identify an example of what we might call techno-endosymbiosis, when we write: Charles Kettering developed the electric starter, which […]
In my last few articles, I’ve looked at the city block layouts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul (both downtown and citywide) and compared them to a few suburbs. I thought it would be useful to also make some comparisons with cities outside of the metro area, to see what they’re like. Above, I have a […]
In my last two posts, I looked at the city block structures in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, first zooming in to the respective downtowns, then pulling out to look all the way to the cities’ borders and slightly beyond. Now I’d like to turn to a few suburbs and see how they compare. First, let’s […]
A proud resident defends his city against accusations that an aging housing stock, declining schools and few young adults render it bland.
If you’re like me, you’ve heard people complain about Minneapolis or St. Paul’s snow emergency rules, that they’re complex and burdensome. In reality, these complexities may be a pain a handful of times a year they apply, but they allow for better cities all year long. If you speak Minnesotan, you know that a snow emergency is an event […]
Our local grocery wasn’t really very local. It was a 68,000 sq ft Rainbow big-box that closed last fall. This made our nearest general grocery a big-box Cub Foods (90,000 sq ft?) that is three miles farther away (there is also a Fresh & Natural about a mile away that we use often but it does […]
Street lights are disappearing in Bloomington. Last summer I noticed red spray-paint on a bunch of the poles on Lyndale Ave. Then they started to disappear. One day I drove out during my lunch hour, and crews were literally cutting them down with a Sawzall. An email to the city revealed that many of the […]
Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” While that may be true, he didn’t even bother to explain what happens if you’re on the wrong track. As a region, we continue to be on the wrong track when it comes to how […]
Previously I wrote about the past and present of my neighborhood, the Oxboro neighborhood of Bloomington. There’s been a few modest improvements for bicycles and pedestrians, including the addition of countdown pedestrian signals and this new sidewalk to the VEAP social services building with a rectangular rapid flashing beacon, and new marked crosswalk to cross […]