This is why I hate historic preservation: …the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission on Tuesday voted in favor of allowing a developer to demolish two buildings but denied a request to build a 40-story condo tower across the Mississippi River from downtown. Okay, hate is too strong of a word. I don’t hate it. I just […]
St Paul and Highland District Council are proposing to add left turn lanes and a 10’ median to Snelling Avenue between Randolph and Ford Pkwy. The stated purpose is to slow traffic, reduce left turns, and improve safety for pedestrians. Unfortunately, this project will make this neighborhood less pleasant, with increased and faster traffic, and […]
Property values in Minneapolis and the surrounding metro area have been rising rapidly for the past several years, and there’s little evidence that the trend will stop anytime soon. Properties are on the market now for a matter of days (or even hours). Multiple buyers often end up in bidding wars at prices which far […]
This article is provided to streets.mn by The Line, an online publication about the creative economy of the Twin Cities. Streets.mn and The Line share content to further conversations on land use and transportation in MSP. MSP’s transit investments — the METRO bus and light-rail system, the emerging arterial bus rapid transit (aBRT) system, enhanced bus service and more — are […]
This article is provided to streets.mn by The Line, an online publication about the creative economy of the Twin Cities. Streets.mn and The Line share content to further conversations on land use and transportation in MSP. Time doesn’t stand still for the Twin Cities skyline, nor for our distinctive neighborhoods. Back around 1000 BCE, the Woodland people built the first monuments […]
Professional sports stadiums in the United States, as controversial as their funding mechanisms have become, have historically been transformative elements to their surrounding environment. They can induce a once fertile stretch of farm field to become clad with hot oil-fused asphalt for personal vehicles to lay, or can spawn dense, mixed-use communities which urbanists obsess about during their repeated […]
This article was first published on Strong Towns, September 24, 2015 If I had to file a complaint against Strong Towns, it’s that our message sometimes gets wrapped up in data, economics, and the like. It can be somewhat hard to comprehend how all the financing and land values work, and at times, I’ve caught […]
This is a zoning map from Truckee, California on the redevelopment of a rail yard. Near where the Donner Party resorted to eating each other in 22 feet of snow. The railway and a freeway restrain the city to a linear layout, as do the surrounding hills and mountains. This photo was taken in the town’s railway […]
Hello, capitalists. Good to see you here, I guess. My little brother and also the economy says things are going well for you. I’m doing okay. People used to work in factories screwing caps onto bottles of toothpaste, I hear, so pushing pixels seems easier and less dangerous than, say, being a longshoreman or coal […]
This is part 3 of a series on the interaction between the rental housing market and rents. Read part 1, “How I Set Apartment Rents,” and part 2, “Housing Markets? Humbug!“ I’ve dedicated the last 15 years of my life working on affordable housing policy. Mostly, I’ve worked where some sort of subsidy helps make it (more) affordable. In […]