Every year I make an expedition to the Mall of America on Black Friday with no specific agenda. Living in downtown Minneapolis, I can buy an all-day Metro Transit pass for $5, saving $1.55 in gasoline, 13 pounds of carbon dioxide and a chip out of my soul. We were riding the lemon yellow light […]
The long-running transit saga that is Saint Paul‘s “Riverview Corridor” is finally coming to an actual decision point. To my mind, it’s the most promising high-investment transit corridor on the books right now in the Twin Cities. (“High-investment” = not an aBRT line; that’s a long story for another post!) Unlike the two planned Minneapolis […]
Preface: I buried the lede. If you don’t make it to the end, I want you to know about HF 322: “Governmental units allowed to sue to recover costs related to unlawful assemblies and public nuisances.” Also, this post has been boiling under the surface for me for over a year. The topic continues to remain […]
Expensive is not the same as valuable – particularly when it comes to cities. Big price tags on large properties offer the alluring promise of boosted tax revenue for both taxpayers and city officials. Yet our cities’ tax system is based on both the value of the buildings and the value of the land. As […]
In the span of just a few months, the Mall of America (MOA) became the center of two debates regarding peoples’ rights in quasi-public spaces. On December 20th, 2014 the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization staged a protest in the MOA rotunda: If you’re unaware of the whole issue, bone up here. Specious allegations that […]
The Mall of America (MOA) is one of the largest indoor shopping malls in the United States, and it’s getting larger. Currently the MOA boasts 4.87 million square feet of building area, making it one sizable chunk of property. Access to the MOA is typically by auto, mass transit, or tour bus, although a few […]