The City of Minneapolis’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan promised to change our city’s approach to housing. The plan’s central argument is that the city needs more homes, especially since Minneapolis doesn’t have sufficient affordable and supportive housing for our most vulnerable community members. Decades of racist and exclusionary zoning policies have made Minneapolis one of the […]
Phew! The public comment phase of the exhaustively publicized, discussed, and public-feedback-solicited 2040 Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan is over. I don’t know about you, but I am incredibly aware of the existence of this planning process and of my opportunities and methods for learning what the draft plan contains, and for offering my feedback! However, the planning […]
I’m very tired of white people using the words “bulldozing” and “eminent domain” to spread fear and misinformation about the 2040 Comp Plan, when literal city blocks of communities of color were leveled and replaced with bare pavement in living memory. I hadn’t seen the redlining maps overlaid on the current-day city, or maybe just […]
Some charts and maps to consider as we close in on the comment deadline for the draft of the Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan. You have until July 22 to comment at minneapolis2040.com! Minneapolis and neighboring cities are adding more people than homes for those people to live. A housing shortage is a game of musical […]
It seems like it’s time to take stock of the arguments being levied against ideas in the Minneapolis Draft 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Here are some of the common themes that you might hear argued—or might be compelled to argue yourself!—and some point-by-point responses. Density Belongs Downtown (or Near the University, or…) The Draft Plan already […]
At a community meeting for a street reconstruction last year, a young mom made a passionate argument: it would be a generation, she said, before the street was reconstructed again. This was our only chance to create a neighborhood street where she could safely push a stroller, or walk and bike with her kids. It […]
The weather is wintry, but you can still Join streets.mn on the A Line Sunday, April 15! – that’s today at 2:00 pm! – to ride the A Line and hear from Katie Roth, aBRT manager from Metro Transit. And whether or not you ride the bus, do read the rest of last week on streets.mn: […]
Minneapolis is growing. We’ve heard lots of talk about how Minneapolis is losing affordable housing faster than we can replace it. We say housing should be a human right (and it should!). We hear about rising rents and first-time buyers unable to find starter homes. Whether you want more public housing or you want the market […]
My name is Carol Becker and I drive an automobile. I feel like I am coming out of the closet by saying this. I don’t drive a car because I especially like driving. I drive because I don’t have a choice. The proposed Comprehensive Plan does not support a balanced transportation system where the needs […]
A few days ago, Adam Miller had a post here on streets.mn debunking the idea that fourplexes mean four stories. The truth is that Minneapolis’ new draft comprehensive plan that proposes allowing up to four-family homes in currently single-family neighborhoods, would limit those homes to 2.5 stories (the “Interior 1” designation). Honestly, I am someone […]