Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes […]
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. […]
Issues of race and class are dividing the political geography of cities, and one City Council race in Minneapolis illustrates the problem.
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 […]
I hate moving. It takes physical, mental, and emotional energy. It’s expensive to pay for security deposits, non-refundable pet deposits, first month’s rent and last month’s rent, and professional movers. From 2004 to 2012, I probably lived at 12 different addresses in Minnesota, California, and Scotland. I’m not sure if that qualified me as a […]
I’ve seen the amazing Minneapolis slum map a few times on the internet, including a nicely colored version with much more legible text. Anyway, from the Met Council’s compelling Choice, Place, and Opportunity report, detailing racial inequality in the Twin Cities, here’s the Saint Paul version of that map. Source: Calvin F. Schmid, “Social Saga […]
There is a modest, white house at the corner of 46th Street East and Columbus Avenue South in Minneapolis’s Field neighborhood. The architecture of the 1923 home eludes classification — its low-pitched rooflines hint at the craftsman style, but the white exterior, columns, and pediment seem neoclassical. The house lacks the charming stone work and […]
People often talk about income inequality, but wealth inequality is its cumulative effect (compounded by things like real estate value and other assets). When you start talking about wealth, race, and real estate, society get problematic really quickly. Here’s a chart: This is via some website called datatools: In 1963, the average wealth of white families was $117,000 […]
Two weeks ago, the Atlantic published a short (and facile) post called “the Miracle of Minneapolis” that (as is the way of media circles in insecure places) launched itself right onto the forefront of the Twin Cities social media scene. And, with good reason, the article re-kindled conversations about racial disparities that have been going on for […]
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 […]