Minnesota Is Not California
Cities are not all the same! And we need to bear that in mind when considering new housing policies, because results may vary.
Tag Archives: Urban Planning
National Links: Going Car-Free in Middle America
Car-free living in the heartland, junk traffic science, 15-minute-city conspiracies and more in this week’s National Links.
National Links: Pure Water and Transport Insecurity
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. […]
Lies in City Planning
In April, Minneapois Public Works released the results of a survey showing strong community support for reopening 38th & Chicago to vehicle traffic. Just one problem: it wasn’t true.
Three Ways of Looking at the Lexington and University Development Debate
At one level, all you need to know about the proposed development on Lexington Parkway, just south of University Avenue, is that it meets every rule in the St. Paul Zoning Code. That’s the point I was trying to make during the intense Planning Commission meeting ten days ago. The vote was part of a […]
No, We Should Not Abolish the HPC. But It Could Look Different.
An essay posted January 15, 2021 on streets.mn entitled “Preserve The Future, Not Just The Past” is a fairly typical critique of heritage preservation and the role of heritage preservation commissions (HPCs) in American cities. The article points to the frequently absurd minutia and short-sightedness of HPC meetings and staff reports, but does not fully […]
National Links: Cities Faring Well in the Pandemic
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. […]
Stillwater’s Parking Ramp Problems
This is Part Four in a loosely-related series of the evolution of retail and parking issues. Part One covered the alleged dislike of people for parking ramps and why it’s causing problems for the Shops of West End. Part Two covered the evolution of regional retail from downtown to lifestyle centers. Part Three compared several […]
National Links: Some Infrastructure Ideas for the Future
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. […]
Freeways and Freedmen: A Familiar Story from Canada’s Rondo
Rondo was part of a roadmap which detailed the ways in which black folks across the United States could be removed from their homes and property in order to build the Eisenhower freeways. The Guardian has written about this process, alongside the Atlantic, ThinkProgress, the New York Times, and plenty of other outlets. But these […]