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: zoning reform
Rezoning for Complete Neighborhoods
Both Minneapolis and St. Paul are conducting rezoning studies. One is focusing on missing middle housing, the other would allow business uses in more places. Let’s learn more from advocates in each city!
Zoning Matters: 18th Avenue NE and Central Avenue
Current zoning codes in Minneapolis unnecessarily prevent small businesses from being more walkable and accessible — part of the neighborhood fabric.
Zoning Matters: A Tale of Two Corners
Neighbors for More Neighbors member and contributor Brit Anbacht compares the zoning of 48th and Chicago with that of 46th and Clinton in Minneapolis and how the 2040 Plan can create complete neighborhoods.
Early Engagement on St. Paul’s 1-4 Unit Housing Study Looks Pretty Good
St. Paul staff ran a first round of public engagement about ending single-family zoning. The results are promising.
National Links: Housing from California to Berlin
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. […]
Will Minneapolis 2040 Live Up to its Promise?
Undoing failed zoning by basing new rules on the development that occurred under that failed zoning is a cycle doomed to repeat past failures. If you want to get the diversity of buildings we used to have, you have to work back from what you want.
Addition by Subtraction — Six Anti-Equity Items to Remove from the Saint Paul City Code
I still remember the first time I looked at a city zoning code, in a planning class at the Humphrey School. I both recommend it and, at the same time, would not wish the experience on anyone. City codes are interminable documents written in technical legalese. They go into painstaking detail about things like how […]
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. […]
New Housing Lowers Rents in Minneapolis; St. Paul, Not So Much
There’s an ongoing and tedious debate about whether or not building new market-rate apartment housing helps or hurts affordability in US cities. The argument is tedious not because it’s an uninteresting question, but because nothing seems to change. “You can’t build your way out of a housing crisis,” on one hand; “we have a housing […]