NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES | Tracy Metz at the University of Minnesota: Does the Mississippi riverfront need an "extreme makeover"?

In Minneapolis, our lakes and parks are among the city's great gems—and the Minneapolis Parks Foundation is aiming to make sure they stay that way. Even if our eyes were a little bigger than our stomachs with the Minneapolis Riverfront Design Competition (Mayor Rybak: "How we are going to get this done is going to be tough"), the foundation is going back for seconds.

Among the foundation's projects is the Next Generation of Parks Lecture Series, co-presented with the Walker Art Center, the University of Minnesota College of Design, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. Past presenters include Robert Hammond (New York City's High Line) and Jamie Dean (London's Green Grid).

Next up is Tracy Metz, a journalist who is going to talk about how "the Dutch are subjecting their land to an 'extreme makeover' in order to accommodate a new, more proactive relationship with water." Can our own relationship, with the Mississippi River be saved? You'll have to attend Metz's talk on October 1 to find out, but it seems the Dutch are discovering that simply building dams and fingering holes isn't enough to sustain a happy marriage.

Coverage of issues and events affecting Central Corridor communities is funded in part by a grant from the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative.