Work & Economy

Gentrification: Am I the problem?

By Sheila Regan, Behind the Story

A 2012 installation by Whittier Artists in Storefronts. Photo by Cynthia Frost (Creative Commons).

This week I started a Reporter’s Notebook about a group of families who have to leave their home because their landlord, who took over ownership of their building at the end of last year, has decided to fix up the place. The landlord has given a number of tenants in the building notice to vacate to make way for renovations.

MORE »

BBB says GMAX350's claim of using water for gas a non-starter

By Dan Hendrickson, Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota (BBB) is warning of GMAX350, an alternative fuel system marketed by Gertken Enterprises, which is located in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. On their website (gmax350.net), the company claims people can “start using water for gas.” They have an F rating with the BBB due to a failure to provide requested substantiation of their advertising claims. When contacted by the BBB last year, the company owner declined to provide a response to the BBB’s inquiry.

MORE »
Better Business Bureau

Where's my bus (arrival sign)?

By Mike Hicks, Streets.MN

Real-time arrival information for buses in the Twin Cities area has been publicly available since 2008, when Metro Transit added NexTrip functionality to their website. It was updated a year later to include a mobile web version. Eventually the communication protocol used under the covers for both the mobile and desktop websites was simplified and made publicly available, and there are a number of computer programs and smartphone apps available to get at that information. For me, NexTrip ranks as a “killer app”—a program so useful that it could justify the purchase and continuing use of a cellular data plan and smartphone (or an Internet-enabled “feature phone”) all by itself.

MORE »
Streets.MN

Farming, learning, traveling with Erin Schneider, Hilltop Community Farm

By Sylvia Burgos, From the Bronx to the Barn

After a long, long winter, the sun was finally showing its face again when Erin Schneider and I chatted during this Deep Roots Radio interview. Her attitude - about farming, on-farm research, and learning from peers in Africa - was as welcoming as the warming weather. And maybe it's that quality that draws visitors to the farm she's building with her husband, Rob McClure in LaValle, Wisconsin.

MORE »
From the Bronx to the Barn

Streetcar desire heats up in the Twin Cities and across the U.S.

By Conrad deFiebre, Minnesota 2020

It's been nearly six years since I last posted about Minneapolis' plans for a streetcar revival, but except for a short park ride at Lake Calhoun, no trolleys are clanging in the Mill City. These things take time.

MORE »

Poverty doubled in Twin Cities suburbs over past decade

By Branden Largent, The Minnesota Daily

As the suburban landscape changes, so has poverty.

MORE »

Real price of sand in Wisconsin: Political spending, impaired property values and tourist activity

By Sally Jo Sorensen, Bluestem Prairie

St. Paul documentary filmmaker Jim Tittle was one of the first to take a close look at "The Price of Sand" when he learned in 2011 that energy production company Windsor Permian bought land near his parents' home in Goodhue County's Hay Creek Township, but isn't the last person asking that question.

MORE »
Bluestem Prairie

Corn planting sends tremors through bee country

By Brian DeVore, Loon Commons

Sometimes laboratory science and the reality of what’s happening on the ground intersect in a graphic way. That’s what struck me this morning as I was watching a video shot by Minnesota beekeeper Steve Ellis on May 7.

MORE »
Loon Commons
Syndicate content