Affordable housing spatial inequality: A conversation with Myron Orfield

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The podcast this week is a conversation with Myron Orfield, the director of the institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota. Orfield has also written many books on public policy and regional governance, and has spent years studying how municipal fragmentation has led to persistent inequality, particularly in the Twin Cities. Orfield made headlines a few months ago after publishing a study that called for the Metropolitan Council to build more affordable housing in the Twin Cities’ suburbs. We sat down in his office on the West Bank of the U of M campus a few weeks back to talk about his recent report, the problem with the affordable housing industrial complex, and why the Twin Cities are more segregated now than they were in the 1960s. Continue Reading

Audio: Hennepin County Commissioner transportation forum

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The podcast this week is a recording of the recent Hennepin County Commissioner forum co-sponsored by streets.mn, The Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability. We had four of the candidates running to replace Gail Dorfman as the commissioner for district three at the forum: Ben Schweigert, Anne Mavity, Ken Kelash, and Marion Greene. Each of them answered questions on transportation and land use issues, including specific questions on bicycling, health, and equity. The forum was held at Linden hills park, was expertly moderated by Paula Pentel, the coordinator of the Urban Studies program at the University of Minnesota whom you might remember from the Mayoral forum we conducted last year. This time our forum wasn’t quite as big, but we drew about 70 interested folks on a Thursday evening, and that seems pretty good to me. Continue Reading

The bus complexity tradeoff

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I had a frustrating experience riding the #21 a few weeks ago. I was hanging out with friends one weekday evening near Midtown, and I live near downtown Saint Paul. Using a smartphone transit app (but not this one), I saw that an eastbound #21 was coming in a few minutes and went out and boarded it. I soon realized that I was riding the #21D, which would deposit me neatly on the Saint Thomas campus miles from any other city buses. (This has happened to me before, and I ended up walking three miles in the winter to a friend’s house to beg for a ride. You learn bus lessons the hard way.) Continue Reading

Announcing the Hennepin County 3rd District Commissioner candidate forum

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Several candidates are running for the open seat on Hennepin County’s Board of Commissioners, and we want voters to be clear on where the candidates stand. In partnership with the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, streets.mn is presenting a nonpartisan forum for commissioner candidates to share their views on the future of transportation in our city. Continue Reading

Saint Paul crafts an “8-to-80” bike plan

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After years of lagging behind its neighbors, Saint Paul has finally come up with a bike plan. I’ve written many times about why this is important. For example, see these two pieces on the Nice Ride disparity between the downtowns, or this one on the great Saint Paul bike boulevard backlash, or this one on the angst-inducing state of many of the city’s main streets. But now, after years of starts and stops, Saint Paul has finally released its official draft “bikeways plan” for public review. Continue Reading