Picking a streetcar fight with the Met Council is the right move for Minneapolis

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You might have missed it, but an interesting spat is brewing on the Twin Cities’ transit scene. Last month, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously supported funding a streetcar project that would from Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis, down Nicollet Mall, and all the way to 46th Street in South Minneapolis. Soon after, the Met Council, who runs the Metro-wide transit system, sent a fascinating open letterto the city. Continue Reading

Improving Minneapolis with mayoral candidate Cam Winton

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The podcast this week is a conversation with Cam Winton, who is running for Mayor of Minneapolis. As you’re probably aware, incumbent three-term mayor R.T. Rybak is not running for re-election, and the race this year is a wide open contest. Can Winton, a wind power entrepreneur from Southwest Minneapolis, has been running one of the more creative campaigns so far, hosting regular press conferences from places like potholes. Continue Reading

City Council and NIMBYs Adopt Scorched Earth Policy to “Save Dinkytown”

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By now you’re familiar with the Dinkytown story. The last few years have seen a wave of development around the University of Minnesota campus. The Dinkydome (my old haunt) transformed from a weirdly depressing food court into fancy apartments. The auto repair shop in Stadium Village (my mom’s favorite) is becoming apartments. Sally’s (home of the creepily attractive gopher) is temporarily closed while a new apartment-proximate Sally’s is born. Dinkytown’s odd “incubator” school and massive parking lot is becoming apartments and a grocery store… Continue Reading

A conversation with Noel Nix, Saint Paul Ward 1 city council candidate

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The podcast this week is a conversation with Noel Nix, who is running for the open Ward One City Council seat in Saint Paul. The race came as a bit of a surprise when incumbent Melvin Carter resigned from the job half-way through his term, and a lot of candidates have declared their interest in the job during the past month. Particularly given the city’s Ranked Choice Voting system, it should be an interesting election. Continue Reading

Saint Paul’s Ward 1 race: Interview with City Council Candidate Matt Hill

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The podcast this week is a conversation with Matt Hill, who is one of the many people running for the open Ward One City Council seat in Saint Paul. The race came as a bit of a surprise when incumbent Melvin Carter resigned from the job half-way through his term, and a lot of candidateshave declared their interest in the job during the past month. Particularly given the city’s Ranked Choice Voting system, it should be an interesting election. Continue Reading

Three half-assed freeways that nobody will miss

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We’ve been down this road before. Urban freeways impact their neighborhoods through noise, pollution, and by creating barriers to biking, walking, and local trips. No matter how many sound walls you erect, freeways erode quality of life for a quarter- or half-mile in any direction. Fumes, noise, asthma, speeding traffic… nobody wants to live next to a freeway. Continue Reading

The paradox of the placemaking consultant

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A few weeks ago, I attended one of those big civic dinners that take place annually in every city across the country. It was fun! The mayor, all the council members, the business community, key city staff, the planning commission (including me), philanthropic foundation heads, and lots of Saint Paul’s architects, developers, artists gathered in the downtown convention center banquet hall to celebrate our accomplishments over the past year. The keynote speaker was Katherine Loflin, a placemaking consultant from North Carolina who had spent a week in Saint Paul discussing the importance of place with local decision makers. She was also kicking off the “Forever Saint Paul Challenge,” a million dollar open-sourced grant competition for Saint Paul. Continue Reading

Twin Cities Greenways with Dacia Durham and Matthew Hendricks

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The podcast this week is a conversation with Dacia Durham and Matthew Hendricks, leaders of the Twin Cities Greenways project on Minneapolis’s North Side. The Greenways initiative is aiming to build a series of greeways, or pedestrian and bicycle streets through Minneapolis and Saint Paul, that would give people transportation options similar to the successful Midtown Greenway in South Minneapolis. They are currently working on building support for a north-south greenway through the city’s North Side, along Irving and Humbolt Avenues, that would connect the north side to downtown Minneapolis. Dacia, Matthew, and I sat down a few weeks ago at the MacPhail Center for the Performing Arts during the last snowstorm of the year to talk about what a greenway looks like, where the idea came from, and how the community engagement process has been going. Continue Reading