One of the more challenging issues facing Main Streets in Minnesota is situations where that Main Street is also a Minnesota Trunk Highway. For most small towns, the designation of their Main Street as a Trunk Highway is bittersweet. Sweet, because it means the city is probably located along a trade route (or former trade route) deemed [...]
Archive | Uncategorized RSS feed for this section
CNU 20 Recap Also
I received a small bit of money from the University to attend the Congress for the New Urbanism last weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida, which if you don’t know, is a twenty-year old gathering of the architecture and planning left wing. It was a short trip, a surgical strike junket. I was in and [...]
CNU 20 Recap
I just got back from spending a week in West Palm Beach, meeting with New Urbanists and, together, plotting a makeover and economic revival of America. My voice is gone and after successive nights of little sleep and 14 hours of travel Sunday, not much stamina either, but I’m left with one thought that I [...]
Sprawl and the Big Crunch
Almost all of us are guilty of living sprawling lifestyles, either now or in the past. Sprawl is a huge urban planning problem, but it’s a difficult one to handle simply because it’s so prevalent. There’s little will to change when everyone shares part of the blame, but we must find ways to do so [...]
Removing our Least Useful Bridges
There has been a lot of discussion across the internet lately about how we’re digging ourselves into a financial hole by overspending on infrastructure that isn’t very productive. Chuck’s post a few days ago called Paved with good intentions is a good example. For the purposes of this post, let’s just assume we agree with [...]
Paved with good intentions
How can a country that is so wealthy be in such enormous debt? How can a country that can build such marvelous transportation systems not find the money to sustain them? How can a people that enjoyed decades of unrivaled economic hegemony — staggering levels of growth beyond anything seen in human history — be [...]
The problem with the problem of student housing
On the whole, universities are a great thing for cities. They’re like modern day factories. They generate many economic benefits, providing jobs, attracting young people, fostering “innovation”, and other cultural linkages and synergies. Without its schools and universities (The U, Macalester, St. Thomas, Augsburg, St. Catherine’s, Metro State, and more) the Twin Cities would well [...]
The Problem of Hiawatha Avenue
Hiawatha Avenue has been a thorn in the sides of south Minneapolis residents for years, and it has been the source of much discussion, including here on Streets.mn. In a recent post called The Urban Future of Hiawatha Avenue, Sam described the corridor as follows: Hiawatha is a “Stroad,” in the words of Chuck Marohn. Marohn [...]
4/3/12 TPW Committee: Parking > Biking
Sorry I’m a bit late with the TPW Committee this cycle. Actually it’s a good thing, because they had a special meeting on Thursday the 12th that I’ll cover below. As always, if you’re curious, see the rest of this year’s summaries here. The big news in this TPW Committee is that Minneapolis is continuing [...]
Northeast Ride: Cycling + Art = Community
With Spring in full bloom, I’m getting more and more excited about this summer’s group cycling rides. Metro Mag just released their “Best of” guide to communal bike rides happening in the Twin Cities over the next few months. What excites me most is the idea that many of these rides will serve as fun, [...]
Subscribe/Connect
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
-
The Magic of Streetcars, The Logic of Buses
-
Urban Highway Removal in Minneapolis?
-
The Problem of Hiawatha Avenue
-
A Typology of Beg Buttons
-
Time for a change on Park and Portland
