Bill Lindeke, Ph.D., is an urban geographer and writer who focuses on how our environments shape our lives. He has taught at the University of Minnesota and Metro State University, blogs at Twin City Sidewalks and streets.mn. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.
After years of passing plans claiming the city is serious about climate change and safe streets, the Hennepin Avenue redesign actually puts these ideas into practice.
The ramp at HealthPartners’ Bloomington headquarters provided a safe space to gather — and, of course, plenty of parking.
There are limitations to a freeway-based transit line, but the Orange Line makes the best of them.
If St. Paul is serious about its climate goals, it should stop subsidizing car storage in the crown jewel of its parks system.
Taken as a whole, the new building feels a bit like a science-fiction set, one from films like Her or Star Trek.
The money will help build at least 1,000 new homes for families making 30 percent of the Area Median Income.
Thanks to its gradual obsolescence, the Waddell lift bridge’s days are numbered.
What would have to change?
If you glimpse an old-school message board, it’s a sign you’re at an urban hotspot, part of a city alive with the footsteps of strangers.
Advocates see small homes located on existing residential and nonprofit properties as a possible solution to quickly providing more kinds of housing in Minneapolis and St. Paul, but regulations on the structures — and their costs — have prevented widespread construction.
The area, at the intersection of St. Paul, Roseville and Maplewood, has long been dominated by strip malls, parking lots and very wide roads.
Horizontal deflection, tabled intersections, chicanes and more.
Funded by a host of different public agencies and nonprofits, the new Wakan Tipi Center is scheduled to open by 2023.
If you’ve been anywhere near a Twin Cities bike shop in the last forty years, you’ve likely seen Doug Shidell’s Twin Cities Bike Map.
The Twin Cities metro has one of the lowest housing vacancy rates anywhere in the nation — worse than notoriously unaffordable San Jose.
Seamlessly integrated into the surrounding neighborhood, the Elliot Park skate park is busy with skaters pretty much all day long.
When you travel down any of the diverse commercial corridors of the Twin Cities, new and unexplored restaurants are all around you.
Dramatic changes in commuting brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have created challenges for transit agencies — but also present opportunities.
The proposed ordinance lacks many of the exemptions that are common in other places that have rent stabilization, and that may have bad effects on St. Paul’s future housing supply.
Hurdles remain and logistical headaches loom, but having optimism about crossing the river is a refreshing change for a project that always seemed to be a bridge too far.
