Richfield moratorium illustrates the pickle cities are in when it comes to regulating THC
From a city government perspective, embracing the new legal-pot future might be a bit much for many elected officials, at least as it stands right now.
Bill Lindeke
Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.
Zoning changes are the easiest way to reduce segregation in the Twin Cities suburbs
Research finds multi-family zoning – allowing rental apartments to be built in residential neighborhoods – is directly correlated with regional racial segregation.
Students vs. cars: Grand Avenue at the Macalester campus will finally change
The crosswalk impasse is nobody’s idea of a good situation. That’s why it’s good news that St. Paul Public Works is reconstructing a half-mile of Grand Avenue, including the block through Macalester College.
Minneapolis has 110,000 street signs. Keeping them up is an endless job.
The lifespan of a Minneapolis street sign varies wildly depending on weather conditions — and drivers.
After years of stagnation along the Blue Line, new housing booms in Longfellow
At the corner of 46th Street and Minnehaha Avenue, a landscape that was once gas stations, parking lots, and windowless warehouses resembles a real city.
Cedar-Riverside’s windows are getting dressed up
For many East African business owners, “Storefronts are culturally used differently, seen as something different than how we in our western capitalist society typically use them,” said Twin Cities artist and organizer Joan Vorderbruggen, who has spent last six months working with community businesses to improve the old storefronts.
Except for the bad sidewalks, former Red’s Savoy building is perfect place for St. Paul’s Listening House day shelter
It’s rather a suitable irony that the Red’s property would become a home for Listening House, also an organization that has survived for decades despite seemingly all forces arrayed against it.
Someone needs to step up for St. Paul’s historic Walnut Street stairs
For well over a century, the small staircase connected people across St. Paul’s social and physical geography, attracting everyone from locals to tourists to joggers to Cathedral Hill’s fluctuating unhoused community.
St. Paul’s rent stabilization amendments will help renters
New exceptions create clearer rules around rent increases; make ordinance less likely to deter new housing from being built.
Edina grapples with legacy of whiteness
“The ghosts of racial exclusion are all around us,” author Chad Montrie said. “This doesn’t just happen in Edina or in Morningside or in Minnesota.”
New Highland Bridge parks offer open possibilities
Right now, the only name for the creek at the center of the future Highland Bridge is “central water feature.” But don’t let the classically St. Paul-style boring name fool you: It’s an amazing new space and surely soon will be named after some notable.
Landmark climate legislation incentivizes EVs; misses e-bike opportunity
Build Back Better climate policies, originally proposed last fall, included a $900 tax credit for e-bikes, a provision missing from the legislation signed into law this week.
New Deal-era shuffleboard courts in Loring Park bring neighbors together
The Loring Park shuffleboard courts are one of the least likely spots in the Minneapolis vaunted park system. Whenever there’s action on the court, passers-by do double-takes, come up to the chain link fence and say, “What’s that?”
Historic Palace Theater is one of quiet downtown St. Paul’s bright spots
Like clockwork, the odd plaza along “7th Place” fills with rock music fans most weekends, and a corner of downtown St. Paul comes to life.
Why driving is bad for America
While driving extends our ability to move at high speed, it comes at the cost of almost every other kind of action.
The Coliseum building on Lake Street
During the unrest (of 2020), fires were set in many of the buildings on the corner, and the Coliseum did not escape. Fires burned the interior and triggered extensive water damage in fighting the blaze. Two years ago, the massive, three-story brick complex was slated for the wrecking ball.
Are the Minneapolis Mill District street diverters actually a good idea?
While the traffic diverters circumvent plans and process, did the Minneapolis Police Department hit upon a solution to the increasing problem of speeding, reckless driving and vehicular violence?
BOGO passports connect people to new small businesses in greater Longfellow
“Buy one, get one” promotion includes 16 different businesses in the Longfellow, Cooper, Howe and Hiawatha neighborhoods.
St. Thomas hoping to build baseball, hockey facilities on old Highland Ford site
If built, the new arenas and ballparks would occupy all of the Canadian Pacific parcel, along with another dozen acres of Highland Bridge land currently owned by Ryan Companies.
‘Alarming’ court decision on Minneapolis 2040 puts a halt on expansion, growth
The decision is alarming because it discards years of work by a team of Minneapolis city planners and staff, makes irrelevant hundreds of public meetings attended by thousands of Minneapolis citizens and puts in limbo billions of dollars of development across the city.
