Cityscape focuses on urban life in our metro area. Topics range from urban design and architecture to transportation, highways, traffic, transit, walking and biking. Cityscape also examines important urban issues — such as real estate development, education, crime, poverty and family life — as well as the arts, sports and entertainment in our community.
City planners are engaged in an intense and drawn out debate over how to remake Minneapolis’ zoning code to match the goals set out in the 2040 plan.
A recent Amtrak map shared with the Rail Passengers Association showed one possible vision, including a line from Minneapolis to Duluth alongside better service to points east.
The end of City Pages and the impending closure of Southwest Journal cap a concerning trend. A few enterprising online efforts, including in Eden Prairie and West St. Paul, step up online.
The worst-case scenario is that undercounting ensures that the state’s political landscape — already balanced against renters, immigrants, and younger Americans — remains uneven for 10 more years.
The Spot, Palmer’s Bar and the Black Hart are hanging on. But with winter approaching and nothing but crickets from Congress, the coming season might be the worst for local pubs since Prohibition.
For the first step, as most of society transformed their operations with COVID precautions, librarians took a cue from restaurants.
Car sharing and electric vehicles are both big ideas that could transform transportation in the Twin Cities. So why not combine them? That’s the plan for an ambitious pilot program.
The task of organizing tenants poses all sorts of social barriers. But physical barriers can be important too.
“Public art has really moved away from that,” says Colleen Sheehy, executive director of Public Art Saint Paul.
Those who want to see less police enforcement offer varied solutions, including design and education approaches; regulations on devices that distract drivers; and automatic cameras for red-light running.
Thanks to both unique efforts, over the last week in Minneapolis, hundreds of people with nowhere to go have remained safe in hotel rooms for days.
“It’s a big deal,” said Amy Brendmoen, St. Paul City Council president. “We’re bracing for it both in 2020, with a revision of what we imagined this year was going to look like, and also looking down the pike at 2021 … with a different landscape and different ability to generate revenue.”
The rash of speeding comes at an odd time for Minneapolis, which launched its ambitious Vision Zero plan just last year, aimed at eliminating fatal crashes within the city.
The game is part trivia, part exercise, part competition, part art. It might be the ideal corona pastime.
With many Minnesotans staying at home, the streets are emptier than usual right now. In some ways, that makes the pandemic the ideal time for some street repair.
They’ve gotten some help at the margins, but bar owners are worried about everything from upcoming bills to potential break-ins.
It’s one of the two dozen “branch factories” that Henry Ford built to produce the Model T. It ran as a car plant for 21 years, before eventually being bought by the state in the early ’70s. It was used for office space until 2004, and has been vacant ever since.
A proposed St. Paul apartment complex has sparked a lot of pushback in the surrounding Lex-Ham, Rondo, and Frogtown neighborhoods over what the building would do to affordability in the area.
The average annual number of fatal and severe crashes in the city has bounced around 100 for a decade, and that’s even with a lot of recent safety improvements.
The Dec. 28 storm resulted in around 500 crashes, dozens of severe injuries, and two deaths.
