The Twin Cities’ most important bicycle mapmaker is retiring
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.
Cityscape
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.
Why Twin Cities housing prices might see some major increases in coming years
The Twin Cities metro has one of the lowest housing vacancy rates anywhere in the nation — worse than notoriously unaffordable San Jose.
Custom gem in Elliot Park showcases the future of Minnesota skate parks
Seamlessly integrated into the surrounding neighborhood, the Elliot Park skate park is busy with skaters pretty much all day long.
On the art of trying new restaurants
When you travel down any of the diverse commercial corridors of the Twin Cities, new and unexplored restaurants are all around you.
Without commuters, Metro Transit gets creative about getting riders on board
Dramatic changes in commuting brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have created challenges for transit agencies — but also present opportunities.
If approved by voters, St. Paul’s rent control ordinance would be among the strictest in the world
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.
Now is the time for a revolutionary Midtown Greenway expansion
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.
With truck parking now banned in Minneapolis, semi drivers will have to look down the road
Truck parking has been a minor nuisance in both Minneapolis and St. Paul for years.
Now more than ever, it’s great to see the Crystal Court open again
To those starved for urbanism, the voices echoing through the massive atrium sound like music.
On St. Paul’s Minnehaha Avenue, the best time to plant a tree is three years earlier
Almost 100 ash trees were cut down along the street this spring, part of the city’s triage triggered by the emerald ash borer. A neighborhood group is fundraising to speed up the trees’ replacement.
Metro Transit’s ‘Better Bus’ changes add up to a big improvement
So far, the Better Bus team has taken three core city routes and eliminated dozens of stops from each, boosting reliability and speed.
Parking lots to patios: the best pandemic trend
Personally, I think more and longer-season patios are a great idea for Minnesotans (who love to humblebrag about surviving winter). I hope the parking-to-patio tradeoff becomes a permanent fixture of our city.
Wildflower plaza helps integrate Minneapolis Convention Center with its surroundings
Today, walking out the Convention Center doors, you’ll find rows of butterfly milkweed, pale purple coneflower, anise hyssop, Eastern bee balm, California poppy, and wild lupine.
The Hamline-Midway library needs to change — but should it be demolished?
Over the last year, competing groups of library advocates have waged a low-key fight over the future of the small brick building.
Widening homeownership gap in Twin Cities is focus of new report
Despite the overall wealth of the metro area, there’s no starker sign of its segregation of opportunity than the wide gulf between Black and white homeownership rates, the largest in the nation.
Pedestrians beware: Vehicle-design trends mean greater danger
The higher design of SUVs and trucks, in particular, poses a massive problem for pedestrian safety.
Protecting newborns: Regions Hospital is training parents in correct car-seat use
To be honest, the first time you fit a squirming newborn’s arm through the strap of a Graco Snugride Snug-lock 35 is a little nerve-wracking.
Sign of a ‘real city’: In praise of the corner store
Hands down, St. Paul’s best corner store is Tim and Tom’s Speedy Market in St. Anthony Park, the only Twin Cities corner shop that competes with a great New York deli.
A worrisome housing trend: non-local investment firms buying Minnesota properties
It’s an increasing trend pitting financial firms against people’s homes in cities across the country. If left unchecked, institutionalized housing threatens to become a modern-day feudalism.
First steps: Both Minneapolis and St. Paul consider parking reforms
For too long, parking has been the tail that wags the dog when it comes to urban design.
