The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure [@ Streets.MN]
We have a political situation in the United States where Democrats are too eager to build anything if it creates a job and the Republicans are too willing to call a project a boondoggle without first investigating its merit. It is this standstill that Josh Barro argues in How Republicans Made Both Parties Stupid On Fixing Infrastructure: Republicans … Read more
Preference Paths: Don’t go where?
I love it when people make their own path! They’re all over the place [and even have a Flickr group dedicated to their existence]. This is along Minnehaha Creek in South Minneapolis. This section of the trail has been closed for the better part of a year for safety reasons because of flood damage. As … Read more
Livability and Bus Stops
“Livability” is a word I try to avoid when describing the urban environment. It has ceased to mean anything to me. It’s a mere buzzword [I'm not alone on this - great article can be read about it here and here].Yet, While I might not be able to pin-point what makes a place ‘livable’ – … Read more
Calhoun Square: The Psychology of Parking
The idea of free parking is so ingrained into the American collective that we have lost the ability to act rational. Case Study: Calhoun Square The Star Tribune had a piece about the on-going transformation of Calhoun Square. The quasi-suburban style shopping mall was a neighborhood transplant in the early 1980s over a once-busy commercial … Read more
Politics and Zoning: Treating the symptoms and not the disease
Redeveloping St. Paul’s Suburban Avenue The development is simple: built a new strip mall area with a handful of shops including a Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Cowboy Slim’s and a Max-It Pawn. Fair enough – it fits in with the parcel of land that shares a property line with a McDonald’s, Blockbuster, Taco Bell and Papa … Read more
