In defense of “Kicking the can down the road”
“When a town can’t grow out, it must grow up.” I wrote this on the Strong Towns Blog about the inner-ring suburb of Roseville. This line was supposed to be taken literally and figuratively – as in, the city must literally grow upward (density) and “grow up” by shedding our past development history and accepting … Read more
Back from Vacation: Thoughts on Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island is one of those places where you drive 500 miles one-way to ditch your car for a week. To those unfamiliar, Mackinac Island is a small mass of land with a small town surrounded by Lake Huron. In some ways, it’s like a lot of small, touristy places in the Upper Midwest – … Read more
The Unintended Consequences of Zoning
Zoning can limit supply, but not demand. This is an important thing to remember. The issue revolves around the University of St. Thomas and its long battle against its neighbors. In this case, the City of St. Paul is about to pass a moratorium on converting owner-occupied dwellings into rentals. The stand-off was summed up … Read more
A Ride Through Town: Part 1 of 3
I’ve been accused of being a nerd more than once in my life, and I certainly expect a blow-back after I publicly disclose the following: I bike around town for hours at a time with no preset route to snap photos of various pieces of urbanism in hopes that my photos and observations will have … Read more
A Rail “with” Trail? The Midtown Greenway Streetcar (Work in Progress)
The Midtown Greenway streetcar project might be a great idea – in about 20 years. I’ll further this thesis later, but in the meantime, I’m doing a few expeditions this week along urban bike corridors in Minneapolis / St. Paul to gather some photos, video and a tad of research. I brought my camera along … 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
The Nostalgia Trap? (Heritage v2.0)
The Atlantic Monthly ran an article (May 2011) by Wayne Curtis titled, “The Nostalgia Trap”. It can be read here. The article covers contemporary historic preservation efforts in New York and London. In both cities, governments and architects are dealing with preservation issues that are not likely to have arisen in the past two decades. … Read more
Small towns and ugly schools
Here’s the frontage of a newly built high school in a small town (pop. 3,800) in the south-central Minnesota River Valley. It’s a suburban-style high school placed on a cornfield outside town. This particular building was probably built to “accommodate growth”. New construction, sub-divisions and empty lots leap-frog around the sprawling school grounds. I’d write … Read more
