Flag and Booklet Pandemic Fundraiser: All Proceeds go to Laid-off Workers

Until the bars and restaurants re-open, I'm giving 100% of my proceeds from booklets and flags to laid-off service workers (taken from this list).

If you want a Saint Paul or Northeast Minneapolis flag, or one of my Guide booklets, now is your chance.

Check it out at my online store today. If you're a service industry worker who has been laid off, sign up and add your name to the spreadsheet.

Cindi Katz on the History of Household and Families from a Marxist Perspective

[Photo by Chris Arnade.]

The idea of the nuclear family is not only part of our culture, it's embedded in the zoning code. In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, for example, the definition of family forms one of the key concepts in zoning and enforcement, For example, in Saint Paul zoning code, "family" is defined as:

Sec. 60.207. - F.
Family. One (1) or two (2) persons or parents, with their direct lineal descendants and adopted or legally cared for children (and including the domestic employees thereof) together with not more than two (2) persons not so related, living together in the whole or part of a dwelling comprising a single housekeeping unit. Every additional group of four (4) or fewer persons living in such housekeeping unit shall be considered a separate family for the purpose of this code.

Basically more than four adults who are not "direct lineal" cannot be a "family" under this definition.

I was listening to the David Harvey Anti-Capitalist Chronicles podcast, much of which is quite good,  digestable commentary on current political or economic affairs, or Harvey explaining basic Marxist concepts. The other day he uploaded a great conversation between Harvey and geographer Cindi Katz about the Marxist concept of "social reproduction." In other words, how we organize everyday life -- community arrangements around food, clothing, shelter, and child-rearing -- to ensure the welfare of future generations.

Along the way, Katz discusses how the concept of "the family" has played a central role in so mu h of our culture and how this occurred. Social reproduction in everyday life is her specialty, and I found her discussion of the concept to be very interesting.

Cindy Katz: Of course its very hard to get into social reproduction very far without getting into question of what is a household, what is family... What do we mean by family? What is communal work, you know processes and can you speak a little bit about all of that? 

CK: First off all the notion of what is a family or a household is itself a question of social reproduction. (You’ll see that for me everything is social reproduction.) [laughs] 

But in many ways, it is. So that how we constitute what is a normal household, what is a family, how do we feed clothe and take care of future generations, [that\ is a heteronormative idea. It's completely classed and radicalized. 

And ways around or under these conditions, might be to share, to have an extended family… 

I was just at this workshop on adolescence in Africa, and the idea of the extended family being able to absorb many of these sorts of [economic] shocks is something that we’ve offloaded onto individual households. And the pressure on the heteronormative nuclear family is huge. 

But there’s also a sense of, where does the labor to sustain it come from? So the more global question of social reproduction is [that] we see so much labor migration, and that’s a radicalized question [about] where inequalities among countries come from. 

We have domestic laborers who come to the Global North and to work in wealthier households, but even upper-middle class households, as relatively cheap labor, because they come as lone migrants for the most part. And their children in their households are being sustained by their extended family, again, in a stressed and disinvested state. 

And by having domestic labor who can help privileged families, the gendered division of labor doesn’t really change. And the kind of exploitation that’s trans-local, and goes across national boundaries, is enormous. 

But there are incredible transfers of wealth in that way, around the [concept off the] household, and [these transfers] stabilize the kind of heteronormative, white household. And that moves to having sets of struggles around redefining the household and domestic labor and how it can get accomplished.

Katz argues that the nuclear family is rooted both in the exploitation of women through a long history of patriarchal inequality, and also rooted in the exploitation of poor people through colonial and post-colonial inequality. After all, who is taking care of children and the elderly, in many cases, throughout American cities?

I would love to see the notion of the family removed from the zoning code altogether. Our cities need to make sure we are allowing a diversity of different kinds of communities and relationships, including intentional communities, extended families, cousins, grandparents, and basically anyone who considers themselves as such.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the conversation if you are into good podcasts.

Six Quick Thoughts on Hosting the Super Bowl

[This was kinda cool.]

The Twin Cities just hosted its first Super Bowl since 1992. For some parts of the city, it was a real short-term transformation as it brought tons of tourists, crazy structures, and police into downtown Minneapolis in February. There were some bizarre sights to be seen.

I have mixed feelings about the experience, and wanted to jot them down before I forget. So here goes, the pros and cons of hosting a Super Bowl at least from an urbanist perspective.


1.    OK the subsidies are gross

This should go without saying, but should also be said as much as possible: the Vikings stadium was a huge taxpayer giveaway to the Wilfs from New Jersey, who seem pretty terrible. Within the Super Bowl dealmaking, too, there were all kinds of shady details. It almost makes me glad that that Eagles fan stole a seat from the stadium.


2.    Great choice of themes

The host committee theme – “the Bold North” – was a bit mockable, but I think it was a great choice. While single-digit temperatures weren’t the worst case, below zero, scenario, I’m sure that the cold temps gave nightmares to the civic booster crowd.

But the #boldNorth branding really did emphasize the aspirational embrace of winter that I think Minnesotans ought to have as a core part of our character. Just like Saint Paul’s ongoing Winter Carnival, we really ought to place winter at the center of our identity. Instead, for way too long, Minnesota’s first narrative reaction has been to retreat from winter and engineer it out of our daily lives.

I think “bold north” was great, and it worked even during an actual cold snap. I wish we had more of this kind of spirit in our media narratives, city planning, and daily lives.


3.    Offered a glimpse of a dystopian corporate future

[Militarized, privatized, corporate downtown.]

Um, Jehovah’s Witnesses on every corner preaching the end of days, military police running around on the streets and rooftops in full battle gear, barbed wire fences appearing and disappearing seemingly at random, trains being privatized and commandeered for the wealthy, billionaires running around in private jets and black limos, corporate branding of every single possible commodifiable fragment of the public realm… where have I seen these kinds of things before?

Oh yeah, dystopian science fiction like Children of Men, Idiocracy, Cosmopolis, The Road, Brazil, or a dozen other grim visions of the future. Only for a week or so, it was all happening in real life right here in Minneapolis.

Be wary, people. Be wary.


4.    Economic impact was really mixed

Of course the fantastical promises of a million people and bazillions of free dollars raining in from all across the globe were extremely misleading, and actual economic studies have been debunking the claims of stadium boosters, convention boot-lickers, and the like for decades now.

The macro picture is not great, but at the micro level, from business to business, it was interesting to hear about places that were seeing a lot of benefit and those that weren’t. Of particular note was the way that skyway businesses did not seem to thrive downtown while street-level ones did better.

Partly that’s because almost all the bars are on the street level, but it’s also because streets and sidewalks are inherently legible spaces to people from all over the world. On the other hand, skyways are inherently confusing and alienating to those who are not used to them on an everyday level.

If downtown Minneapolis is going to be truly ambitious as a global city, that’s something to note, because…


5.    Nicollet Mall is the focus of downtown (but isn’t)

[More cool stuff on Nicollet please.]

Even with the cold temperatures, Nicollet Mall shined during Super Bowl week, which is ironic because actual Twin Cities residents do not use Nicollet Mall in the winter and even in the summer, half the people downtown seem to stay holed up in the skyway. Partly that's because many modern Twin Cities buildings are not designed around Nicollet or the street, which lack shops and doorways compared to other downtowns.

But when the spotlight hits, only Nicollet can serve as the default public space for the city, the plaza and park that occupies the center of attention. I’d love to see the city double down on making Nicollet a true public space. I’d love it if downtown buildings began opening up to Nicollet, and if cafés, events, and people were thriving on Nicollet all year long. To my mind, the Super Bowl crowd during 5º weather proves that it’s possible.


6.    The Twin Cities should dream big

Finally, the way that Minneapolis and Saint Paul did not wilt during the Super Bowl spotlight reminded me that we need to think bigger. It would be nice if our cities began measuring ourselves against truly global competition, if we had a transit system that ranked in the top #5 nationally, for example, or had sustainability footprints that competed with the best in Europe. There’s no reason why the Twin Cities can’t think bigger and more ambitiously about its future.

All in all, a weird but exciting experience with some pluses and minuses if you can get past the subsidy stuff.

A Marxist Take on Market Pricing for Parking

[A little old parking meter in Pasadena.]

I'm just finishing up Four Futures, a short and sweet book that ponders social choices for "life after capitalism" using a science fiction lens. The author, Peter Frase, was at Boneshaker Books about a year ago and I got to hear him speak about it. He's an editor at Jacobin magazine, and one of the people at the center of a new wave of socialist and radical activism in the US.

Anyway, I was surprised and delighted to come across this example in his discussion of socialism, one of the "four futures" that might emerge from our current political and economic present. Warning: As is the case with most Marxist texts, it's long and complicated.

Here it is:

But if we posit a world in which everyone is allocated the same basic income and nobody has control over vast pools of wealth, this objection disappears. Think of the basic income as the ration card that gives you access to your share of all that is scarce in the world. Rather than allocate specific amounts of each scarce resource, the pricing mechanism of the market is used to protect against overuse.

To illustrate what this means, consider a mundane example: parking. In American cities, street parking has traditionally been free in most areas or available at a small fixed price. This is a dramatic under-pricing, in the sense that it leads people to over-consume the limited resource of parking spaces, leading to a shortage of free spaces and many cars cruising around looking for spaces. In some areas of New York, most of the traffic on the streets is people looking for parking, wasting their time while creating pollution and congestion.

As an alternative, some cities are experimenting with various schemes for pricing street parking, often under the influence of UCLA parking theorist Donald Shoup. One of Shoup's key themes is that urban governments should avoid under-pricing street parking, because to do so leads to Soviet-style shortages as described above, along with tedious rationing rules such as two-hour limits and the like.

Under the influence of this theory, the city of Los Angeles decided to implement a wireless smart-metering system called LA Express Park. Sensors are installed in the pavement below each space, and they detect the presence of cars in a given area. The computerized system then automatically adjusts the price of parking depending on how many spaces are filled. When spaces are in high demand, the price can rise as high as $6 per hour, and when many spaces are available they can be as cheap as 50 cents.

The LA Express Park scheme has been widely discussed and promoted as applying the "free market" to parking. This naturally grates on those of the Left who equate the market with capitalism and with inequality. But in this case talk of "markets" is more than just an ideological subterfuge to further enrich the powerful; it gives some hints at the potential of markets as limited technologies separable from capitalism.

Marxists have commonly made two objections to capitalist markets. The first is narrowly economic: under the "anarchy" of capitalist competition, the pursuit of private profit leads to unjust and irrational results. Luxury goods are produced while the poor starve, inventories pile up that no one can afford to buy, factories lie idle while thousands are looking for work, the environment is despoiled, and so on. In Leon Trotsky's Transitional Program, in which he laid out a short term reformist program for his communist followers, there are repeated references to this kind of market anarchy, which will inevitably be superseded by a superior form of rational, conscious, worker-controlled planning. Indeed, says Trotsky, "the necessity of 'controlling' economy, of placing state 'guidance' over industry and of 'planning' is today recognized -- at least in words -- by almost all current bourgeois tendencies, from fascist to Social Democratic."

Yet Trotsky himself was adamant that market mechanisms had to be part of planning the economy. In his 1932 critique The Soviet Economy in Danger, he writes:

The innumerable living participants int he economy, state and private, collective and individual, must serve notice of their needs and of their relative strength not only through the statistical determinations of plan commissions but by the direct pressure of supply and demand. The plan is checked and, to a considerable degree, realized through the market.

Seen from this perspective, the Los Angeles system is not a capitalist "free market" deregulation. The city is not turning parking over to private companies to compete for customers. The LA Express Park experiment is in fact an exemplary case of central planning. The city begins by decreeing a production target, which in this case is maintaining one empty parking space on each street. The complex system of sensors and pricing algorithms is then used to create price signals that will meet the target. In a fundamental way, the capitalist market's causal arrow has been reversed: rather than market price fluctuations leading to an unpredictable level of production, it is the production target that comes first, and the prices are dictated by the quota.

There is another argument against markets. That they are not merely anarchic and inefficient, but also induce ideological mystifications that perpetuate capitalism and exploitation. The Marxist political scientist Bertell Ollman has often argued this. "a major virtue of centrally planned societies," he said, is that " it is easy to see who is responsible for what goes wrong." this is a precondition for democratic accountability, because "only a critique of market mystification will enable us to put the blame where it belongs, which is to say -- on the capitalist market as such and the class that rules over it."

But this critique too fails. Despite the presence of price signals, and a market, it is no mystery who is responsible for the new regime of fluctuating meter prices: the city of Los Angeles, urged on by its adviser Donald Shoup. Indeed, it is the very visibility of the planners that makes projects like this controversial among those who take their right to free parking for granted and who oppose policies like congestion pricing that would mitigate traffic by charging drivers for entering busy areas. This is also part of what makes climate policies such as a carbon tax vulnerable to right-wing attack: whatever its "market-based" costume, everyone knows that the policy begins with government lawmakers and bureaucrats.

The real failing of LA Express Park and all systems like it is that they exist within a dramatically unequal capitalist society. In such a society, $6 for a parking space means less to a rich person than to a poor one, and so the system is inherently unequal. The answer is not to attack the system of market planning, but to overthrow that underlying inequality. Ultimately, this means overcoming the capitalist system of resource distribution and approaching a world in which control of wealth is equalized -- that is, where "the distribution of the means of payment" (to use Gorz's phrase cited in Chapter 2) is essential equal.

Given how market-based pricing is often viewed as an attack on the working class, this is an intriguing take that offers a much more nuanced view of urban policy than most analyses. 

Minneapolis in 1986 Revisited

[See also, Saint Paul in 1989 Revisited.]

Straight from the University of Minnesota's Urban Studies office, here's a poster put together by the late City Council member Brian Coyle.

Like the Saint Paul small business example, the poster fascinates. For one thing, there's all the old logos! So many old 70s and 80s graphic design greatest hits appear here. The other thing, of course, is how certain narratives about economic subsidy, government priorities, and economic development strategies never disappear. For his day, Coyle was clearly a more radical voice in Minneapolis City Hall, a former member of SDS and someone who worked to oppose the urban growth coalition that was influencing many of the city decisions during the boom-times of the 1980s. (By contrast, during this time R.T. Rybak was a Star Tribune reporter, then a PR guy for the Downtown Council.)

Check out the "Oligopoly" game in all its glory, and then compare with the headlines and debates in Minneapolis today.

[Clockwise from the top left.]

The Metrodome was built in 1982 and was torn down two years ago in favor of the Vikings stadium. All things considered, the Metrodome was one of the most efficient and taxpayer-friendly stadium projects in the American history. The current occupant of that space, on the other hand... I am confident that that "deal" will go down as one of the worst ever agreed to by American state and local governments.

I don't know what "Cockroach Corners" refers to, but I'd like to find out someday. City Venture refers to a successful fight against a proposed industrial/commercial park that would have been tied to the Metrodome construction.

Control Data, of course, no longer exists. And to this day, Elliot Park is one the city's remaining affordable neighborhoods in a central location.

Coyle was really into tenant organizing, an issue that, in today's tight market, is probably far more important than it was in the 1980s. The building on 18th and Elliot, right next to the I-94 freeway, seems to still be there.

I am not sure what the Cedar-Riverside issue might have been, but many of those buildings were recently remodeled and will serve at least one more generation of Minneapolis' lower-income citizens.

I don't know what the "Stevens Square" tile refers to, or who Jim Larson might be.

Maryland House?

Certainly, however, there is still displacement occurring in this area. See this nearby example.

Update: See the comment from Ethan, a reader who used to live in Stevens Square:

A lot of the apartment buildings in Stevens Square were remodeled in the early '80s through a partnership by Jim Larson and General Mills, which was testing if it could make money through urban renewal. (Turns out they couldn't, and they lost a ton of money.) That venture eventually became Stevens Community Associates, one of the biggest landlords in the neighborhood.

Boisclair is an urban development corporation that put together Riverplace, the quick-failing downtown mall that occupies the oldest street in Minneapolis, a key part of old St. Anthony Main Street. All things considered, the project wasn't a total bust, and managed to help stabilize a bunch of historic buildings. The movie theater is even somehow still in business!

Calhoun Square is an urban mall that dates to 1983. It still exists though whether or not it is "thriving" seems a more difficult question to answer.

City Center was a 1983 downtown mall and office complex that has likely had more of a negative than a positive economic effect on downtown Minneapolis, though that is certainly debatable. Today the buidling is being remodeled again -- a process that has taken years -- but it still has one of the least inviting street facades in all of Minneapolis, and that is saying something!

Donaldson's was a department store that burned down in Thanksgiving 1982.

The Hennepin Hyatt is still in business and still one of the key hotels and convention complexes in downtown Minneapolis. The next-door "Loring Greenway" project dates to this era too. Together these projects had a huge impact on Hennepin Avenue.

Here's a rough diagram of the city that includes many of the corporate logos from the mid-80s. For me, one useful lesson of a document like this is that mergers and consolidation are one inevitable trend of the modern corporate economic structure. These kinds of Wall Street induced deals mean that business subsidization takes place on a "winner-take-all" landscape. As companies merge, they will inevitably concentrate in fewer and fewer cities. In the end, that will leave mid-size metros like the Twin Cities more likely to lose out.

What are the policy lessons we might draw from that? I would love to do additional research to figure out exactly how many of these projects received tax subsidy, and how large those subsidies were. I suspect that, given that they made Coyle's black list here, all of them were taxpayer funded.

Read more about Brian Coyle here. Today a rec center behind the Cedar-Riverside towers bears his name. It offers a great view of the Vikings stadium.

Introducing the Twin Cities Original Chains Map

[In memoriam.]

I still remember the time I saw the original Hooters. It was down in Tampa, Florida visiting a friend. We were driving to the beach on day.

Suddenly she said, “Hey that’s the original Hooters” and pointed to a mundane building by the side of the road.

“Huh,” I replied.

I’ll never forget that day. The original Hooters. (Since torn down, because progress.)

But you don’t have to go to Florida to be wowed. There are so many urchains right here in the Twin Cities.

Like did you know that Target stores are “local”? Yes, they are based here. The first Target is in Roseville. It’s gone now, but the site is still a Target store and I suppose that is has some sort of holy shrine-like quality for big-box aficionados.

[The original bean counter.]

So too with the original Dunn Brothers on Grand and Snelling in Saint Paul. Unlike the original Target, the original Dunn's is pretty much unchanged. They still serve dozens of kinds of coffee beans from their bean counter, offer day-old pastries at steep discounts, and even their “for here” prices seem are lower than you’ll find at other Dunn Brothers. It’s like the original store is trapped in a late-90s time warp. Very cool!

So here’s a map of original chain locations from around the Twin Cities. (A store needed to have 4 or more locations to be considered a local chain, and I skipped grocery stores or gyms, because they’re quite boring.)

The general trend seems to be that pizza places migrate from the core city outward into the suburbs, while chain retail places travel in the opposite direction. Together they form a "cycle of chains" like the water cycle, whereby authenticity travels outward in exchange for cheap globalized commodities. It's like the food chain, except it's the chain chain.

Enjoy!




Dunn Brothers - Grand Avenue, Saint Paul

Still the best.


Punch Pizza - Highland, Saint Paul

The unassuming location that started all the Napoli margherita craze.


Best Buy - Roseville

Then and now, a crappy strip mall. (See also: this story on the Best Buy origins.)



Target - Roseville

Since torn down and replaced with a SuperTarget



Caribou - Edina

Looks quaint, but probably isn't.



Pizza Luce - Downtown, Minneapolis

Warehouse District, baby! Still the best Lucé. (See also: an incomplete Lucé rankings.)



Leann Chin - Minnetonka

Where Minnesota's most greatest contribution to cuisine, the cream cheese wonton, was born. Probably didn't look like this back in the 80s.



Famous Dave's - Somewhere in Wisconsin

Somewhere in the woods there, burned down a while back.



Key's Café - South Saint Anthony, Saint Paul

Very wholesome! Full of schlock. (See also: Sidewalk of the Week.)


Red's Savoy Pizza - East 7th Street, Saint Paul

Nothing compares. (See also: Red's Savoy as the rock of Gibraltar.)



Carbone's - Dayton's Bluff, Saint Paul

Very unassuming, and only a few blocks from Red's Savoy!



Zorbaz Mexican Pizza - Detroit Lakes

Not sure this sounds like a good idea.  


Radisson - Downtown, Minneapolis

Since become a "Radisson Blu", which is the color blue with the 'e' removed.



Bibelot - Saint Anthony Park, Saint Paul

The alpha of Christmas kitsch. (See also: Sidewalk of the Week.)



Buca di Beppo - Downtown, Minneapolis

Hard to believe anything so overwhelmingly cloying ever even had a shred of authenticity.



Super America - Lowertown, Saint Paul

Everything has to start somewhere, I suppose.



Creative Kidstuff - Linden Hills, Minneapolis

Because of course over-the-top bourgeois parenting comes from Linden Hills.



Granite City - St. Cloud

Just how you'd imagine it.



Herberger's - Onakis

Because of course "Herberger's" comes from a tiny town.

Crave - Edina

I don't know what this is but apparently it's a thing. They're even coming to the Union Depot for some reason.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SNELLING-UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT AND SOCCER STADIUM

[The place we're talking about.]

There's a "public meeting" tonight co-sponsored by Neighborhoods First, a group I quite like that has spearheaded the efforts to re-think Ayd Mill Road as a pedestrian, park, and bicycle space instead of a half-assed freeway.

To me, re-developing the "superblock" at Snelling and University is the same kind of thing: taking a space for cars and making it a space for people.

But there are lots of unanswered questions like these:



Q: WHERE WILL I GO TO GET DRIVE-THRU FAST FOOD ONCE THE MCDONALDS IS GONE?

I worry about this a lot. If this development happens as planned, soon there will only be the drive-thru at the Taco Bell, Hardees, Wendy's, Arby's, White Castle, Popeye's, and Culver's to get fast food while sitting in my idling car.

(Thankfully there's always the bank McDonalds and the McDonalds two miles to the West.)

[I'd like to get rid of this drive-thru as well.]

Q: WILL IT FINALLY BE SAFE TO CROSS SNELLING AVENUE ON FOOT?

Good god I hope so, but history tells us otherwise.


Q: SOCCER IS DYING YOU GUYS

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world.


Q: WILL THEY BE ABLE TO EXPAND OR IMPROVE THE SNELLING AVENUE SIDEWALKS?

One big tragedy about the situation is that MnDOT just spent millions of dollars reconstructing Snelling Avenue and the I-94 bridge but didn't really figure on safely accommodating lots of pedestrians. Of course, they even came up with a plan to do so full of good ideas.

But, you know, MnDOT.



Q: DO I TRUST BILL MCGUIRE?

[Private park built by Bill McGuire and "given" to the city of Minneapolis.]

About as much as most billionaires.

Which is to say, no. I'm not a fan of the for-profit health care business, for example. But at least he's better than Zygi Wilf? (Note: very low bar.)

I'm also not a fan of privately owned "public" parks. But Gold Medal Park could be worse? It's OK for meeting up for large group bike rides and it's photogenic, even if it is mostly useless as a true public space.

So I don't know. At least he's been coming to meetings and answering questions.

To me, the important variable is the surrounding development, and at first glance, the initial plans are very encouraging

But plans are one thing, and actual construction is another. It would suck if the development didn't actually happen. Getting strip mall owners to redevelop their property is difficult. That's my #1 fear.

[Planned land use.]

Q: WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE BOWLING ALLEY?

I hope it can move into new space, but bowling pin machines are extremely unmovable and the alley has sixteen (!) thirty-two (!!) of them.

[The bowling alley is under here.]

Q: WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE LIQUOR STORE?

It's a good liquor store. It's kind of like Saint Paul's Chicago/Lake Liquors, if Chicago/Lake Liquors had a parking lot that was twenty times larger.

I bet it'll be able to move into a new building if the owners want, though the timing might be tricky. Target sells booze now but I don't shop there if I can help it.


Q: WHAT ABOUT FINANCING?

[Early Metrodome rendering.]

From a simple financing perspective, the Metrodome was the best stadium of all time. But it sucked.

Point being that stadium financing is a terrible thing. I wish there was a blanket ban on public dollars going to fund private sports stadiums. So thanks Obama for that.

Even if there were a ban, it's likely that government would still pay for things near sports stadiums such as roads or other infrastructure (e.g. almost useless pedestrian ramps to light rail platforms heading the wrong direction).

Tax-funded infrastructure is a thing that happens for many developments, from a parasitic Walmart store to a residential cul-de-sac development to the very existence of a thing like a freeway or a transit line (at least, if it's not using a "value capture" financing model). This relationship holds true about a lot of things, and the city would likely be spending millions of dollars building new streets for any development that went into this site. (There were plans on the books years ago.)

[From the already-existing Snelling-University plans for a re-built street grid.]

I respect people who adopt black-and-white attitudes about stadiums, but for me the question is more relative. For example, I think Target Field is really well-designed and just about the best baseball stadium we could have built in Minnesota. I wish it hadn't cost so many tax dollars because I don't like that at all.

(Note: I also wish the Minneapolis Convention Center didn't get big subsidies. And oil companies. And freeway construction and maintenance. And the defense industry. More stuff too.)

Thus the relativity. If Target Field hadn't been built, would there have been tax-paying development on that site? Probably someday. Maybe even today. Would there be as much development in the North Loop? I don't know. It's awfully close to the garbage burner and the city's homeless shelter "LULU" zone. So it's hard to say.

Financing aside, I think Target Field is the best-case scenario for stadiums in the Twin Cities. The Vikings stadium is the worst. Actually, Target Center isn't that great either.

But that's a big caveat. Including financing, you'd have to say that this proposal seems like the best-case scenario. Then I'd rank the regions' stadiums like this: Saints (scale!) > [tied] Gophers football  =  [tied] Wild >  Twins (because of the $$$) > Wolves > Vikings (death star).

Would the Twin Cities be better off if all these stadiums simply had never been built? I have no idea.

Probably maybe?


Q: WILL THERE BE "TEMPORARY" SURFACE PARKING LOTS ON THE SITE WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE PROPOSED MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT?

If so, I hope it's VERY short-term.


Q: WHEN WILL THE RAINBOW FOODS SEE THE WRECKING BALL?

I hear it's the first to go, but it still won't be soon enough.


Q: WILL THERE BE TRAFFIC?

Yes. The corner of Snelling and University will always have lots of car traffic.

Should we keep half of University Avenue as a giant surface parking lot because traffic is bad on Snelling Avenue? Hell No.

Is traffic better or worse with the Green Line than it was before? I think it's about the same. Maybe even a bit lower. Certainly, people drive a bit slower and more safely. That's kind of interesting if you think about it.



Q: WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE DIVE BARS?

[Hot Rods.]

Won't someone think of the dive bars?

I'm thinking about the dive bars. I hope half of them stay around for a long time to come. I really don't want to see the old two-story University Avenue buildings torn down.


Q: WHAT ABOUT NOISE?

Hm. Honestly, a lot of people were worried about noise at the Saints ballpark, but it hasn't proved to be a problem at least not according to my Lowertown friends who have a performance space next to the Farmers' Market. I have heard that soccer stadium designers think very carefully about noise.

You know what noise really sucks? The constant sound of a thousand cars and trucks driving on a freeway or on Snelling Avenue which is pretty much a freeway at least by technical designation. Soccer fans literally sing, which is better to me than the sounds of an engine-braking semi truck. But like I said, I doubt anyone will be able to hear it from very far away.


Q: HOW WILL I BIKE TO THE STADIUM?

Let's say I'm a 22-year-old person living in somewhere to the Southwest in either Minneapolis or Saint Paul, within about a 10-mile radius of the new stadium. Riding a bike would be ideal! Too bad there's no direct way to get there.

Here's the route suggested in a recent city presentation:

[Pascal doesn't connect to Selby. which means you have to ride on Snelling or Hamline, which both suck.]

I think the team and the planners should take this problem very seriously. I doubt they will spend any meaningful money on solving the problem, which would be too bad.

One idea would be a few more Charles Avenue-style bike/ped crossing medians.

Another grander idea would be turning one lane of St. Anthony Avenue into a protected bike lane. Maybe even Concordia, too. Someone suggested that to me a while ago and at least it's intriguing.

Even bigger idea? Ayd Mill Road linear park / bike connection to Pascal Street.

The biggest idea? Greenway connection to Minneapolis.


Q: WILL THERE BE A TIF DISTRICT FOR THE MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT?

We don't know. At least CM Noecker raised the issue. I'm skeptical but open-minded on TIF but would like clarity and transparency about how it's used and the conditions for termination.


Q: WHAT WILL BE THE NON-MOTORIZED MODESHARE FOR SOCCER GAMES?

In Portland, I heard it was 70%. In Ottawa, I heard that they have a unique ticketing/parking system that reduces demand to the point where they didn't build very much on the stadium/development site.

This is what we should be focusing on.


Q: WILL PEOPLE PARK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?

Yes, sometimes I'm sure that will happen. People park in lots of neighborhoods. Lots of people thought that when the Green Line was being planned, that the neighborhoods would fill with cars. Has it happened? I don't know. Not much?

Will it be hard to park near your house if you live in Hamline-Midway? Slightly harder maybe.  It depends on where exactly you live. How many cars do you own? How far can you walk while remaining in a good mood?

There will be 12 17 soccer games a year. I think it'll be OK. If it's horrible, there are some quick-fix solutions, though like traffic, the "parking problem" is not going to magically disappear.



Q: WILL THE NEW SKYSCRAPERS BLOT OUT THE SUN?

Hey they're pretty tall! It's kind of mindblowing to see the before-and-after photos.

Here check them out:

The big change reminds me of two or three other neighborhoods, all in Minneapolis, that have been utterly transformed in the last decade or so. I'm thinking of the Mill District, which used to be a sea of surface parking lots and a one-story liquor store and is now a dense mixed-use neighborhood providing thousands of people with homes and lots of tax revenue for the city. For me, the change is one for the better. In 1996, my friend and I used to pay $1 a day to park in a parking lot where the Guthrie is located today. I'm not nostalgic about it.

Stadium Village around the University, and Washington Avenue in particular, is almost unrecognizable compared to 5-6 years ago. It used to be a car-choked death trap with a few middling stores, a car repair place, the Army/Navy recruiter (still there!), brutalist institutional architecture, and unromantic "student houses." Today there are thousands of new units of housing and shiny new retail places (though Big 10 is still my favorite), and the street has become a walking/biking/transit paradise full of people.

You might say the same thing about the many new apartment buildings that have been built along the Midtown Greenway in Uptown. It's a dramatic positive change.

For decades, Snelling and University has been a giant trash-strewn parking lot with a run-down strip mall, a Radio Shack, a few vacant lots, a couple drive-thrus, an underground bowling alley, and a decent liquor store. It's been a terrible place to walk or bike or wait for the #21 to show up. Nearby development like the CVS (or even the Spruce Tree) have left a lot to be desired.

To me, these plans look revolutionary in a good way. It's about time Saint Paul started seeing some dramatic steps forward. Minneapolis has a few examples and Saint Paul has lots of opportunities for similar positive change. Details are important, but let's not lose sight of the big picture in the mind-numbing chaos of a lifetime of parking lots and honking cars.