Russ Peterson wrote:
"Imagine if we focused redevelopment on avenues and streets radiating
and stretching way into the neighborhoods instead of just one or two blocks
downtown. Does anybody have thoughts?"
The kind of planning Russ promotes was done in south Mpls in pre-WWII times.
Does anyone in south Mpls believe "the lakes" do not "radiate" into the
neighborhoods? Ditto for the gorge area of the river and the park system.
Somehow, city-wide planning that has respect for and reaches into the
community has disappeared. Perhaps it happened with the growth of the
suburbs when Mpls and St. Paul were no longer the center of urban life. We
are expendable; people don't have to live here. Our city has become just
another real estate opportunity.
Freeways and artificially created job, entertainment, recreation and transit
centers have become the new focus of urban planning and development. Could
we create the Mpls park system today? Not likely. The real estate would be
too valuable for other uses.
Those of us involved in upper river corridor redevelopment have been
advocating ideas similar to Russell's for riverfront and neighborhood
redevelopment north of downtown. Bottineau Citizens in Action included such
thinking in its Bottineau Comprehensive Plan (1993) that predated the NRP
Plan. We have been suggesting that the river become a focus for community
life throughout the north end of the city. Utilizing "fingers" from the
river to schools, churches, parks and commercial corridors and encouraging a
"village" concept for housing and commercial development have been suggested.
In 1995 northeast residents representing 11 of the 13 NE neighborhoods
presented a plan to Hennepin County for a Hennepin Community Works project
that would have connect all community elements. It would have initiated a
series of projects to create what we called "bridges" within the community.
Those bridges were physical, commercial, social and emotional. They were
designed to link us together as a community and to create links to other
communities.
None of these plans was ever implemented.
The Upper River Master Plan is becoming another conglomeration of
parcel-by-parcel development projects focused on a few blocks at a time
(usually "razing and high rising") rather than creating an integrated plan
for the entire community. Whether downtown, riverfront or LRT transit ways,
we continue to create projects that have no connection to the surrounding
community.
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F. Guminga
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
