I understand Victoria's point here. I have thought about that point often. The city does have a history of punishing properties for the sins of the tenants, business owners or property owners themselves and I was very helpful in making that happen. Back in my "crime-fighting" days in Whittier it often times seemed like the only avenue that was available to me.
"Back in the day" in Whittier some of the houses were in such bad shape and the property owners so unwilling to address these issues and fix-up their properties that it just seemed easier to get them condemned and torn down than to continually deal with crack heads and unscrupulous landlords. At least that way we could guarantee that another crack dealing group would not move in there and we didn't have to look at the crappy, cockroach ridden house anymore. It also gave us a chance to put a structure on the property that would be an asset to the neighborhood, not a detriment. My block is an entirely different world from this effort. As for "corner stores". When we got the moratorium applied in Whittier in the early 90's we did so because there were too many stores for any of them to make a profit.(at least through legal means) The building owners seems to prey on new immigrants in terms of making them believe they could open a viable business that would produce an income for them. Owning a little market was what most of these store owners did in their own countries before moving here. It didn't take many of them long to figure out they had been duped. It seemed to make sense to me to limit the number of stores that could open in our area so that the ones that did exist could make a profit without having to resort to illegal methods to do so. My personal goal was to limit the number that could open. 14 in 1 square mile seemed to be too many to me. Many of the existing store owners also advocated for limiting the number of stores in the area. Minneapolis is full of these corner store buildings. Many with houses on top of them. "Back in the day" it was common for people to use the market near their house. I remember when my aunt and uncle managed a group of apartment buildings on 15th and Park how much I looked forward to going through the underground tunnel that connected the buildings to the little store that was in one of the buildings. It was really cool. We would also walk downtown from there to Di Napoli to have lunch because my uncle worked there. That was when people walked more, rode the bus more and used the "small node" business areas near their homes to a greater degree. But, with the evolution of two car families, grocery stores, supermarkets etc. the need for the "corner store" has been severely reduced. I advocate regularly for neighborhoods to address these vacated locations by converting them to housing or something else. I believe the Mpls. Plan written under Paul Farmer's tutelage spoke directly to that issue. Many of these structures no longer have a use in the modern day world. At least not the degree of use they once had. There have been some interesting conversions of these buildings and some of the neighborhood commercial nodes are healthier now than they have been in a long time. There are also some that remain vacant to this day, look like crap and need to be turned into something else. I think it would be good to have formal city legislation that limits the number of convenience stores that can locate within so many blocks of each other. The city does this for used goods store and other types of businesses. Why not convenience stores? That would stop the moratoriums neighborhood folks have to advocate for. It would also provide more of a fighting chance for existing store owners to make an income from their investment. Barb Lickness Whittier ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
