The Rondo neighborhood was a mostly black neighborhood that was
paved over by Interstate 94. There's an excellent book about that
neighborhood called "Rondo Days".
I understand that the residents of Rondo still get together every year
for a festival also called "Rondo Days". The destruction and isolation
of minority neighborhoods to make room for cars is a pattern that's well
documented across the nation:
I took a bike ride over to 38th and Nicollet where Ace-Nicollet
Hardware is planning to build their parking lot. I wanted to see if the
two houses on
the site could be easily moved and I saw that the houses were built into
a hillside which would make them very difficult to remove (and
expensive).
I also noticed two men throwing a football around with a kid in the
alley. I asked them if they lived there and how they felt about the
parking lot. One of the men said he lived next door to where the parking
lot would be if the plan goes ahead. He said he was given a flyer and
he called the number on the flyer but he received no response. He was
surprised when I told him the Planning Commission voted to demolish the
houses. This man was was black. He seemed to be worried about what will
happen on his block..
I think that man and his neighbors have a lot to worry about. The
folks at Ace Nicollet have made their intentions clear:
"In a country where Home Depot is heading the pack and saying,
'This is how you sell hardware'. we have to mimic them."-Julene Lind,
Southwest Journal 2/18/02
The removal of 2 houses by bulldozer or truck will mean that there
will be less opposition in the future to the removal of more houses for
a lumber yard or a garden center or a bigger parking lot or any other
Home Depot "Big Box" solution Ace-Nicollet decides to mimic in the
future .
The heart of this matter is that the people most affected by this
zoning change were not given a chance to speak out about it on the
neighborhood level. Since the Planning Commission's decision was based
in large part on the lack of neighborhood opposition, it is clear to me
that the decision should be voided .
I want to stress that I want Nicollet-Ace to do well in that
location. They should know that there are studies that show that parking
lots in urban areas actually HURT businesses.
The most successful Twin Cities neighborhood business districts
(Linden Hills, Saint Anthony Park) are ones that maintain an unbroken
streetscape and restrict parking to the
rear of the stores. Parking lots are a boring blight. Studies show that
drivers slow down in a business districts with intact storefronts and
speed up in parking lot-blighted business districts (Picture Nicollet
and Lake Street...plenty of parking, but not a nice place to stroll and
browse.)
A better solution to the parking problem is to reserve the space in
front of the store for carry-out service like they do at supermarkets.
I'm sure there are other solutions.
Many of the people who support Nicollet-Ace are assuming that
Nicollet Hardware knows what it's doing because they are business
people. The business people at Enron, Global Crossing and K-mart said
they knew what they were doing too. Rushing important desisions without
a proper hearing is exactly how we end up with "biggy-sized" mistakes.
Will those public officials who ran on a platform supporting
livable cities, the environment, social justice and affordable housing
have some faith in those ideals and stand up to this example of the
Old Way of Thinking that has failed us time after time after time?
Ken Avidor
Kingfield
_______________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
