Kudos to Councilmembers Lilligren, Niziolek and Zimmerman for helping to loosen Sherman and Associate's stranglehold on the Nic-Lake node. Justice is served when the disenfranchised majority (small, immigrant business folk) is served by government, and not a handful of vocal parties (the mostly white Nic-Lake Task Force). Small, independant businesses are the backbone of South Minneapolis. An opened Nicollet should showcase them, and not absentee corporate big boxes and grossly oversized parking ramps.
Small is beautiful, especially in old-fashioned Whittier, where most people prefer walking, biking and transit to the private automobile. Nicollet, our beloved eat-street, is thriving despite dead-ending into the back of a K-mart. The 18 bus rolls by every few minutes all day overflowing with shoppers and residents doing business in the corridor. These people are the face of the new urbanism because they support businesses without demanding pavement for parking. Arriving by car to shop on Nicollet is like riding the bus to the Lakeville Cub - it doesn't make sense. Cosmetically new urbanist big boxes flanked by 600 car ramps are the antithesis of good urban planning because they undermine the local economy and underestimate the good character of our walking and busing community. K-mart is always full, while its lot remains mosly empty - why not build on the lot and leave the K-mart where it is? The marriage between Loren Bruggeman and the 35W Excess Project delegitimizes any claim Sherman might lay to equitable new urbanist development. Slashing through neighborhoods to make room for freeway ramps should conflict with the conscience of any self-respecting new urbanist. The political deal-making that quieted the obvious conflicts between widening Lake and building a decent urban design at Nic-Lake was not lost on the councilmembers nor on the people. The Sherman deal is dead. The 35W Excess Project is next. With both of these motorhead mega-projects by the wayside, we can begin to stitch together an infrastructure for the real people on Lake and Nicollet, not some pie-in-the-sky urban big box or flyover ramp to nowhere. We can focus on quality sidewalks, more frequent transit, maybe even a streetcar in the midtown greenway. We can get out of the way and watch while immigrants turn the old thrift store on Fifth Avenue and Lake into a marketplace with dozens of new entrepeneurial opportunities. These enterprising businessfolk required zero public subsidy for their handywork. The new marketplace will serve the community well and is an emblem of Minneapolis' tolerance and diversity. Let them have a shot at Lake and Nicollet, not some absentee corporate retailer. Small is beautiful, and home-grown is best. Kudos to a new Nic-Lake plan and the impending downfall of the 35W Excess Project. Jeff Carlson, Whittier __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - establish your business online http://webhosting.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
