� Wow. A character assassination on my first day! Thanks for the warm welcome. Now that my credibility has been torn apart by Mr. Persons, labeling me as the quintessential snot-nose punk (He is right by the way. What can I say; it was a good guess on the account of my Icelandic surname and our diverse University and all. I�m also in a Rock Band and everything.), I�d like to continue with oh so lofty delusions. Mr. Persons, if I understand correctly, you would rather have capital improvements in any form than in forms tailored for a neighborhood? We do have choices here. It�s not like Minneapolis will give up on a major corridor because some exit/interchange project didn�t go as planned. Another will and should be proposed in the future that better meets the needs of local businesses and all residents both in areas of transportation and economic development and at a better price! I will continue with my lofty ideals as a citizen to improve the city. It�s my belief that this is a citizen�s job. Hopefully, these ideals like those of other so called radicals will level out the opinions of those who like to �dance� with wallets or whatever and we can take the lead sometimes on how money is invested in the community.
Yes, the government�s job is to support flows of private capital, but whose capital? You paint this picture of Lake Street as a ghetto with no internal sources. It is far from it in my view. You and I disagree that small businesses will eventually receive more customers. I believe that more customers will come, but there will be fewer small businesses for them to visit. Yes Mr. Persons you and I do agree on necessities of economic development, but not at the expense of existing capital within the community. But I guess it�s o.k. if these small business owners fall back on new pizza cutting and clerking jobs at the local Mega Mart (jobs I have held down thank you, have you?). You are right Sir; the total jobs within the neighborhood will increase. And once everyone in my generation can afford the hydrogen car, we will be set to travel cleanly to any job site around the metro to move up the pay scale right? The city and residents do pick winners and losers all the time and this access choice is a classic one. Travis Whittier Scott Persons: Great! An Urban Studies student who knows more than we do to tell us about how infrastructure improvements and outside capital being invested in our communities is a "bad" thing. Can I take a guess here, Travis is early to mid-20's, white, male, very, very left of center politically speaking, has yet to hold a day job or have a family where he might have to compromise some of his lofty ideals...nothing personal but I'm wagering I'm at least 90% right on most of these, welcome to the conversation! It is City Hall's job to leverage capital to maintain and improve amenities in our neighborhoods and commercial corridors. Infrastructure improvements like the Access Project bring money in from outside sources and invest it in our neighborhoods. Will this capital investment beget more capital investment from the private sector? You bet it will, the job of government is to be responsive to the needs of its tax base so we can retain the businesses we have and attract new businesses to the City. It is not government's job to pick winners and losers. The small businesses on Lake will have more customers as the job base grows, I fear there will be net job losses if we do nothing on Lake. And please don't tell residents what we loathe and don't loathe, yes the leftists at STRIDE think our market economy will just go away but it won't. As Molly Ivins would say, "you have to dance with who brung ya'", and I would rather dance with the date that has a checkbook than one with a clever website. There will be bottlenecks on I-35W whether we do something or nothing, traffic and congestion will grow whether we do something or nothing. The extra lane in 35W is a tough trade off Travis, I think there's a real opportunity to turn the lane into a dedicated busway. Unless you have funding partners at the federal, state, and county level to fund these amenities and infrastructure upgrades I'll take the deal that's on the table and fight MNDOT to make that extra lane transportation friendly. This is the real world and real compromises need to be made, as a resident and activist I know the deal I am making and it is a good one. Have a great day Minneapolis! 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
