I know there is a strong emotional component in the reaction to the closing of the northside Target. Target is a powerful Minnesota symbol. Having a Target is like "belonging". Losing a Target looks like rejection. But the fact is that these stores have to make money. The corporation DONATES money to local communities, but that comes out of the money it MAKES. Now the best-case-scenario might be locating the Cub in that property. A dedicated Minneapolis booster will hope that is what happens, but who knows? Cub and Super Value are a couple more huge icons of our region.
Lots of northside people treat downtown as their second neighborhood. Given the involvement of us taxpayers in the downtown Target, I hope at least some of the abandoned customers will go down there and make THAT store a better site for the company. What this all represents is a good argument for fighting the concentration of poverty in one area. If it is dispersed, it would have less of an effect on the neighborhood businesses. It is a fact that the poorer people are, the harder it is for them to travel to shop. Not impossible, mind you. I've done lots of shopping by busing. People take the bus to Rosedale from northside, so its done. It isn't the favorite way, but the bus will take you from that area to both Brookdale and Rosedale. So, the argument here is more about symbolism than practicality. In fact, I would recommend the boosters of the area to look at the overall commercial health of the area, and stop focusing on a particular store. Minnehaha Mall has been kind of a worry in Longfellow, but it is still alive and kicking, even though the overall quality of the leasing businesses isn't quit what it used to be (used to have Minnesota Fabrics, Dairy Queen, Super Value, Great Clips, and Twin City Federal. Now we have Petters, The Alternative School Federation, and another liquidator store). I think it would be really good to develop some sort of index that measured the overall health of a neighborhood. Business departures vs. openings. Number of condemned houses. Crime statistics. It could all be lumped into something like the index of leading indicators to show the OVERALL health of the neighborhood, and that could be used to offset something showy like a big store closing. Heck even attendance at community group meetings could be part of it. Because more people coming out shows something about commitment to a neighborhood. Public Projects: I think maybe there should be a circuit-breaker on public projects that says something like "an increase of 50 percent above the approved budget requires reconsideration of the whole idea". I can see it is awfully tempting to lowball a public project to get SOME money spent on it so that now they can argue "if we cancel, that money is wasted". Well, there is some level of money we can AFFORD to waste rather than trudge mindlessly forward with a project that is not worth its final price. Also, maybe there should be a MONETARY penalty for lowballing. In the adjudication process, the entity that is being fined gets to show how it wasn't ITS fault. On the other hand, this "mitigation" stuff should be priced into the project. You know it will be there. It is pure folly to add it on afterwards. ---------------- Jim Mork Cooper Neighborhood Longfellow Community In The Great and Wonderful City I Call Home, Minneapolis TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ 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
