From: Dyna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
So if we are to avert our slow slide down the slippery slope to political insignificance we need more Minneapolitans. To accomplish that we need to attract people here, and overpriced housing and uncontrolled crime isn't going to do that. We need to offer the best bargains in the housing market.
Excellent point Dyna. Many of the inner city's woes can be attributed to sprawl. Everything that goes on on the fringe directly affects the inner city. New housing units, say in Eden Prairie, create vacancy chains. A family moves out and leaves a dwelling open to whomever wants it. Bad planning practices increase crime as well as social and economic blight. The subsidation at the state and federal level doesn't help either. Until new fringe communites pay the real costs of building a home 50 minutes from downtown, the problem of sprawl will persist.
Housing is
built today very much like it was built a century and more ago- by putting together a structure of blocks, joists, and boards then hand fitting same with utilities.
Huge advancements in the construction of housing have been made in the last 30 years. You can now spend less on the shell and put more into quality materials that make quality homes, sort of the 'Not so big house' concept. The push for pre-fab housing units has been huge in Europe but the market is not strong here. This in part is due to the ideas that pre-fab somehow equals trailer home which is a silly misconception. Also Union workers (which I support) worry that these new building techniques will in turn cause job cuts in the home building industry.
We already have garages in our back yards, why can't we replace them with carriage houses and put more folks into decent housing?
I am all for it. Minneapolis was planned to have over 1 million people by the year 1920, hence our superb streetcar transit system. We missed that mark considerably but there is still room for more. Careful planning and higher densities will help Minneapolis become a seat of power, but some need to realize that not everyone can buy a single-family home on a 40 foot lot. Apartments, townhouses, and condos all need to become part of the mix, even in traditionally single-family areas.
Hoping for a denser future and reduced sprawl,
Sean Ryan Audubon
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