From: "NICHOLAS FRANK" Don't need condos in North Loop
> "A lot of the developmennt over the past 6 years has been on vacant lots > and parking lots, not things worth trying to preserve. A lot of the > Loft conversions have taken place in buildings that were partially or > mostly abandoned. Furthermore, no one has been pushing to knock down > any of the siginificant buildings so our architectural history is > preserved. There simply hasn't been the massive gentrification > (exisiting population being pushed out) that people tend to think there > has been. ........................... > > ...........I guess I don't see how the continued development in the North Loop and > Downtown is detrimental to the city in general since it has added > population, tax base, and construction and design jobs to the city at a > steady rate for several years. There are always some negative > unintended consequences but the benefits in this case seem to far > outweigh the costs." Nick you are so right!!! I have read with interest some of the comments about lofts and condos in downtown Minneapolis. Some make it sound like having condo's downtown and higher density is by their nature bad in some way. Some have remembered with nostalgia the blight and squalor of a City whose skeleton was laid bare by buildings having been torn down and turned into parking lots. This nostalgia is not unlike when my brother, a few friends, and myself sit and talk about our youth growing up on a sharecropper farm. Perhaps about the snakes getting into the house, or the funny efforts to stuff old cloths or card board over holes in the tarpaper walls when it was freezing and the wind was blowing. It is memory of youth we miss, and the fact that we are aging. Would we want it again, or want our children to experience the same? Hell no!!! The lofts and condos are the City growing new flesh on the skeleton that sat bare as parking lots for so many years. This new development is an organic thing, not unlike what happens when scars form after a burn victim starts recovering. Does the face of the City look different with its new flesh? Of course it does, but please do not be nostalgic for the burned and blighted skeleton you no longer see. The soul is still there, it is just covered with some new cells that you are unfamiliar with. The condo livers will be nostalgic for this same new face when forty years have passed and some new wrinkle or gray hair begins to appear on what you now think of as the "New" face of the City. To look at, and experience, what true density and vibrancy of a inner City can bring, and be, look at Vancouver, B.C.. The vibrancy that one experiences in downtown Vancouver is because of density of both people and small shops and restaurants to serve them. A lot of people and a lot of amenities in a small walkable area. People are what is needed to support the economic infrastructure that most of us enjoy, seek out, and are willing to pay for. As long as it is well planned and designed, density and compact design for human environments is very positive. The secret is "Well Planned". The method for good planning is "Community Based" planning. People in communities KNOW what they need much better than many City Planners. Those planner "employees" who live in the suburbs and look forward to leaving work and going home to those suburbs each night. So those Planners unwittingly try to instill in the Urban dwellers the suburban "value". They attempt to express what they wish for, and to bring those suburbs that they enjoy closer to where they work. Instead of loving and embracing the City for what she is, they attempt to make the beautiful older woman into a teenager with heavy makeup and short skirts. Doesn't work for people and does not work for urban cities. We love our City, with her wrinkles and a little gray hair. Perhaps she needs to get in a little better shape, but she is still beautiful! What Minneapolis does need with all this new development is a little bit of soul, especially at night. The new buildings that are going up (and have gone up) leave no room for fun, and the small shops that provide that walking fun. With the exception of a very few places, Minneapolis is a graveyard after seven o'clock at night. The new buildings do not wrap themselves with small spaces for small shops and restaurants like they do in Vancouver and some other fun Cities. So when the office workers go home there is nothing. Minneapolis simply goes to sleep. Minneapolis could support a thousand small businesses in her downtown if we would encourage through zoning that large new buildings include small retail space on the first floors fronting streets. The value per square foot would be much more than the sterile large, empty offices that are there now. Move the offices to the second floor, or to the back, and leave the bottom front for fun and people. Density is only bad if it is poorly planned and designed. Remember there is high density at any fun party you ever attended. Fun, joy, and laughter are infectious, people catch them from other people being around them! Jim Graham, Minneapolis, 6th Ward, Phillips Community Planning District, Ventura Village REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
