Secrets of the City

Sorry for the late links.

Imagine how much better life will be for Mr. Bartel (The Toll of City Living) once all those angry, barbarian, normality-obsessed suburbanites follow their fast-departing jobs back out to their sterile, lifeless burbs! Happily for him, this has begun already. (Damn bloodsuckers, eh? “The jobs BELONG in my city!”)

Think how much more real and authentic and exclusive his city will be then! No more having to share the joys of a diverse life with anyone but his oh-so-asthetic starving trashgrabbers! (I bet he still wishes for some honest-to-gawd riots! Real Life, happening right there in front of those who are tasteful and discerning enough to know what’s what! Let some effete, bloodless suburbanite just TRY to enjoy, much less understand and empathize with, that experience as well as Bartel can!) Step away from my pearls, swine!

Of course, 331 and Shuang Cheng will be bankrupt, but the empty storefronts will only add more vitality and gritty realism to his already-Authentic Existence! Poverty! Failure! By gawd, that’s something only a true Urban Afficionado can appreciate!

We finance downtown office towers while most of our branch libraries are open three or four days a week.

Not to nit-pick with Tom’s piece, but I believe that Minneapolis has a stated policy of not financing the construction of downtown office buildings.

They did spend some TIF money on the construction of the Target store downtown, which also has an office building as part of the complex. We can quibble about that, but I believe that at least in theory that money was for expenses that an office building without a Target would not have incurred.

Aside from that, I can’t think of a recent example where they’ve broken this policy. This is in contrast to St. Paul, which gave away the bank to finance the Lawson Commons building there.

North Mpls. needs to seek out Chris Nisan. If my memory serves me, the man can speak. Anyone know what happened to him?

Minneapolis does need to get the panhandling/loitering under control.
I was in NYC (Manhattan mostly) recently and in 4 days of walking the streets I ran into zero aggressive pan handlers. The most I got was a little change rattle in a cup. Riding the subway I never felt threatened or intimidated even on the city bus in Newark from the airport to Newark Penn Station.

Upon returing to Minneapolis it wasn’t a day until someone came up to my car as I was waiting in the drive through like to get cash at the US Bank on Central wanting to sell me a watch for $15 so he could get a bus ticket. Not to be detered he followed my car up to the ATM and stood right beside it. I decided it wasn’t the best time to make a withdrawl and drove around to the front of the bank to complete my withdrawl.

These type of incidents do decrease the quality of life incrementally.

Bobby,

All Bartel is saying is that suburbanites should quit shitting on Minneapolis. They use it, abuse it and then ask why it’s broken.

bobby, read bartel’s article again. s l o w l y. you missed the point entirely.

I didn’t read the TB article in that way at all. I guess I do live in the city but grew I up in the suburbs. I thought it seemed like more of an invitation to suburbanites to try and experience more of the city than just basketball games and theater and to seek out local places with flava.

Matt,

When you’re referencing articles from the Daily Planet, I think you should link back to their original source (in this case, the Minneapolis Observer).

And, for what it’s worth, it would be nice to see more Daily Links from papers like The Bridge and The Southwest Journal (and any other neighborhood papers that have decent websites).

MusningW: I tried, but I can’t find the story on the Observer’s site. Craig Cox also works a lot with the Daily Planet, so he may have written the story for them.

You’re also welcome to send me links whenever you find something interesting. I check the small newspapers’ sites everyday and try to pick out the good stuff.

Is TB serious? From his essay:

“The people who live in the city pay a price. The cacophony of the streets assaults us daily.”

“But this is what we pay for having sidewalks in front of our homes.”

I mean I know where he lives and works from that essay… I cover that same territory. I certainly don’t feel like a warrior in the least, Minneapolis is so pleasant! Maybe everyone he knows lives in the suburbs and that’s why downtown Minneapolis seems “mean” to him. Maybe that’s why his answer to why he lives in Minneapolis is “Things are usually more complicated than they seem.” My answer to that question would be something like “Minneapolis is a great city and I love living here.”

The logic in TB’s article keeps looping in circles…it ends up being self explanatory one moment and completely contradictory the next…at least he warns of the imminent ambiguity early on. On the 3rd read, I’ve concluded that it’s just an elaborate advertisment for Auriga. And you thought Dara’s reviews went off on tangents!

I think he’s saying that many people think of Minneapolis as only the downtown area and doing so means they miss out on all the great things the city has to offer not bounded by two interstates and a river.

No, no…it’s an essay on how the shopping carts on the sidewalks are the fault of the angry commuters because they don’t eat at Cafe Brenda.

PS: I have a sidewalk, but live in St Louis Park. Where do I fit in????

If people walked or took the bus to work more instead of sitting in traffic on a beltway going from one faceless suburban town to another, would they listen to less talk radio and could we therefore have a more civil political discourse? Just wondering.

Why do you hate America?

I’m pretty sure they block all radio transmission on the bus except for MPR.

Bartel is a typically conflicted liberal. The angst in his ‘essay’ is palpable.

He thinks ’street cred’ is in fact credible, but he likes his Malbec by the glass, too.

Me, I likes de suburbs. Not so much trash there, and hotter wimmens.

Peaceful. Quiet. And nicely rising property values.

Nope, you can get ‘CCO. See last Thurday’s daily links for proof.

“bobby, read bartel’s article again. s l o w l y. you missed the point entirely.“
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No, honest, I didn’t. He had several points, one of which was the normal, everyday Urbanitist semi-point that “those vacuous bloodsucking suburbanites come into my city, take our jobs, look at us and like we’re exhibits in a zoo, and then rush home to McMansion and fries and never even try food cooked by an honest-to-gawd Laotian ex-waiter with emotional issues . . . “, and then, like most of the Urbanitists, he sort of trails off because he can’t decide if we should just stay the heck out of his city (and so cause its bankruptcy), or develop an appreciation for it, or maybe just stop the car at the corner and let him jump in as we leave because, on reflection, he thinks his city sux.

So, he can’t really figure out his own point, except that suburbanites have none.

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“If people walked or took the bus to work more instead of sitting in traffic on a beltway going from one faceless suburban town to another, would they listen to less talk radio and could we therefore have a more civil political discourse? Just wondering.“
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Certainly not. If we took the bus, or that rail thingie, we’d end up sitting next to too many people discussing bean sprouts and Alternative Womyn’s Angst Treatments and that cute little mole on Al Gore’s neck and the need for more funding for the bean sprouts and the Treatments and how the Rich have always kept the truly stressed and unhappy, and Al Gore, down, (because of the oil profits.)

And we’d eventually snap, and, well, you just KNOW which side has all those carry permits, right? So, so much for civil discourse. We’re all better off if you ride the train and I stay in my Escalade.

bobby, thanks for illustrating my point so eloquently.

TB’s article is the reason why I live in the more upscale, more beautiful, and more resident-friendly downtown Saint Paul.