urbanMSP

This is different from store fronts sitting vacant. The agency hasn't actually spent any money on these projects, they've only committed money when a developer wants to do the rest of the work. Pledge money to a project that hasn't gotten off the ground is totally different from a project built wit...

This line was built during the worst recession in modern history, at a time when the building market is only beginning to recover outside of the obvious centers. I mean, look, I'd rather that everything the Met Council tried worked, and we had a building boom along University. But the fact that we'...

From the article: Meanwhile, enticing businesses to build alongside low- and moderate-income housing has been a hard sell. Recently, the Met Council awarded $800,000 to replace the Brownstone building at University Avenue and Victoria Street — which houses a restaurant, the Model Cities social progr...

The concerns in the article in question are a bit more sophisticated than simply noticing a lack of "massive redevelopment," though. And the article isn't even about the train line itself so much as the public investment in the development of the surrounding areas. These investments were j...

Man, is it just me or does it seem like the Green Line is getting a lot of bad press right before its opening? MPR of course is being rude and vindictive, but the Strib's piece today ( http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/261336271.html ) also seems unnecessarily critical of the line. At th...

Interesting points, but isn't at least part of the reason Minneapolis and St. Paul only make up 13% of the projected need is because the core cities are only projected by the Met Council to comprise about 15% of future population growth and they already have a significantly greater % of total housi...

I don't know anything about affordable housing (shame on me) so I'm just trying to learn here. Wouldn't it potentially be a problem for very poor people to put affordable housing in an affluent neighborhood? If they are restricted to 50% of the area's median income, then if you put an affordable ap...

But no one is arguing that, all else equal, these sorts of developments are worse than vacant gas stations or abandoned restaurants (well, someone might be, but not me). The problem is that there's a huge opportunity cost to these projects, because there are very limited public resources dedicated t...

I mean, we don't have to wonder, we can just look at other recent, huge, ostensibly mixed-income LIHTC developments. The Franklin-Portland project, for instance. It's about 50% composed of market-rate units. There's no public data on the occupants -- but does anyone really believe that half of its r...

With the way public housing rents are calculated (30% of household income), the families at median income for the census tract are paying monthly rents of roughly $340 ($13,511 x 30% / 12). The rents at Five15 will start at about $700 for a studio, and top out at around $1,150 for a 3-bedroom apart...

There are towers in Cedar-Riverside that are more market rate and not all immigrants. I'm starting to see immigrant pockets forming out in the first ring burbs as they try established and go for home ownership or larger places to raise their families. Like the Hmongs back in the early 80's and the ...

I never said we should "draw a big red line" around Minneapolis and Saint Paul. But the amount of affordable housing investment in the two central cities is vastly out of proportion with the need. For instance, see the Met Council's 2006 study allocating new affordable construction across ...

WHS, part of that has to do with it's location. Until the LRT came along. that area of town was quite isolated due to the Washington Ave trench, I 94 to the south, and I 35W to the west. The only way to get around to DT was to go thru the 7 corners area. 25 years ago I''d have called the area a cam...

First off, it has been years since I was last really in the neighborhood to walk around to see what the area is like. But after the renovation of the towers I do not think that the area can be considered a slum of any sort. The fact that there is non subsidized housing that is apart of this it make...

I don't mean to be cheeky, but would you be willing to share a link to similar studies in Minneapolis? Would love to learn more. I don't know of any cluster analyses like you shared, but there have been case studies that examine changes in the neighborhood of individual projects before and after co...

It certainly seems fair to be concerned about over-concentration of income restricted housing. When concentration of such housing is beneficial and when it is harmful, however, is not entirely straightforward. This paper provides some interesting insight into the matter: http://closup.umich.edu/fil...

I'm not sure what public housing you're referring to; virtually all affordable housing development these days is LIHTC-financed. In any case, LIHTC units are required to accept Section 8 vouchers from residents, so many occupants aren't paying the (restricted) rents. The whole mixed-income thing is ...

Could you elaborate on that a bit more? In other news, an article about this, and also about Bianca Fine, in the Strib today (yesterday? how is print media frommed?). Well anyway, it's online here: http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/260860451.html It's rent-restricted affordable housing b...

This development is a housing segregation nightmare. Probably illegally so.

They, not entirely without justification, fear a new wave of thoughtless development. Oh, I totally agree. I'm not relentlessly pro-development by any means (although I very much support the Franklin project). There are smart ways to develop and dumb ways to develop. But the disingenuous nature of ...