Season 2 of Great American Railroad Journeys on BBC visited our fair city. The Minneapolis episode won't air for two weeks, but for about 2 seconds in the intro (starting at 14 seconds in) you can see him getting on the light rail and Lake St. So close to me and I missed it. He could have signed my Bradshaw's! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRbnQjPZGss
Re: Stress relief
Posted: August 14th, 2017, 11:24 pm
by grant1simons2
I see this is the place where we post about train videos?
This was cool and informative, but after a while an overlay appeared demanding that I log in with FB or Google. The first time it appeared it had an x to dismiss it, but the second time it wouldn't go away.
It's a reminder that Minneapolis loves to tear things down in the name of "progress". This is a city which desperately wants to be "modern". Apparently we still agree with Henry Ford that "history is bunk". It's part of how Minneapolis differentiates it self from Saint Paul, it's sentimental sister.
What do you think, urbanists? Had the Metropolitan outlived it's usefulness? Would you prefer it over what's on the site now?
Re: Stress relief
Posted: February 1st, 2018, 10:57 am
by RailBaronYarr
I think that cities across the world have a long history of tearing down and rebuilding themselves, done both by private and public actors, sometimes for generally pure/rational reasons and sometimes not so much. I wouldn't say Minneapolis has any more of a tendency toward doing this out of a sense of "progress" than anyone else, but even if it did I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. Progress means letting more people and businesses share where we already live and work, which can (and often does) have all sorts of great benefits like expanding opportunities for people (education, social, work, whatever). It means upgrading our building stock to be safer, healthier, more efficient, etc.
Weighing the pros and cons of any individual building or district lost to destruction as some narrative for the city as a whole is useless IMO. We've got entire neighborhoods that look basically exactly the same in 2018 as they did in 1960, but for the style of the cars parked out on the curb. The vast majority of parcels in this town haven't been redeveloped since they saw the first foundation poured (whenever that may have been).
Re: Stress relief
Posted: February 1st, 2018, 11:42 am
by VacantLuxuries
It's a reminder that Minneapolis loves to tear things down in the name of "progress". This is a city which desperately wants to be "modern". Apparently we still agree with Henry Ford that "history is bunk". It's part of how Minneapolis differentiates it self from Saint Paul, it's sentimental sister.
Implying St. Paul didn't use the freeway to clear neighborhoods in front of the capitol and Rondo. They just spared properties in their downtown long enough for them to become the good kind of old/historic and not just old. The fact that we tend to focus more on Minneapolis' destruction and largely give St. Paul a free pass since they didn't demolish the "good buildings" is a bit suspect.
right.