Mind if I hijack this thread? I was going to post this in anything goes under the title of "Industrial Land use in our Core Cities".
I see this as a symptom of a larger problem we're creating in our city, not a cause. That is, in our quest for more parks, housing, green space, density and livability we're willing to gut the industrial capacity of our cities. If you think that manufacturing and other industry is declining in the metro, or that space isn't needed anyways, think again
http://finance-commerce.com/2015/01/sca ... klyn-park/. There's an explosion of new industrial space going on in the North and South Metro, way out on the fringes of development.
Meanwhile within the beltway, we have city planners practically telling industry "you're not welcome", especially in Minneapolis. The route of SWLRT west of Minneapolis is no accident, it goes straight through a large corridor of jobs, many (if not most) are in manufacturing and employ thousands of low skill workers. Yet, the cities of EP, Minnetonka, and SLP are pushing to re-zone and re develop these exact "underutilized" areas with higher density housing and retail. In Minneapolis, the talk about a new soccer stadium and "redevelopment" of the north loop has always implied demoing the existing industrial buildings and replacing them with, what else, high density residential. On the waterfront side, St. Paul's West Side flats master plan envisions re-zoning and redevelopment towards commercial and residential everything west of US-52, while lowertown and Lambert's landing is already transforming into a residential community. That's great if you like inner-city population growth and density (I do too!) but ignores the fact that the natural feature is the very reason St. Paul even exists and why St. Paul is still by far the largest river port in the state. Finally along the Minneapolis waterfront, The Mississippi Riverfront Partnership has successfully lobbied to close the St. Anthony locks, overtly because of the threat of of invasive species getting upstream (never mind the fact that they wouldn't make it past the coon rapids dam anyways), but really so they can push an upper river master plan that runs a park and trail along the river and through an industrial zone.
Now, I can live with the upper river master plan and closing the locks if it only shifts more traffic to St. Paul and not Savage or worse trucks. The way MSP developed naturally before government zoning was that St. Paul was the head of navigation and port while Minneapolis had hydro power. The upper river ports may have gone out of business anyways, but the government shouldn't be forcing it. On a larger scale though the trend is upsetting for a number of reasons. First, these industrial areas are the bedrock of our local economy. While we live in a post-industrial economy where the overall share of workers in these primary industries is declining, the multiplier effect of these wealth creating businesses is still quite high. In addition, these jobs are still some of the most accessible to minorities, poor people, and those without a college degree. Target doesn't exist without someone down the line bringing together raw materials and actually making something. These types of jobs are powerful agents of not only economic diversity, but also the racial and social class diversity which makes city living so appealing in the first place.
Secondly, if you get over the initial "ooh bike trails are awesome" then you realize this is a step
backwards on the path towards a more modern and progressive transportation system. Looking at Europe, the continent we all like to admire as a model of efficiency and sustainability, you'll see that a whopping 40% of all freight is moved by short sea shipping (ie barges). The current federal administration has been actively promoting the idea here due to the potential to dramatically reduce congestion from trucks and emissions. There's even an "M-35" corridor along the lower Mississippi, being promoted as an alternative to I-35, but it doesn't include the upper Mississippi because our lock systems are too small, ill maintained, and we now have a penchant for closing them abruptly. When this takes off here, manufacturers in St. Louis will be able to load a container for export to the world virtually on their doorstep, with very little trucking involved. The same is possible in our core cities, if we don't turn our barge landings into bike paths.
The thing is, these city planners are fighting hundreds of years of economic wisdom here. There is a reason why those industries that built our cities located where they did and not in Brooklyn Park. That brought a ton of wealth and development not just to our core cities, but especially to the downtowns. The natural potential of our core cities to out-compete the suburbs is still there, despite the repeated efforts of city planners to make it go away. The states only two intermodal rail yards are in NE Minneapolis and Midtown St. Paul, while the port of St. Paul still imports and exports 5.2 million tons of wealth annually. The falls of st. Anthony still produce cheap, green electricity for the city. Yet the more we push re-zoning and redevelopment of these "blighted" areas along our current narrow vision of new urbanism, the more businesses will choose to build out on the fringes of sprawl in cities that are more than willing to build them new freeways for the trucks which become the only practical option for moving their goods and workers.
I guess this R*ant is a long-winded way of asking the community; is there a future for industry in our modern cities? Obviously I'd like to think so, but it would require us urbanists and city leaders to give up on some of the luxury amenities they are pursuing and embrace the "gritty" elements of our urban environment that make it unique.
As if on cue, here's a MPR news article:
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/01/21 ... ck-and-dam