urbanMSP

RV landlords for housing low income workers where home owners restrict supply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iW0YuvGJjo

Anywhere to park an RV in SW Minneapolis?

How about Lake Harriet Parkway?

I’m not so sure, you would see them from the middle of the lake after all and that’s important down there I’m told.

Not sure where to put this, but The New York Times is providing a map of every building in America. And it's fascinating and mesmerizing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... tates.html

Subsidizing lower cost online orders with public-funded transit to outlying distribution centers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/retails-ne ... 1539336605

In fairness, in the Twin Cities at least, the story mentions Amazon’s facility is “partly or fully” paying to transport workers to their facility in Shakopee. I wonder if that is a small hoped perk for locating a second facility at the end of the Blue Line Extension?

Google, Amazon, Tesla are flirting with getting into homebuilding.

https://www.businessinsider.com/homebui ... la-2018-10

Feels like home building needs some innovation.

The rise of doorbell cams.

Maybe helping crack cases? http://www.startribune.com/across-twin- ... 567913562/

Or maybe not much evidences offered besides people’s feelings.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cute-v ... t-n1136026

Google, Amazon, Tesla are flirting with getting into homebuilding.

https://www.businessinsider.com/homebui ... la-2018-10

Feels like home building needs some innovation.

If by innovation we mean surveillance capitalism, count me out.

Google’s Sidewalk division is having a tough time convincing Toronto that we need a Smart City (i.e. Surveillance City), so if they get into the home building business, they can just do whatever they want. Amazon would be much the same. Both would also automate any jobs out of construction.

“Affordable housing” or even perhaps free housing would be much like “free” services on the web, in which the human is the product.

I hope this is not the direction Affordable Housing is going.

Possible trend. Churches converted to housing.

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... polis.html

Personal 5 over 1. A new six-story building is proposed in downtown San Diego to house one man

Honestly, a rather small footprint, triangular, personal 5-over-1 with retail on the first floor is fine.

The real post-apocalyptic, fuck-you-I'm-rich story is the conclusion to the article:

"Matthew Segal and his wife moved into the [adjacent 2,900-square-foot, five-story single residence], which is next to 42 micro-unit apartments."

As long as he gives the 5-1 a hip/cool/short name, I'm good.

That's really funny though... I would argue (perhaps controversially) that this is better than, like, a Bearpath mansion or something. But if this becomes a "city living trend" for more people, it could be a bit concerning!

Ha, yeah, I guess you could call it Urban Bearpath. And, yeah, I wouldn't want that to be city-wide. For a lot that many developers would exclaim,"I can't build on a triangular lot!", I'd rather have Urban Bearpath than a gas station or carwash with parking or a drive-thru coffee shop.

But city-wide, that's basically just single family homes with retail. A tiny step up from today.

I thought I remembered watching a video of some famous urbanist who built something similar in maybe Washington, DC, on a disused triangular lot?? Maybe just 3 stories? Not sure if it had retail on the first floor or not. (Yeah, it was Jeff Speck https://www.architectmagazine.com/pract ... for-sale_o)

An important difference from a Bearpath mansion is that an Urban Bearpath could someday be relatively easily repurposed into a normal apartment or condo building, whereas a Bearpath McMansion is a Bearpath McMansion forever.

Also an Urban Bearpath isn’t surrounded by acres of grass and driveways.

2900 SF isn't *that* big...