Half-Clear On The Concept?

Transplanted Noo Yawker Katherine Macdonald writes the Strib about downtown's decay:

As a recent transplant from New York City, I can tell you honestly that the Block E area all the way to where Gameworks is resembles how Times Square used to look in the 1970s. (Do not even get me started on Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak's response to the shooting there.)

No, Nancy - please, do start on Rybak!

Because Rybak is to Minneapolis what David Dinkins was to New York City; a cookie-cutter product of a one-party system that has run the city for two or three generations, a system that systematically strips politicians of the guts it takes to address problems like we're seeing now in Minneapolis (or culls the ones with the guts and the vision from the herd, leaving only eunuchs and special-interest streetwalkers in the mayor's office and City Council).

What's worse? Minneapolis' "weak mayor" system makes it very difficult for a Guiliani-like figure to rise in Minneapolis; the mayor has relatively little power (compared to Saint Paul, especially, where the mayor wields much more oomph). Now - what do you suppose the odds are that eight Rudy Giulianis will simultaneously rise through the ranks of the (special-interest-hobbled) Minneapolis DFL, win election (one to the Mayor's office and seven to win the majority in the Council), and start making the tough choices and doing what needs to be done to stanch the city's bleeding?

Yes, Minneapolis needs more police and, yes, we need a "no tolerance" policy on criminals, but what about transforming downtown to be rid of the dingy bars, seedy strip clubs and obviously dangerous movie theater?

Oh, Katherine - you'll love this! Block E was the city's attempt at transformation! The old Block E was a famously blighted, deliriously seedy block of strip joints, peep shows, and Moby Dick's, neither the most famous nor the most dangrous bar in town - but the most famous dangerous bar and the most dangrous famous bar by a long shot, a place where you could yell "It's A Raid! on Saturday night and year 300 pounds of metal hit the floor, whose bouncers ripped arms off of people like they were kids tearing apart moths...

...well, I digress. The City Of Minneapolis, in its insub-finite wisdom, figured that dropping a food court and multiplex from a suburban mall into the middle of historically-seedy Hennepin Avenue would bring scads of tourists and their money, rather than giving the gang-banging vermin who'd made City Center a urban-atmosphere slalom course for the past twenty years a new pasture to poop on.

So Ms. McDonald - the Block E you see was Minneapolis' attempt to do to Hennepin Avenue and the old Gateway what Giuliani did with Times Square - only substituting money, marketing, and eminent domain for law-enforcement and adherence to a coherent vision.

This is not at all how I imagined downtown Minneapolis to be when moving here. How about some of the ritzier folks in the "safer" neighborhoods stepping in and doing something about this? Let's clean it up and get those folks who like to play with guns out of here.

One wonders what Ms. Macdonald would have them do.

I have visions of Al Franken, in from his Lake Of The Isles digs, wandering the skyway with a Maglite and a can of mace.

Sorry, Ms. MacD. I digress again. Most of the "ritzy folks" that are left in Minneapolis voted enthusiastically for the system you have now.

Posted by Mitch at April 7, 2006 12:51 PM | TrackBack