Dead, Dead, Dead
By Mitch Berg
A friend of the blog emails:
Downtown St Paul does need some improvement. It has been pretty lifeless for a while.
But, I don’t think collecting more money from the few businesses that remain there is quite the way to improve it, though I guess it is better than burning it down as they did for the Midway Improvement Project.
If you see both projects as glorified transfers of wealth from whatever private sector remains in Saint Paul to the political class, it all makes perfect sense.
September 30th, 2020 at 7:02 am
I was happy to be reminded yesterday of the Curley Effect, because this is yet another example. See, there’s the private sector and then there’s the preferred private sector that’s friends with the political class.
September 30th, 2020 at 8:28 am
1st rule of urban planning: Don’t build high rise towers in a pit.
On the other hand, one of the wisest, most insightful things ever done in Saint Paul was to zone all of Grand Avenue as commercial.