apple juice

it is a minnesota state law that you must yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, correct?

actually…

Where traffic-control signals are not in place or in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall stop to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk or at an intersection with no marked crosswalk. The driver must remain stopped until the pedestrian has passed the lane in which the vehicle is stopped.

nobody seems to obey this law.

i’ve taken to standing and pointing at the sign, while staring disapprovingly at the cars driving past.

it’s called a parkway for a reason.

slow down.

Raising chickens in the city is growing in popularity among those interested in sustainability and keeping chickens as pets. But the venture often proves more difficult than expected.

via MinnPost – Urban chicken farming on the rise.

I joke about this quite often… I didn’t realize that people actually did it in the city.

the free market is great, except when it’s not.

here’s a perfect example: municipal internet.

minneapolis is one of a few cities in the country that has rolled out a municipal wifi network. the price is decent, but the I’ve heard nothing good about the reliability. did you know, in stockholm, for example, that 100mbps internet is $11/month?

Yes, $11/month.

I pay ~$60/month for 12mbps down/2 up service from comcast. If I had a better option, I’d switch. The other options are:

Qwest, 1.5 down/.768 up is $40 (for those of us who don’t want their overpriced home phone service)

Or, I could pay $30/month for 6/1 service via the minneapolis wifi if I sign up for a 2-year contract.

So, why didn’t minneapolis focus on building a city-wide fiber optic network that could be resold to private companies?

Because private companies fight it tooth and nail. Americans pay more for their broadband than just about every other developed country. Think comcast, qwest or us internet want to compete with 100mbps service?

Nope.

Amtrak ridership in Minnesota continues at a record pace, greasing the rails for high-speed train service between St. Paul and Chicago.

via Next stop: Fast St. Paul-to-Chicago train?

I love it… greasing the rails. Seriously though, great news! Hopefully rail transit will be part of the new public works projects. I would love to be able to take a train to Chicago or Duluth. Let’s make this happen!

St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie all are making plans for new housing and businesses to take root around light-rail stations that have already been sited in their towns.

From Four Suburbs are Betting Big on Light Rail

Great news – but again, it would be a lot better to be planning and building a number of lines in tandem. Where are the lines to the north and east?

I sometimes joke that we live in the urban suburb. i love our neighborhood. we can walk to groceries, the bus, restaurants, our local bookstore, coffee shop and movie theatre.

However, it is not dense. Not dense in a chicago or new york way. but it’s city living as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve also been joking about writing a manifesto lately. things to guide us as “feature-creep” takes hold. things like, we will never buy a minivan. ride your bike as much as possible. the location of any future residence must be no more than:

• 2 blocks from a bus/train line (currently, 2)
• 4 blocks from the grocery store (currently, 6)
• 8 blocks from a library (16)
• 4 blocks from a couple different restaurants (5)
• 2 blocks from a coffee shop (5)

Just as it seems that it is becoming easier and easier to live “in the city”, with a family, and have these things that I consider important, it also seems that most of our friends have moved out to the suburbs.

In a future job, I would like to utilize my considerable SimCity skills. So I read a lot of articles on urban planning, transit, etc.

This one recently caught my attention, Trading Places:

This is the generation that grew up watching “Seinfeld,” “Friends,” and “Sex and the City,” mostly from the comfort of suburban sofas. We have gone from a sitcom world defined by “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” to one that offers a whole range of urban experiences and enticements. I do not claim that a handful of TV shows has somehow produced a new urbanist generation, but it is striking how pervasive the pro-city sensibility is within this generation, particularly among its elite. In recent years, teaching undergraduates at the University of Richmond, the majority of them from affluent suburban backgrounds, I made a point of asking where they would prefer to live in 15 years–in a suburb or in a neighborhood close to the center of the city. Few ever voted for suburban life.

So, I don’t know. How about it, friends? Those of you who grew up in the suburbs, flirted with the city and headed back? How about those who’ve made the jump one way or the other and are not going back?

Sonja and I often discuss where we might live next, and the discussion generally comes down to:

“You can’t have a family in that place…”

“They do it in Chicago and New York.”

So, hence the manifesto. How do you want to live? How do you match your lifestyle with your living space.

First off, if you haven’t been reading MinnPost, you’re missing a lot of great stories.

But, I do have one problem with this (otherwise excellent) story about the troubles facing condo owners and potential owners.

There is a lot of discussion given to mixed-use developments, pointing out that lenders are growing wary of these types of developments. Mixed-use developments are those that include a mix of commercial, retail, rental and residential space (think first-floor coffee shop, condos upstairs). However, there is little discussion about the fact that mixed-use developments are desirable for healthy and vital neighborhoods. They almost got there with this quote:

“Our policies encouraging mixed-use development along transit corridors are still standing and still strong.” — Barbara Sporlein, director of planning for Minneapolis.

Ok, good, but why are we encouraging this?

I think support for mixed-use developments would grow when there is greater coverage given to why it is important for an urban area. (See also “I live downtown; where is the closest grocery store?” and “Places you can stand in Chicago and see two Starbucks stores with lines out the door”)