Author: The Planning Lady
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Boom Island or Bust
This week’s training plan outlined my first sixteen mile long run which meant I could take the girls for their run to Silver Lake Beach and have enough training miles left to make it to the southern portion of the Mississippi River. Most people might look at a sixteen mile run and think its crazy,…
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Becoming a Master Water Steward: My Journey
For the past six months I have been attending Tuesday night classes to learn about water. Organized by the Freshwater Society, the coursework is designed to equip each new wave of students with the tools and skills necessary to create positive change in their neighborhoods. We began with the basics, starting with the water cycle,…
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From Theater to Arts Center: A Minneapolis Story
Minneapolis, like many other urban cities with a long history, has numerous commercial hubs scattered throughout residential districts. These hubs are the remnants of the original city function providing neighborhood grocery stores and retail businesses within walking distances of a sizable population of households. Most of these areas were located along the street car lines…
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The Permaculture City
Book Review To those like myself who did not know what permaculture was before coming across this book I will give a quick summary. Permaculture principles include both natural and human ecosystems. While it tends to be thought of as a system for designing gardens, it can be applied to a range of human activities that are…
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Chanhassen’s Urban Landscape: A Marathon Journey
Last month I came across the Chanhassen St. Patty’s Day Half Marathon race in Chanhassen, Minnesota. The race timed nicely with my training plan and offered a technical zip up and beer glass for entering so I signed up. I also thought it would be a good opportunity to explore one of the Metro areas…
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Integrating Equity in Urban Planning
I spent yesterday morning on the 16th floor of the U.S. Bank Building in downtown Saint Paul among a crowd of mostly government planners like myself. We were all there with the hopes to discover the secret to how we can better integrate equity into our comprehensive plans. While hopeful it would be handed to…
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Rear Window
One of the gems of Columbia Heights is the 1926 Heights Theater, the longest continuously running theater in the Twin Cities metro (as stated during last weeks screening of Rear Window). The theater was designed as a neighborhood movie house for local talent during the explosion of neighborhood theater construction. After many years of unsympathetic…
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Connectography
Book Review Connectography is not a light summer read for the beach. This book is packed full of insights and ideas for a global economy founded on a priority to expand infrastructure. There are two main takeaways: we need better investment in infrastructure-both hard and soft- and a greater emphasis on mapping. Within this book, there…
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14 Miles: General Mills, Trains, Public Works, and the Mighty Mississippi
My training schedule for the June Grandma’s Marathon has me out on long runs every Saturday, giving me plenty of time to think and analyze my surroundings. I used to rely solely on headphones to help get me through the miles, but for safety reasons stopped using them when I ran with my dogs. Now…
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Density vs. Preservation: the never ending battle
I began my career as a preservation planning intern in Lincoln, Nebraska. While there, I mostly worked on National Register nominations and local landmark designations. Lincoln was receptive to preservation and not in the business of demolition. There was no need to pack density into the downtown core at the expense of historic buildings because…
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The Planning Lady 