The main housing investments made in Minneapolis in the 1940s were, in
fact, the next thing to shanty towns: temporary quonset hut and trailer
housing for GI-Bill student WW II vets and their young families on some
rather vast open fields, not platted residential lots; they were mostly
unnecessary and torn down by the mid-to-late 1950s, when those families and
their peers were leaving Minneapolis for the suburbs, in their cars. There
were a number of new natural duplexes--structures built as duplexes, not
jerrrigged out of a single-family home, although that happened, too. But
the big spurt of tear-downs, jerry-rigged multi-unit single-family homes,
and two-and-a-half-story walkup apartments came after the zoning code was
more or less ripped up in the pro-density late 1950s: Minneapolis lost
thousands of homes built only sixty or seventy years earlier. It was this
streetscape destroying, neighborhood-marring development spurt that led
directly to the reaction: the 1988 downzoning, to preserve low-density
housing in Minneapolis.
As for space: In the housing built in years and decades past, especially a
hundred years ago or longer, the average house had much smaller rooms.
People did not demand the space they have demanded in the last forty to
fifty years, so there was no "great room" unless we' were talking about a
true mansion, parlors were minuscule, kitchens were not showplaces but
tightly-efficient workspaces, etc., and siblings shared beds, sometimes
three or four to a bed. Admittedly, this housing was tied to
post-Depression economics in our city. Families lived multi-generationally
together because that's all they could afford: Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt
Milly and Cousin Ned and Ma and Pa and me and my five siblings. Etc. Like
many immigrant families today.
The housing density then was pretty much related to families, which were
larger than the space they had access to. Density was either family-based
or based on single adults living in rooming houses or boarding houses,
where a woman (frequently a widow without any pension money) owned and ran
the rooming house or boarding house. That concept is coming back in a way,
as people volunteer to live communally in shared single-family homes, but
without the equivalent of the 1930s and 1950s "housemother" to guide them.
I forget the term used today--chosen communities? Help me out here, Cam
Gordon!
There was no investment in transit in Minneapolis's 1940s or 1950s. Rather,
gangster types pretending to be businessmen deliberately sabotaged the
efficient streetcar system that had been built from the 1880s to the 1920s,
so it would die (Aaron Isaacs has a great book on our streetcars in the
Twin Cities, and he details that sad story). The goal was to promote cars,
trucks and buses taking the streets away from the trolleys that slowed
vehicle traffic. The streetcar lines were fixed, as were their schedules,
and they came by so frequently that everyone know both where they went and
when they came, so there was no need for a smart phone to inform anyone of
lines and schedules.
Life was simpler. And almost nobody rode bikes.
Also, Twin Cities housing was built up along street car lines, with the
street car lines in place before the housing was developed. So, as Carol
and others explain, we need transit system improvements before we make
car-less existence a requirement in Minneapolis. Our bus system is pretty
disgraceful. (I'm comparing to buses in France, Germany, and Spain, where
there are also either subways or trams).
Any reference to European cities has to take into account that THEIR cities
date from the Middle Ages, not just from the 19th century! Streets were
narrow, walls were shared, row houses common, and the poor lived--wait for
it!--in the suburbs. The homes of the fairly wealthy formed the cores of
most European cities in the past millennium, and they were not only
well-built but were well-maintained for many generations. I have done
research in Spain in buildings that were constructed in the 1500s and
modernized for our electronic age. I'm not talking tiny mountain villages,
but cities.
We need better transit alternatives. And we need to respect the fact that
our city and surrounding suburbs favor motor vehicles. While we live
through this transition era, we might have respect for current reality as
well as the history by which we got here, and for thue real facts of The
Other's life circumstances instead of berating those of us who still must
depend on cars.
Connie Sullivan
Como, a neighborhood eviscerated by up-zoning in the 1950s
On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Phelan O'Neill <<email obscured>>
wrote:
Rest of post
> Carol, if investments in transit in the 1940s and 50s, alongside housing
> that held more people per parcel than they do now could support lower car
> ownership in an era where information on routes, schedules, etc (as well as
> the ability to communicate if youâre running late) was less accessible, why
> not invest in making our city look like that again?
>
> If, as you say, there were multiple generations and several children in a
> household circa 1950, what distinguishes that from having multiple, smaller
> families living on that same parcel of land? Do people somehow need more
> space to live because Grandma doesnât live with them anymore?
>
> Moreover, why can virtually every European city, even those in similar
> climates build their cities to not require cars and massive single family
> homes but we canât? Weâre certainly not more egalitarian, nor are we better
> supporting the elderly, the disabled, mothers, etc than they are.
>
> Land use and street use are intertwined. If you want more people to be able
> to move freely, then letting people live in buildings with similar numbers
> of occupants to a generation ago (via duplexes, triplexes, etc) and
> ensuring we stop prioritizing cars over other forms of transit is the only
> way to go.
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 1:22 PM Carol Becker <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> > To Mr. Miller.The reality is that people with mobility impairments are
> not
> > going for walks after the snow. They are not walking to the grocery
> store.
> > They are not walking to the bus. They are not walking in their
> > neighborhoods. And they surely are not biking. The only way people with
> > disabilities are getting to their groceries, to their doctors, to their
> > families is by car. It isn't a question of encouraging people to drive.
> > This is what it takes for these people to live. And attacking driving is
> > attacking their ability to remain independent. And this Plan does that.
> >
> > Tony Kelly made similar comments back a couple months ago, that
> pedestrian
> > improvements were being made for persons with disabilities. My thought
> at
> > the time was "How did those persons with disabilities get to those
> > wonderful new pedestrian amenities? And where do we think they are
> > going?" They didn't walk there, that is for sure. Perhaps we should
> have
> > an "Annie Young" test. If Anne couldn't get there or couldn't live there
> > or go there, then we shouldn't do it.
> >
> > As to your comments about expanding government programs for persons with
> > disabilities, as Mr. Bernstein noted, there are many people with mobility
> > issues who do not meet the government's definition of mobility impaired
> but
> > still have difficulties getting around. That is with good reason.
> > Government disability status comes with certain benefits like parking
> > closer to buildings or discounted transit passes or use of Metro Mobility
> > or even discounted property taxes. Because of that, a relatively small
> > number of people are recognized by the government as having a disability.
> >
> >
> > To Mr. Steele. No, they are not coming after our cars - this plan simply
> > makes it harder and harder to live in this City if you need one. We
> have a
> > plan for how we are going to develop and change our city. And it pretty
> > much completely excludes the needs of about 80% of the people. It will
> be
> > an awesome city for the young, childless, male, white, able bodied.
> Pretty
> > much everyone else? Moms? Kids? Women? Persons with disabilities?
> > Minorities? The Elderly? Our city is going to make your lives harder.
> > And that is wrong. The transportation section of this plan, needs to be
> > radically redone to honor the needs of all of our residents.
> >
> > I thought about this more and went back to the sections of this plan that
> > talks about diversity. In those policies, the concept of diversity is
> > about race. But diversity has to be about a lot more. Diversity has to
> be
> > about families as well as childless individuals. Single generation
> > families and multi-generational families. Able bodied and persons with
> > disabilities. The young AND the old. This limited view of diversity is
> > very much at play here in the plan's conception about transportation.
> > Diversity in transportation needs should be accommodated.
> >
> > As to Mr. O'Neill's comments about quoting Mr. Humphrey, I think we
> should
> > quote truth where we find it. Some of my favorites are from Buffy the
> > Vampire Slayer but many people don't know it when I say them.
> >
> > Humphrey was mayor from 1945 - 1948. Average household size in 1940 was
> > 3.67 and 3.37 in 1950. It is 2.54 today. That means every home has one
> > less person in it on average. My house in 1950 had five kids, a grandma
> > and two parents. We are not going back to that. Also, in 1950, we had
> > about .75 car for every worker and about .3 cars per capita. Today we
> have
> > 1.78 cars per worker and .83 cars per capita. We even have more cars
> then
> > there are people with licenses. 1.25 vehicles per licensed driver. Back
> in
> > 1950, about one in three women participated in the workforce. No, those
> > days are not returning either. Today we are seeing the collapse of
> retail
> > as Target, Walmart, Costco and now Amazon are slowly eating retail as we
> > knew it. Walking as mode share has been declining for a long time. We
> are
> > not going back to 1050. We need to move forward and meet the needs of
> > everyone, not just a few.
> >
> > Anyone see this article of a family with kids actually trying living
> > without a car for a year? They bought a minivan.
> >
> > http://www.startribune.com/after-ditching-their-car-and-
> > riding-bicycles-for-a-year-a-minneapolis-family-buys-a-
> minivan/478398723/
> >
> > Here is the reality. 4% of people bike to work. 6% walk. 14% take
> transit.
> > 5% worked from home. I believe everyone (within reason) who can walk or
> > bike or take transit or work from home are. Everyone else had to get to
> > work by car. That isn't changing any time soon. No matter how much we
> wish
> > that it would. We need a balanced transportation policy that meets the
> > needs of everyone, not just bikers and walkers.
> >
> > Carol Becker
> > Longfellow
> >
> >
> > Carol Becker
> > Longfellow, Minneapolis
> > About/contact Carol Becker: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/carolbecker
> >
> >
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> >
> >
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>
> Phelan O'Neill
> East Isles , Minneapolis
> About/contact Phelan O'Neill: http://forums.e-democracy.org/
> p/phelano'neill
>
>
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