I’m trying something new for Cityscape this week: a “mailbag” column to answer emails (edited for length and clarity) that I’ve received from readers over the last six months or so. Here goes! Thanks for all of your correspondence. Keep it coming.
Too many of us are missing the benefits of a good, long walk (originally published on Oct. 15, 2025)
[Your column] explains a feeling I had when I moved to Minnesota in 2021. I was baffled because I thought downtown Minneapolis would be a hub of activity. Years later, I’m still asking myself: Where is the center of gravity? Where can I find people walking at all hours of the day and night?
One thing you forgot to mention (or I’d be curious for a follow-up!): Minnesotans care about making the city more walkable. But how are people changing the pervasive culture of non-walkers? I’ve heard of “safety” groups like the North Loop Neighborhood Safety Block Club, and the Midtown Greenway safety ambassadors. These aren’t necessarily pushing the culture to normalize walking, but, perhaps inadvertently, they’re helping. I am part of Bryn Mawr’s Active Transportation Committee, which has a specific goal of humanizing all forms of active transit, walking included. Otherwise, what are people doing to move the needle and normalize walking more than two blocks at a time?
Sincerely, Benjamin
This is something I return to a lot, especially after having traveled anywhere with more of a walking culture. I have written about pedometer apps, New Year resolutions, bird watching habits and more. I keep coming back to the fact that, in the Twin Cities, you have a lot of people walking dogs or walking around lakes, but walking to get somewhere remains an oddity.
I like Benjamin’s ideas here, but for me they still seem too bureaucratic to capture the appeal of walking, which should be the most natural of human experiences.
Just spitballing here: What about “walking clubs,” which could be like book clubs? Groups of friends make an effort to go on walks to get to places like grocery stores, coffee shops, libraries and workplaces. Then, they gather to talk about their experiences. If everyone who ever complained about parking spots being too far away could see those experiences as “walk-a-tunities,” we’d be far better off.
Did Minneapolis’ ugliest building have to be this bad? (originally published on July 16, 2026)
I am surprised you don’t mention City Center’s St. Paul cousin, Town Square Complex, in your article. Also designed by [Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill], it is equally ugly and horrible to walk by at street level. The one redeeming feature was Town Square Park, which was an inviting and well-used indoor amenity that sadly has been off limits for many years.
There has been some talk of designating Saint Paul’s skyway system as a linear park so that there is an entity that is responsible for its upkeep and programming (I know there are legal issues since the system is based upon public easements through private spaces, but where there is the will, there should be a way.) Wouldn’t it be something if Town Square Park became the nucleus of that linear park and was home to wintertime concerts and events?
Thanks for your column. I am a faithful reader and Lowertown resident.
Katy
I heard a few comments similar to Katy’s after my column deeming City Center and its adjoining Multifoods Tower the ugliest building in Minneapolis. They all pointed out Town Square Complex, St. Paul’s superficially identical failed urban mall and hotel skyscraper superblock, also designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and built by Oxford Development.
Yes, it’s true. The Twin Cities have dueling 1980s ugly skyscrapers in the hearts of their downtowns. The St. Paul version has a few more redeeming qualities, though. For one thing, the light rail nearby is marginally more active. A car tunnel runs under the building, bisecting the super block (though it’s still an unpleasant place to walk). And there’s an active entrance into the hotel and restaurant on Minnesota Street.
As Katy points out, the building’s most tragic feature is the now-mothballed third-floor Town Square “public park.” It’s been closed for decades, and is now permanently damp due to a leaky skylight rooftop. But growing up in St. Paul, I have memories that feel almost fantastical of going there as a kid to sit in the enclosed treetops and ride the carousel amid a vague grey concrete utopia, all colored with the sounds of people strolling around B. Dalton Bookseller. I almost can’t believe it was real. But when I walk through today’s food court to see the closed-off escalators leading up to the liminal abandonment, I realize it actually did exist.
(Fun fact: the building was originally designed to work around a proposed “people mover” monorail that was never built.)
For the most part, what Katy and others point out is spot on. Both downtowns’ concrete towers have bad street frontage and are almost entirely designed as internal spaces, oblivious to the public space outside their doors. St. Paul’s version would be better off meeting the wrecking ball, making way for 7th Place E. to open up as a right-of-way.
I would love to read your take on the potential for demolition of downtown commercial buildings. Is that a viable option? The expense of office-to-residential conversions seems to be too high to justify. Curious how the economics of demolition look and whether new, mixed-use development and/or park space may offer a better fit for certain locations.
Thanks, Daniel
This is an idea I pondered while writing my column on Minneapolis’ City Center. After digging through the Wikipedia list of “tallest voluntarily demolished buildings,” I think the best comparison might be Cincinnati’s Millennium Hotel, a similar mid-century failed superblock design.
(Another) fun fact: I actually stayed in this hotel after a flight to Baltimore was diverted thanks to a thunderstorm, forcing everyone on board to spend the night in Cincinnati against their will. It was the weekend after my wife and I got married and I used an app to book a surprisingly affordable room downtown.
It turns out that, at the time, the hotel was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. At the end of a long line of irate customers, an extremely overworked woman behind the counter disclaimed all knowledge of my reservation. I had to pay double the cost! It was a terrible experience, especially for a quasi-honeymoon.
The hotel was acquired by an Ohio public authority soon afterward and demolished last year to the tune of $59 million. That’s a lot of money to pay for a vacant lot! And it reveals the main problem with tearing down one of these obsolete skyscrapers: it’s very expensive.
Almost certainly the public will have to pay for the demolition, which then gets in the way of any other subsidies that might be able to help downtown. Unless there’s high demand for the space, any other use for the building – gulp, a data center – is preferable to demolition.
In praise of Twin Cities strip malls (originally published on June 29, 2026)
What has troubled me lately is the increasing deterioration of properties. It came up in the strip malls article. I find it in downtown areas and even residential properties.
There seems to be no means to recognize and publish the problem, or control it, except by owner interest. In today’s environment of greed I believe it is only getting worse. Are the penalties for loss of value too lenient?
I think it deserves further study. Do you?
Thanks, Philip
This is an interesting letter, Philip, that points to the need for regulatory fines as a planning and management tool. See, for example, St. Paul’s recent adoption of “administrative citations” as a city power, approved on a 2-to-1 basis by voters last year. It seems like exactly the kind of approach cities need these days.
That said, these tools are a slippery slope. Using fines against a negligent property owner becomes a neighbor battle, where no matter what you do, they still own their property. I am reminded of the now-demolished CVS property in St. Paul.
Now, the abandoned CVS on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis seems to be giving its St. Paul predecessor a run for its money when it comes to dereliction. The shadowy LLC that owns the property just put giant concrete blocks in front of the entrance.
I do think a proposed “land value tax” might offer a more equitable and broad-based solution. Stay tuned on that!
A unique aspect of Minnesota is that, unlike a lot of other states, the state capitol and the major population and commercial center are all in one place, rather than dispersed between two or more cities (ok, Saint Paul and Minneapolis are different cities, but for social purposes, one metropolitan region).
What is your sense of how this concentration has impacted state and local urban development politics in the Twin Cities?
How might the policy and politics of local and state housing issues have played out if the state capitol had not stayed in Saint Paul during Minnesota’s early history?
Sincerely, Austin
This is something I think about a lot. I do believe that the concentration Austin describes is one of Minnesota’s secret superpowers. Having the largest university next to the largest downtown creates a lot of positive network effects. Throw in the convenient access to state government – as opposed to many states which located capitals in rural areas – and we fall into a slim category of U.S. states that have consolidated their urban assets. (Denver, Boston, and Atlanta also come to mind, but it’s a short list.)
There are great advantages to sharing infrastructure, labor, housing and education within a metro area. (This is why a fast train to Rochester makes sense.) The general term for this is “agglomeration,” and it’s a key factor in economic and urban growth.
That said, there’s a political downside. Metro concentration fuels rural resentment – folks in Greater Minnesota, for example, referring to “the Cities” in a derogatory tone. And it can feed harmful stereotypes.
But I think that kind of political outcome happens regardless of whether or not state capitals are located in major metros. It’s not like Pennsylvania or Missouri (with capitals in Harrisburg or Springfield) are less divided along urban and rural lines.
I am optimistic that the next election will put people in office who recognize how valuable a thriving metro area is to the entire state’s well-being, perhaps catalyzing positive reforms. They’re not always an easy sell these days.
Thanks for reading and writing in! I appreciate your letters and, if this is a successful experiment, I will do it again in six months.
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