The King of Skid Row
The King of Skid Row

Author: James Eli Shiffer

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1452950199

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City blue laws drove the liquor trade and its customers—hard-drinking lumberjacks, pensioners, farmhands, and railroad workers—into the oldest quarter of Minneapolis. In the fifty-cent-a-night flophouses of the city’s Gateway District, they slept in cubicles with ceilings of chicken wire. In rescue missions, preachers and nuns tried to save their souls. Sociology researchers posing as vagrants studied them. And in their midst John Bacich, aka Johnny Rex, who owned a bar, a liquor store, and a cage hotel, documented the gritty neighborhood’s last days through photographs and film of his clientele. The King of Skid Row follows Johnny Rex into this vanished world that once thrived in the heart of Minneapolis. Drawing on hours of interviews conducted in the three years before Bacich’s death in 2012, James Eli Shiffer brings to life the eccentric characters and strange events of an American skid row. Supplemented with archival and newspaper research and his own photographs, Bacich’s stories re-create the violent, alcohol-soaked history of a city best known for its clean, progressive self-image. His life captures the seamy, richly colorful side of the city swept away by a massive urban renewal project in the early 1960s and gives us, in a glimpse of those bygone days, one of Minneapolis’s most intriguing figures—spinning some of its most enduring and enthralling tales.

The Politics of Downtown Development
The Politics of Downtown Development

Author: Stephen J. McGovern

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0813156823

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American cities experienced an extraordinary surge in downtown development during the 1970s and 1980s. Pro-growth advocates in urban government and the business community believed that the construction of office buildings, hotels, convention centers, and sports complexes would generate jobs and tax revenue while revitalizing stagnant local economies. But neighborhood groups soon became disgruntled with the unanticipated costs and unfulfilled promises of rapid expansion, and grassroots opposition erupted in cities throughout the United States. Through an insightful comparison of effective protest in San Francisco and ineffective protest in Washington, D.C., Stephen McGovern examines how citizens—even those lacking financial resources—have sought to control their own urban environments. McGovern interviews nearly one hundred business activists, government officials, and business leaders, exploring the influence of political culture and individual citizens' perceptions of a particular development issue. McGovern offers a compelling explanation of why some battles against city hall succeed while so many others fail.

How Real Estate Developers Think
How Real Estate Developers Think

Author: Peter Hendee Brown

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2015-04-07

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0812291263

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Cities are always changing: streets, infrastructure, public spaces, and buildings are constantly being built, improved, demolished, and replaced. But even when a new project is designed to improve a community, neighborhood residents often find themselves at odds with the real estate developer who proposes it. Savvy developers are willing to work with residents to allay their concerns and gain public support, but at the same time, a real estate development is a business venture financed by private investors who take significant risks. In How Real Estate Developers Think, Peter Hendee Brown explains the interests, motives, and actions of real estate developers, using case studies to show how the basic principles of development remain the same everywhere even as practices vary based on climate, local culture, and geography. An understanding of what developers do and why they do it will help community members, elected officials, and others participate more productively in the development process in their own communities. Based on interviews with over a hundred people involved in the real estate development business in Chicago, Miami, Portland (Oregon), and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, How Real Estate Developers Think considers developers from three different perspectives. Brown profiles the careers of individual developers to illustrate the character of the entrepreneur, considers the roles played by innovation, design, marketing, and sales in the production of real estate, and examines the risks and rewards that motivate developers as people. Ultimately, How Real Estate Developers Think portrays developers as creative visionaries who are able to imagine future possibilities for our cities and communities and shows that understanding them will lead to better outcomes for neighbors, communities, and cities.

Downtown Minneapolis
Downtown Minneapolis

Author: Iric Nathanson

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017-01-23

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1439659273

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Downtown Minneapolis evolved from a collection of modest frame buildings on the banks of the Mississippi River to the high-rise center of a modern American metropolis. With a burgeoning milling industry powering the local economy, the early frame structures soon gave way to substantial brick and masonry buildings, lining the streets of a bustling 19th-century commercial district. Downtown continued to prosper during the early years of the 20th century, aided by advances in transportation and communications. The heart of the city held its own during the Great Depression and World War II, but the postwar era brought new challenges as a suburban boom threatened the city's economic foundation. Enterprising local leaders responded with innovative developments to meet these challenges, and a reinvigorated downtown took on a new role as the site of a dynamic new residential community, now home to nearly 40,000 city residents.

The Physical City
The Physical City

Author: Neil L. Shumsky

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1135603057

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First Published in 1996. Part of a series that brings together more than 200 scholarly articles pertaining to the history and development of urban life in the United States during the past two centuries. The physical development of cities and their infrastructure is considered in Volume 2, which focuses on city planning and its origins in the Rural Cemetery Movement, the City Beautiful Movement, and the role of business in advocating more rational and efficient urban places. Volume 2 also contains articles about essential aspects of the urban infra structure and the provision of basic services essential for urban survival—water, sewer, and transportation systems.

AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis
AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis

Author: Larry Millett

Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9780873517201

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Let architecture critic Larry Millett be your guide to downtown Minneapolis, whose architectural history displays the uniqueness of this far-from-identical "twin" city. AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis includes walking tours for Nicollet Mall, the Warehouse District, the central riverfront, and the Elliot Park and Loring Park neighborhoods. Each tour is copiously illustrated with current and historic photographs and paired with detailed maps. This deeply informative guidebook is perfect for tourists discovering the Twin Cities and residents exploring what is right next door. Larry Millett has written extensively about Twin Cities architecture, notably in AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, Twin Cities Then and Now, and Lost Twin Cities.

Minneapolis-St. Paul
Minneapolis-St. Paul

Author: John S. Adams

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1452900000

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The Twin Cities are an outstanding place to live, work, play, and participate in an active civic life. Lakes, extensive Parklands, natural preserves, and the urban forest play a large role in drawing people to the Twin Cities and keeping them here. Enhanced with maps, photographs, and graphs, Minneapolis-St. Paul is the most comprehensive, up-to-date book available on the metro area and its unique social, economic, political, and physical environment. This impressive and entertaining compilation of information will be useful for present and prospective residents of the Twin Cities, real-estate brokers and developers, local government officials, city planners, public-relations representatives, students of urban geography and sociology and land-use planners.

Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century
Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century

Author: Sammis B. White

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-18

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1317470516

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The fully revised new edition of this textbook presents a well-balanced set of economic development financing tools and techniques focused on our current times of economic austerity. While traditional public sector techniques are evaluated and refocused, this volume emphasizes the role of the private sector and the increasing need to bring together different techniques and sources to create a workable financial development package. The chapters address critical assessments of various methods as well as practical advice on how to implement these techniques. New chapters on entrepreneurship, the changing nature of the community banking system, and the increasing need for partnerships provides critical insights into the ever-evolving practice of economic development finance.