The discourse surrounding Minneapolis revitalization has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, with a heavy focus on downtown. Community groups, business organizations, and elected officials alike have put forward their thoughts on strategies for collective advancement of our amazing city.
As the debate continues, we should encourage decision-makers to widen their focus and look beyond just the immediate downtown area. North Minneapolis, as we all know, has had a particularly challenging few years. But we also represent a community with more promise than perhaps any other neighborhood in the city. A fighting spirit, room to grow, and an infectious entrepreneurial drive are all elements that make us ripe for economic and community development.
It has been promising to see recognition of the contributions that north Minneapolis and other communities can make to the cultural and economic fabric of our city. The Minneapolis Foundation’s report on downtown revitalization strategies named West Broadway Avenue as a suggested target for the development of a “cultural corridor” alongside other neighborhoods. We couldn’t agree more.
Businesses and community leaders are hard at work here in the West Broadway corridor. Organizations like WBC, Northside Residents Redevelopment Council, Black Women’s Wealth Alliance, and the Capri Theater work to curate community-identified activities designed to transform West Broadway into a thriving commercial corridor that meets residents’, businesses’, and visitors’ goods, services, and entertainment needs.
Initiatives like Open Streets West Broadway allow over a thousand vendors, local artists, and musicians to show off their craft while driving foot traffic to our area. And our Black Business Week, featuring Black-owned vendors and entrepreneurs drives crowds to experience the unique contributions of the community to our city.
We’ve welcomed support from city leaders throughout the last few years of revitalization efforts like the Vacant Building Registration program, and as a new City Council charts their priorities this session, we hope they’ll continue to embrace that kind of approach while avoiding enactment of new red tape.
The Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey are right to focus their efforts on ensuring an equitable, worker-focused revitalization of Minneapolis. Among many important considerations in that pursuit, they must be focused on avoiding overburdening the small and local businesses that create employment opportunities. That’s the crux of our concern with proposals like the Labor Standards Board, a new layer of government that could ultimately throw off the progress we’re all making today.
Keeping our lights on, keeping employees on the payroll, and of course, keeping our community intact while fostering togetherness — they’re goals that everyone shares, regardless of whether you’re sitting at a desk at City Hall, organizing in the community, or serving customers.
Let’s focus efforts on building the capacity of businesses and entrepreneurs while elevating the positive and cultural assets of north Minneapolis and engaging the community in the ongoing revitalization of the West Broadway area. We should ensure that workers are protected in the process while keeping pathways to those jobs themselves open. We should think twice before establishing new and untested regulatory bodies that could jeopardize growth.
