Podcast – streets.mn

I am happy to bring you a conversation with Nelsie Yang, who is a candidate for City Council in Saint Paul’s Sixth Ward, which covers the large northern part of the East Side. Yang is a community organizer who is advocating for economic sustainability, affordable housing, and better public safety on the East Side. We […]

I’m happy to bring you a conversation with Chelsea DeArmond, one of the founders of Saint Paul’s 350.org chapter. 350 dot org is an international climate action group that is trying very hard to place climate change at the center of our cultural conversations, and catalyze change in how we use energy in the US. […]

I’m excited to bring you today a conversation with Nancy Gardner and Tom Mallon, who residents of downtown Minneapolis that organized an effort to successfully stop a large parking ramp from being constructed in their neighborhood. Nancy and Tom live near the Mississippi River on the northern part of downtown Minneapolis, located very close to […]

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Liz De La Torre, who is running for City Council in Saint Paul’s Ward 1. I sat down with Liz a while back at the Heritage Tea House on University Avenue to talk about her campaign, her background working as a advocate for victims of domestic violence, and […]

This podcast is an interview with Terri Thao, who is running for City Council in Saint Paul’s 6th Ward, on the East Side of the city. Terri Thao is a long-time non-profit professional, former Planning Commissioner, and community organizer, among other things, who has spent years working on issues around housing, transit, and economic development […]

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Fay Simer. Fay Simer is the Pedestrian Coordinator for Saint Paul Public Works Department, and she has been working diligently on the city’s first ever official pedestrian plan. Like most cities, Saint Paul has never had an official plan for how to design a city for people to […]

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Lisa Middag, the director of Nicollet Activation for the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District. What does Nicollet activation” mean? I’m glad you asked. You’ll find out all about it in just a second, but it’s the person who is charged with bringing street life and economic activity to Nicollet […]

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Heather Worthington and Paul Mogush, two of the people behind the forthcoming Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan. The Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan is the basic planning document for the city, a ten-year update required by the regional government, and Minneapolis’ plan has been getting a lot of attention for […]

Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Christian Huelsman, a public space preservationist who has, for years, been an advocate for alleys, public spaces, and urban history in Cincinnati Ohio and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Alleys are not always places that get a lot of love in the United States, especially in cities that have a legacy […]

Today I’m bringing you our 118th episode, a conversation with Dr. Nichole Morris. Dr. Morris is the director of the HumanFIRST Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, and is a researcher and scholar who focuses on the intersection of transportation, technology, and behavior. We sat down a few months ago in her office at the […]

Welcome to the streets.mn podcast. Today I’m bringing you episode 117: Saint Paul’s Ward 4 with Mitra Jalali Nelson. This is another in my interviews with political candidates for local public office. Longtime listeners of this podcast will remember, for example, five years ago when I interviewed people running in Minneapolis and Saint Paul for […]

Welcome to the streets.mn podcast, Episode 116: Saint Paul 1978 with George Latimer, Jerry Mathiason, and David Lanagren. Today I have a fun conversation for you that I taped back in May. The chat took place between former Saint Paul mayor George Latimer, photographer Jerry Mathiason, and Macalester Geography professor David Lanagren that took place […]

This week’s episode features Trista Matas-Castillo, who is running for Ramsey County Commissioner in the 3rd District, which covers a big chunk of the northern neighborhoods of Saint Paul. Most people in Ramsey County cannot even name a County Commissioner, and yet county governments do a ton of work to help people and govern transportation decisions […]

Carolyn Swiszcz is one of my favorite local artists, a painter, printmaker, and visual artist who works a lot in some of my favorite slash least favorite landscapes: post-war suburbia. I first came across Carolyn a short musical video she made about West Saint Paul Minnesota, a first-ring suburb near where I grew up. As […]

I’m really excited to share this podcast with you, because it’s a new topic for me — an in depth look at restoration of a unique old house on the East Side of Saint Paul – and I personally loved talking to Matt about his incredible passion for his house. I first came across Matt […]