What's next...

Net Nuetrality

I meant to touch on a subject that has critical importance to continued free speech, but few people follow. It is called Net Neutrality and it is the reason that we all have equal access to the web for our sites, blogs and news. Cable companies have been working for some time now to create tiers of broadband access, essentially selling speed to the highest bidders. Donald Libey, President of Libey Inc. direct marketing agency, writes in the current issue of DM News (the issue is not online at the time of this writing) “This will turn the Internet from an entrepreneurial, level playing field of equality to a capital-intensive, tilted playing field of inequality.” It is important that all of Minnesota’s members of Congress support this. Senator Mark Dayton was a supporter, and it is important that our new delegation, Representatives Walz, Peterson, Kline, McCollum, Ellison, Ramstad, Bachmann and Oberstar along with Senators Coleman and Klobuchar, do the same. The risks are significant. Going back to Mr. Libey, “The entire concept of the Internet is at stake. Big Money wants to turn it into a high-rent, homogenized and dumbed-down shopping mall and entertainment complex. All the mom-and-pop businesses that have been driven away from Main Street by Wal-Mart would lose their newfound location on the Internet because they won’t be able to compete with the cost of access and speed.” This is a business guy who does junk mail for a living. A direct mailer is upset about the possibility of lost speech. Minnesotan’s need to pay attention, and our delegation needs to get on board.

High speed internet in rural Minnesota

I was having dinner this weekend at 20-21 the new restaurant at the Walker Art Center. The food there was fabulous and anyone who can afford the miso glazed salmon, under $20, must order it. The English language may be good for poetry, but only French can describer how good that meal was.
The glutton in me is over. While at lunch we were talking primary elections and I was asked, Lourey or Hatch. I’m going with Hatch. Simply put, I’ve been listening to Joel Kramer’s pitch to raise money to pay for education, health care and infrastructure. Mike Hatch has a great agenda for promoting high speed Internet throughout Minnesota. Truth is, with the growth of corporate farming and the demise of all other industries in Minnesota there is a growing income gap. If we are to ensure that Minnesota isn’t the next heart of poverty in America we need to ensure that there is a cornucopia of economic opportunity in rural Minnesota. High speed Internet is that first step. Read Hatch’s plan. It’s pretty good.

Dark side of wifi?

Jeremy Smith, a publishing consultant that I know, posted...

Wi-Fi

According to The Minneapolis Observer there is a we-fi project on the books for testing. The purpose is to compare vendors who might be awarded the contract. Though I appreciate the drive for wi-fi in Minneapolis, I am disappointed that we are struggling for a vendor who will suck the life out of us Minneapolitans. I pose the question, why can't we turn the wi-fi network over to our library system? We can close the digital divide in a generation if we as Minneapolitans decide to stop thinking like barbarians and start thinking as contemporary people.

First education thoughts

How are Governors going to help us prepare an educated workforce?

Another network site

Hey, The Economist just published a great article about the social networks that are being created online. I've talked about these in the past. However, The Economists also brings to light Flickr which works like del.isio.us but with photos instead of websites. Very cool. Just as blogs may eliminate libraries, as we know them, perhaps flickr will eliminate museums.

We need biofuels

I know that energy has been out of the spot light recently due to Jusctice O'Connor's retirement but it still remains an issue. Some environmentalist's have split from the movement to advocate radical changes, others have stayed the course and advocated more traditional alternatives. I'm falling on the side of folks who say that the risqué-reward of nuclear power to too much. A plant here or there for fusion research sounds like a good idea, but otherwise, I'm a fan of other sources. In May The Economist reported that biofuels are now economically competitive with gasoline. As I have so many connections to rural Minnesota I have an admitted soft spot for anything that brings business to smaller towns. For example, I have a weakness for Shaker Vodka in my martinis. The fuel E85 presents an economically feasible alternative to gas. This stuff runs in your truck and saves the typical driver a bit of money, plus frees us up from foreign oil, and reduces green house gas emissions. As I'm more interested about what we do as a State and City than as a country I thought I would suggest that Minnesota and Minneapolis step into this new green economy. We would not be alone if we bucked the feds and pushed our own energy agenda. Whether we choose to go with a passive approach, limiting state purchases to such vehicles, or if we got onto the Washington State train and passed laws that mandated certain emissions changes we could clean up our state. Selecting biofuels is something that we can do today.

Thinking big...

I was at the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association meeting last evening and had an opportunity to see what was cooking on people's minds.  One of the many concerns was the ever-evolving relationship between university students in the neighborhood, and the permanent residents.  For example, there are concerns around putting too many people into rental property.  Well, given that Minneapolis was recently named the best tech town in the country I thought I might try and be innovative. 

I ask the question, what if we expand on our existing zoning code.  We actually set limits of people on city blocks based on the zoning classification.  For example, if a city block has 20 houses and is zoned R1, single family low density, we cap the number of people at 80.  That's four people per household, and we count owner operators and their family as four regardless of how many are in the family.  The idea is that if a single family home is being rented out, no more than four people can live there.  There is a great deal of fine tuning to do here, but this is an option for reducing the number of over-populated rental properties. 

The next issue is what do we do with the students if they can't live eight to a house?  By the way, while a student in Philadelphia, I did live in an apartment that we overpopulated.  I understand why this happens.  I would look at communities like McKinley or Hawthorne.  These neighborhoods could have access to the University via an express bus.  Such a thing exists connecting the Minneapolis campus to the St. Paul campus.  There are beautiful rental properties in these North Minneapolis communities, and the rent is pretty good.  The University could set up an express transit link to these neighborhoods, students could have high quality housing, the neighborhoods in question could fill up housing with people who are not going to contribute to the drug trade, it's a win-win for everyone.  We just have to connect students to other communities in a manner that students will find to be convenient, and we need to market the option to Juniors, Seniors and grad students. 

Students can be extraordinary members of the community.  One of my very good friends suffers from dyslexia.  His ability to get good grades was due to his hard work, and the efforts of a tutor from the University.  Though I understand that living in a University neighborhood (I have in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) has its downside, I believe the upside can be and is far greater. 

If we're going to innovative in our solutions and improve livability we have to think of new ways to connect communities to each other, and share advantages.  In this case I've connected the benefits of students in Marcy-Holmes to the benefits of housing in North Minneapolis.  Now we need transit, a cooperative University, and interested land lords.  There is a chance here if we work hard.  Let's pursue it.

Dynamic browsing

I ran across a fascinating new journal today. It's called the Journal of E-Government. I suggest that anyone who is excited about utilizing email and web sites in government check it out. I've just started reading bits of this journal. I'm reading a piece about how Switzerland has used a dynamic browser to help people find what they're looking for. Switzerland is a little like Minneapolis. There are 171 different municipalities in Zurich, with overlapping government structures. The problem is that citizens don't necessarily know who to talk to about their problems. Sound familiar? Anyway, this government portal has a helper named Leo who is triggered when citizens go looking for information on the site. Rather than a static site like Minneapolis Zurich has a dynamic site. You go to the search box, type in your question, and a guide, an actual icon that looks like a lion on the computer, named Leo takes you through the site looking for what you need. The purpose here is to bridge the knowledge divide between folks who have trouble online, and those who don't have that trouble.
Now, I don't know if this would work, and the examples above are still being tested. Initial tests show that users are having a very positive response. This may be an option worth discussing as Minneapolis looks to its Charter and wonders whether our government structure still works. This form of dynamic browsing may be a way for both sides to reconcile.

Moving on...

Check out the link below.  It's a paper from the Federal Reserve that is worth discussing.  The question is raised, what is affordable housing, is there a shortage in Minneapolis, and are we doing anything to address the problem?  Its a fascinating article suggesting that we have an income shortage rather than a housing shortage.  Sounds simple, but has huge implications on how to address the cure.  Assuming that housing should not take up more than 30% of gross revenue, why not give people more money for other stuff, and stop trying to dictate housing construction.  Interesting thought.  Also doesn't address home purchasing, the first step to wealth creation.  But its a great paper nonetheless.

On a separate note, I was recently made aware that the City Council is on the cusp of putting better lighting on 15th Avenue Southeast.  Finally, and my compliments to Councilman Zerby for his tenacity.  Needs to pass the full council, but the committee gave it a thumbs up.  Long ago Minneapolis dropped the ball by purchasing spotty barn yard lighting for intersections.  This may have seemed like a good idea, but creates two problems.  Light pollution without the benefit of coverage mid-block, plus a danger zone between intersections.  If we're really going to take our streets back from ne'er-do-wells we need to be on the streets as pedestrians.  We can't do this without lighting.  Preferably soft lighting at regular intervals.  The barn yard light on my street, at Van Buren and Summer, does me no good.  It offers no deterrence.  Congratulations to Councilman Zerby and the Marcy-Holmes community.  Let's ask the question, how can we expand this?  If we look to local solutions, perhaps there is a short term solution until something longer term can be discovered.  What would happen if we offered an incentive to people to leave their front house lights on?  I don't know, but let's ask these questions.

Night.