coordination/collaboration : Featured Stories

Saint Paul's music-loving mayor wants a city with a scene--a dynamic downtown with the special energy that only art and music provide. Last Thursday he shared some successes, some hopes, and some rock-concert memories with The Line.

The president and the research/policy director of the local think tank Growth and Justice are "business-oriented progressives." In the face of dogma to the contrary, they dare to assert that there's an unbreakable link between economic fairness and economic growth. And they're bringing that spirit to the most compelling economic issue of all: jobs.

Our yearly onstage carnival of the odd, the eloquent, the poignant, and the perverse is over for 2012. Bill Kelley was in the audience at the Rarig Center and Intermedia Arts to record six of the 163 shows that took the Fringe stages between August 2 and 12. From a raucous burlesque version of a classic TV sketch to Chinese dance to a surreal Dust Bowl fable, here are images of performance at its edgiest.

With a new school year approaching, we take a look at three unique programs that show how Minnesota has become a "thought leader" in developing--and funding--positive alternatives for youth.

It's a different "greening" of the urban landscape: highly visible bike lanes, often protected from other traffic. Is it the next step in making America a leader in 21st-century transportation?

Minneapolis-based educational consultant Nate Eklund sheds some fresh light on our public-education challenges by suggesting that if we make schools great places to work, they stand a better chance of becoming great places to learn.

How are Minnesota and the Twin Cities doing as film production centers and locations? There have been some major disappointments recently, but new moves give us reason to hope we can lure Hollywood back.

It's Saint Paul's--and Minnesota's--biggest celebration of African American life, commemorating the Rondo neighborhood, which was largely bulldozed away to make room for Interstate 94 in the 1960s. This year, lensman Bill Kelley followed all the festivities.

What can the Twin Cities learn from other communities' success with municipal broadband? For one thing, that "bright cable" has a bright future. For another, that every city's situation is different.

The massive renovation of the Minnesota Orchestra's home is far from over, but that doesn't mean we can't tour the completed Orchestra Hall digitally.

On some long-vacant land behind their Central Corridor high school, a group of students and their supporters envision a multi-use greenspace that would be a focal point for the neighborhood--and could be unique in the nation.

"The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar," wrote Jon Bischke, a guest blogger on TechCrunch. A group of urban leaders recently met in Cincinnati to explore the implications of that statement--and came up with a cluster of surprising ideas for urban vitality.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: Watch the local entries in the 48-Hour Film Project--and quaff a microbrew or two.

The debut of a new market in Minneapolis' Linden Hills neighborhood underlines the exciting upsides--and a few lesser-known downsides--of the farmers' market boom.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: Get to know Irrigate, our public-spirited and art-fueled Central Corridor placemaking project.