creative leadership : 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?

As new export niches open up, Minnesota companies are selling some unconventional products overseas. Case in point: an inventive, environmentally aware North Minneapolis outfit that creates ADA-compliant interior signage for public buildings--and markets it in China, Brazil, and the Middle East.

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.

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.

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.

Every organization that wants to make a buck wants a social-media presence. But do you have any idea what the Facebook fan page, the Twitter feed, the Foursquare ID really imply for your business? Pioneer social-media onsultant Jennifer Kane knows, and she compares it to parenthood.

In the final Talk-It Hennepin forum on the redevelopment of Hennepin Avenue, experts touched on some touchy subjects, like the purpose of public space, who gets to use it and how, the role of memory in placemaking, and how to celebrate diversity without creating ethnic Disneylands.

At the Grassroots and Groundwork anti-poverty conference--held at Mystic Lake Casino, of all places--attendees heard about ingenious ways to build wealth in struggling communities by adapting old-school immigrant self-help tactics to the digital age.

They show up in unlikely places around town--scores of yoga practitioners practicing their poses and tossing charitable contributions into a kitty. It's rogue yoga and grassroots philanthropy, and as it grows in popularity, the three women who started it want to keep it unpredictable.