strong local economy : Featured Stories

A look at four heritage restaurants in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, their origin stories, their participation in their neighborhoods, and why their loyal patrons—and new generations of diners—keep coming back.

The Makers Coalition is supporting a new generation of industrial sewers and the local makers movement. The coalition brings together 60 businesses, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and service providers to fulfill its mission: To bring back industrial sewing skills, which largely disappeared in America decades ago.

Public art has evolved into an essential element of urban placemaking and social engagement. From murals on vacant buidlings to art in laundormats to temporary art installations that invite public participation, we take a look at public art and how it's changing cities.

Three shops that are helping to redefine thrift shopping--turning it into an environmentally conscious, art-and-design focused way of celebrating and honoring the past while meeting today's economic challenges.

Across America, creative reuse organizations are popping up to "upcycle" and sell stuff that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Artisans and artists are, in turn, turning this would-be detritus into artworks and products.

Three about-to-open brewpubs and a new facility for a well established fourth are turning the Central Corridor area in Saint Paul and Minneapolis into the newest brewpub hot zone. And the architecture is as ambitous as the beer.

In a Q and A with The Line, marketer and theater maven Mayer asks: with nearly eighty professional theater companies in town, why don't we do more to promote theater as an attraction that sets the Twin Cities apart?

It's been an article of faith since Central Corridor light rail (Green Line) construction began that, despite all the disruption and traffic chaos of the building stage, the line would eventually become a magnet for local entrepreneurs. That scenario appears to be playing out; here are three entrepreneurial ventures that were lured to the line by light rail's promise.

This week: a heads-up about a July class in the University of Minnesota's extension division that will fill you in on the local craft beer revolution--it's origins, its economics, its varied business models, and more. Requirements include the actual consumption of product.

The young entrepreneur's Royal Bangkok Restaurant is just one of the Vong family businesses at 315 University Avenue--a building that enshrines the enterprise and hope of a clan whose patriarch fled Cambodia in the wake of the Khmer Rouge.

Charging stations for electric cars are popping up here and there in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. In fact, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is working to install up to 76 electric car-charging stations throughout the metro area, adding to an already expanding network.  Here's our guide (a work in progress) to our towns' car-charging infrastructure.

While the Twin Cities duke it out with Portland over which metropolis sets the gold standard of bike culture, other cities--some of them unlikely--are becoming serious players in the boom. Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, DC, and Tampa are among the places where ingenious entrepreneurs are "riding" the new bike culture,