Mayor R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis is changing the rules of urban economic redevelopment, mainly by not handing out large tax incentives to big businesses.
"You can drive around Minneapolis and see the results pretty quickly. Businesses are opening in depressed neighborhoods. Parts of town where no one lived in the 1990s are suddenly hot condo locations. The long-neglected Mississippi riverfront is undergoing a transformation.
But there also are doubts. Some say this sort of progress would have occurred even without action from the city. Retail is struggling downtown, and there's some thought that the city's center would benefit from a more conventional approach. Rybak insists the only route to genuine growth and progress is to stick to the methods he's chosen."
FULL STORY: Radical Renewal
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