A River Blueprint

New manufacturing techniques and global competition have rendered the waterfronts of many large cities redundant, causing these centers of industrialization to fall into disuse. During the early 20th century, for example, the upper Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, prospered as a place of heavy industry. However, as a succession of industries that had pumped life into the area declined, attitudes regarding the city’s Upper River began to change. In the 1970s, though, building on Minneapolis’s century-old park plan, the concept of the river as a public asset reemerged. More than a dozen plans to redevelop the area finally gave way to the Upper River master plan, a blueprint for transforming four miles of Mississippi River waterfront into an urban amenity. Editor's note: The full text of this article is only available to ULI members.

Thanks to Urban Land Magazine Editor