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Unequal Scenes - Minneapolis

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The University of Minnesota project Mapping Prejudice located hundreds of racially exclusive housing covenants in the Minneapolis area. The red areas above were almost impossible for non-whites to move, leading to decades of neglect and disinvestment in areas closer to downtown. Moreover, interstate highways built in the 1960s further decimated historically black neighborhoods such as Near North. The historic black neighborhood of Near North has been the center of black Minneapolis for decades. A decision to route I-94 through the neighborhood essentially sealed it off from downtown and the Mississippi River. The historic black neighborhood of Rondo in St. Paul was also split in half in the 1960s, when I-94 was built through the middle of that neighborhood. The decision to build the interstate there, and not along the railways slightly to the north, still angers residents. The Rondo neighborhood today, split by I-94. Dozens of homeless people in tents, many of them displaced by the unr

Unequal Scenes - Minneapolis Vehicles drive by a pawn shop gutted in the unrest following the murder of George Floyd. The "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St. Paul have a reputation as extremely progressive cities - Democratic politics; redistributive tax policies; bike lanes and re-zoning initiatives. It's also an uncommonly beautiful metro area, with many lakes and parks, a pedestrian-friendly downtown and an undeveloped river corridor which courses between the two cities. If you visit in the summer, you might even be forgiven for thinking the weather is perfect, too. The eruption of unrest

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