Best of the Best (B.O.B.) Community Celebration

You are invited to join a special community celebration April 9 at 3:30 p.m. to honor Bob Engstrom, a 50-year member and one of six initial Life Trustees of the Urban Land Institute. Bob is the developer of numerous residential neighborhoods including Summit Place in Saint Paul, Cloverdale Farm in Baytown and The Fields of St. Croix in Lake Elmo. (He also happens to be a treasured Envision Minnesota board member.) Get the details and let ULI know you're coming on their website.

We are Car Country

Join local author Chris Wells for a reading and discussion of his new book, Car Country: An Environmental History, at 7 p.m., April 30, at Common Good Books in St. Paul. "Witness the emergence of [America's] automobile-dependent landscape in the pages of this book, and you will never again see the world around you again in quite the same way." --William Cronon. Get a sneak preview here.

Will Minnesota make the list?

Nearly 130 communities across the United States adopted Complete Streets policies in 2012. On April 8 the National Complete Streets Coalition, a Washington-based organization dedicated to Complete Streets advocacy, will release its list of Top 10 policies of 2012. Will a Minnesota community make the list? Hot Dish is reading the tea leaves on that one. Sign up to receive a copy of the report. We’ll also post it on our Facebook page.

Help plan a Better Block

Team Better Block works with communities—like St. Paul!—to temporarily re-engineer and re-program streets into complete ones. Over the course of a weekend the Better Block team and local residents, property owners, and volunteers create a demonstration of a vibrant block. The Saint Paul Better Block will happen on June 8 from 3 to 8 p.m. on East 7th Street @ Margaret and Arcade Streets. You can help plan the event by participating in their Better Block Community Planning Session on April 25 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 798 East 7th Street, St. Paul.

Creating a place in no man’s land

Talk about creative placemaking. The Native American Community Development Institute scored a major coup when they won a prestigious ArtPlace award to create the Anpetu Was'te Cultural Arts Market on a rather forsaken median under the Franklin Avenue LRT station. Find out more about this ambitious effort in project lead Andy Hestness’ short video.