Hot Dish

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

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:57:01 +0000

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

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:55:35 +0000

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?

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:54:50 +0000

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

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:54:02 +0000

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

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:52:48 +0000

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.

Recipe: Homemade cinnamon rolls

Envison Minnesota — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:52:00 +0000

Craving a sweet way to greet spring? It’s true, a few bucks will get you any of the pre-packaged, processed tubes of cinnamon rolls in the supermarket. They may be ready in less than 25 minutes, but they’re also full of sugar, preservatives, extra sodium, and artificial flavoring. Minnesota Locavore makes a case for the homemade variety in their step-by-step recipe for cinnamon rolls. 'Cause nothing says spring like a sugar rush.

When did the city of St. Paul get so hip?

Envison Minnesota — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:56:56 +0000

Amazing what adopting a Complete Streets ordinance can do for a city. St. Paul has turned to experts in the world of bike trails, streetscape revitalization, and placemaking to craft its Street Design manual. The winning consultants are Toole Design Group and Team Better Block. Check out Better Block's video showing how they deploy a Complete Streets transformation to one block overnight -- a temporary demonstration of all a street can be, up and running for all to experience, enjoy, and then work to make permanent. They'll be doing something similar in St. Paul later this year. Stay tuned!

Thought you'd heard the last from Legacy Letters?

Envison Minnesota — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:56:04 +0000

You were so wrong. There is a burning desire out there for Legacy Letters to make a comeback in 2013. How does Hot Dish know this? Testimonials. Lots of them. Legacy Letters is a candidate for its very own website, courtesy of pro bono nerds (their term, not ours). But TODAY, February 8, is the deadline to add your testimonials. Think of all the Minnesota history teachers we could reach with a stand-alone website for the project. For a refresher, watch Janet Timmerman's Legacy Letter on the Great Oasis. As a teacher, she uses Legacy Letters in her classroom to engage her students, and she has them make their own Legacy Letters as well. We hope this website challenge can kickstart our effort to take our 42 short films about Minnesota to more history classrooms and get students' imaginations flowing.

The power of a little box of books

Envison Minnesota — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:54:54 +0000

How did a little idea grow so big so fast? Join Envision Minnesota on Wed., Feb. 13 from 6-8 p.m. at Macalester College for our next Creative Placemaking event featuring the biggest little movement to pop up on streets across Minnesota communities and around the world. See a short film about the growth of the Little Free Library movement, hear from founder Todd Bol about how it got started, and participate in World Cafe discussions about the ways Little Free Libraries can add life to the street, bring neighbors together, foster literacy, and more! Register today.

Get reading and join our book club

Envison Minnesota — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:53:15 +0000

Inspired by all this talk of libraries and reading, Envision Minnesota is launching a Book Club! Our first book selection is City Life by Witold Rybczynski. The author explores the choices he made in seeking a community and a home, and in doing so he raises many insights into the way urban places have been shaped over time. If you're intrigued by cities and why we live where and how we do, read City Life and then join us Mon., March 18 from 6-7:45 p.m. at the Merriam Park Library in St. Paul for a lively discussion with friends of Envision Minnesota.