Readers Write: Minneapolis park history, development, Saudi Arabia

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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I admire the Mapping Prejudice project now at the University of Minnesota that identifies racial covenants in property deeds. The project has examined more than a million property deeds in Hennepin County alone to identify those that contain racial covenants that prohibited resale or even tenancy to Black people and sometimes other racial and religious minorities. Those covenants are a shameful legacy, especially for the developers and real estate agents who wrote them, and deserve to be exposed.

I urge caution, however, in what is attributed to those covenants. I especially take issue with contributing columnist Maggie Koerth’s conclusion that they somehow prove her claim that “agreements between land developers and the Minneapolis Park Board created a network of exclusive whites-only neighborhoods with ample public land” (“The link between racial covenants and the development of Minneapolis parks,” Strib Voices, Nov. 17). She provides no evidence to support the claim that the Park Board agreed with anyone to create such places.

Throughout the period when racial covenants were used by developers and realtors, the Park Board was acquiring land for parks wherever it could as cheaply as possible — as it always had done. Without free or nearly free parkland, Minneapolis would be a vastly different place. Most of Minneapolis waterfront — creeks, lakes and river — was donated or bought very cheaply for parks. Many of those donations were made by people who hoped that a park would enhance the value of the donor’s other holdings. Whether they did or not was beyond the Park Board’s mission. It wasn’t the Park Board’s job to police subsequent real estate transactions; its job was to provide parks throughout the city. The clamoring demand was great; the supply of money to buy parks wasn’t.

David C. Smith, Minneapolis

The writer is the author of “City of Parks: The Story of Minneapolis Parks.”

The column “The link between racial covenants and the development of Minneapolis parks” is a powerful reminder that our city’s green spaces were not always equitably distributed and that this history continues to shape environmental realities today.

At the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, we unequivocally agree that a painful history of structural racism influenced where parks were built, who could live nearby and who could access nature. That truth is central to our work, and it is why we are committed to partnering with the Park Board to advance real and transformative change.

A compelling example is the renovation now underway at North Commons Park. This project represents the largest investment ever made in a Minneapolis neighborhood park. It is a multiyear transformation shaped by community vision and powered by both public and private support. In addition to reimagining the existing facilities and adding the first multicourt fieldhouse in the Park Board system, we are embedding climate justice into the design through stormwater improvements, expanded green infrastructure and sustainable gathering spaces that address longstanding environmental inequities.

We are grateful for the rigorous scholarship of projects like Mapping Prejudice, which illuminate how past injustices persist in our urban landscape. That awareness guides our work today and helps ensure that parks truly serve all communities and that future generations can connect with nature in places that were once left behind.

Martin Wera, Minneapolis

Regarding “$20M tunnel? A safer way to cross the street” (Nov. 18): Not every bridge or tunnel has a social engineering goal (or should). In an otherwise factual and informative report about ideas for more safely crossing France Avenue in Edina, the editors added a spin in the subheadline that sent me spinning: “Edina and other suburbs rethink car-centric design.”

No residents or officials quoted in the article mention “rethinking car-centric design,” which is a dog whistle to progressives and belongs on the opinion page, not a news section. Only the director of the University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, sought out by the reporter, makes this fantastic leap.

Let’s stop calling these notions progressive or particularly beneficial. They are neither. They are regressive, which is defined as “becoming less advanced; returning to a former or less developed state.”

Since you brought it up, my city of Minneapolis has fallen prey to fantasies of eliminating cars. In so doing it’s squandered millions of tax dollars on ubiquitous bike lanes that remove resident and business parking, botched one-way streets with elevated bike lanes (Bryant Avenue), installed intersection bump-outs that stall right-turning traffic and add to idling pollution, and allowed bikers to ignore stop signs, adding to their peril, etc.

St. Paul is not immune, as some push for turning Interstate 94 into a boulevard. Yikes.

Edina seeks to address a need for safety and convenience. The potential solutions needn’t have deeper meanings like “welcomingness” or “the activation overall.” Sometimes a crosswalk, tunnel or bridge is just a way to make something safe and convenient in the most practical manner available.

Daniel Patton, Minneapolis

“Things happen.”

That’s the way President Donald Trump referred last week to the 2018 murder of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While living in exile in the U.S., Khashoggi was writing opinion pieces in the Washington Post, criticizing the Saudi regime. When murdered, he was traveling in Turkey.

The CIA determined that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia ordered the murder. The Saudi government at first admitted it had ordered the murder but denied that bin Salman had anything to do with it.

Yes, things do happen: “The dog ate my homework.” “I forgot to put the wash in the dryer.” “Our football equipment manager left the team’s helmets at home.”

But murder?

Murder does not just happen. Except when murder is an act of passion, it is premeditated — witness Saudi Arabia.

Trump’s offhand acknowledgment of this murder comes across as the act of a man brushing away an annoying fly.

And, hey, we can’t allow a simple murder to stand in the way of a vast menu of business deals between our two countries, and between a prince and a president whose family stands to reap millions in real estate development in Saudi Arabia.

When it comes to “things happen[ing],” don’t place a bet on that one.

Gary Gilson, Minneapolis