IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

The Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, is home to the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the world: Southdale opened in 1956 in a Minneapolis suburb. As a counter of sorts, in 1967 Minneapolis turned a major downtown thoroughfare into a different kind of mall. Eight (later twelve) blocks were redone to permit only buses and special vehicles down the central roadway, which was framed by especially wide sidewalks. Nicollet Mall became a landmark in urban design; its emphasis on pedestrians rather than cars influenced projects such as the transformation of State Street in Chicago and of Times Square in New York. Southdale underwent a major renovation in 2011. Like other Twin Cities malls including The Mall of America (the largest mall in the U.S., opened in 1992), Southdale has been forced to respond to a bevy of problems, including online shopping, big box stores, movie streaming, and changing dining-out habits. Nicollet Mall also has gone through redesigns, in 1990 and 2017, to help meet the challenge of keeping the downtown vital. Although the downtown is home to an increased number of residents and four professional sports teams, as in many cities concerns about crime and the effects of remote work continue to cause problems. This paper will focus on the intertwined histories of Southdale and the Nicollet Mall, as a case study and guide to fundamental questions about development and redevelopment, suburbanization and urban center viability, from the mid-twentieth century to the present.