My hometown: Columbus. Part 4: East Main Street.

[Minneapolisite]

You wouldn't know from heading down this street, but the two neighborhoods it anchors just east of Downtown, Olde Towne East and Franklin Park, have by and large been revitalized as far as residential streets which are lined with plentiful large brick homes. When compared side by side this may be the most lopsided juxtaposition of urban revitalization when it comes to residential progress vs. commercial in the country. If you know of any please share them and prove me wrong. Just goes to show how useless it is to rely 100% on private dollars to revitalize an urban neighborhood: these neighborhoods started seeing revitalization efforts in the mid 80s and today Main Street has almost nothing to show for it: just plain shameful. Like many areas of Columbus, it makes you wish there was as much going on as there is in North Mpls.

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Finally, a new restaurant that just opened recently in that long empty space.

[Nathan]

Wow, a lot of greatness here, and a lot of great bones...

[Minneapolisite]

What's really sad is that just a block north are Olde Towne East on the western half and Franklin Park on the east and revitalization has been going on since the 80s. On most residential streets it shows, but on the major shared business district you'd never know it. No NRP over there.

[Aville_37]

Great photos. I haven't been to Columbus in years, but was really impressed with the neighborhood across the river from downtown. Amazing architecture. Hopefully more will be revitalized. Love the old art deco movie theater.

[TWA]

There is a great website/community that follows development in columbus called columbus underground. Columbus is one of the other few cities in the midwest area that is growing and seeing lots of urban renewal. The metro area is not as large as MSP so the scale is a little different but still some cool infill projects.

http://www.columbusunderground.com/cate ... evelopment

Full disclosure: Born and raised in MSP. Family still lives there. I currently live in columbus and work in commercial real estate. So I follow development and the real estate market in both cities.

[Minneapolisite]

Ha! I used to be a regular poster, but people got turned off from me posting that Columbus should have more than one nice street, a streetcar/lght-rail and maybe a few good bikeways on the streets. There's just so much potential and the money is there, but the willpower is just non-existent and progress is slow enough that I'd be 60 before Columbus resembles a smaller Mineapolis. This street is actually one of my biggest pet peeves: how do you have a neighborhood full of wealthy people with enough money to renovate and reside in huge gorgeous turn-of-the-century homes, but your main commercial street looks like a turd even 30 years later? (Well, I know the answer: Columbus depends almost solely on private dollars for all urban revitalization while Minneapolis has provided public funding to spur private investment and the contrast is very stark. I wonder if you came to the same conclusion.)