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11/13/2017 Are Food Trucks Good or Bad for the Twin Cities? | streets.mn <br />https://streets.mn/2012/07/09/are-food-trucks-good-or-bad-for-the-twin-cities/7/14 <br /> What the Trader Joe’s proposal says about us Cycling gender gap and local infrastructure decisions  <br />Streets.mn is a non-profit and is volunteer run. We rely on your support to keep the servers running. <br />If you value what you read, please consider becoming a member. <br />About Bill Lindeke <br />Bill Lindeke has been blogging about sidewalks and cities since 2005, ever since he read <br />Jane Jacobs. He has a PhD in geography from the University of Minnesota, and has written <br />for Minnpost, the Park Bugle, and Growler Magazine, among others. He was born in <br />Minneapolis, but has spent most of his time in St Paul and serves there on the Saint Paul <br />Planning Commission and Transportation Committee.Twitter @BillLindeke or on Facebook. <br />View all posts by Bill Lindeke → <br />In "Public Realm"In "Infrastructure"In "Health" <br />11 Responses to Are Food Trucks Good or Bad for the Twin Cities? <br />Mike Hicks July 9, 2012 at 6:47 am # <br />Fantastic article, Bill — I have many of the same feelings that you do, that the food trucks are <br />filling in a missing gap. The incubator effect of the food trucks is pretty clear, even after just two or three <br />years of popularity. <br />And I don't think that the food trucks have really been let loose to their fullest extent yet. For the most <br />part, they've been restricted to the downtowns, though there are occasional forays into other <br />commercial districts (Saint Paul actually seems to be a bit more progressive about it than Minneapolis, <br />but maybe that's just my perception). <br />I haven't read much Jane Jacobs, but her observation that cities need cheap, old buildings to help <br />serve that business incubation purpose sticks with me. I think it needs updating, though. — Really, <br />cities need any type of cheap space that they can get in order for entrepreneurs to do their thing. If our <br />zoning wasn't so restrictive, certainly many people would start up restaurants in their homes or a <br />friend's garage or something. Food trucks just serve as the simplest legal outlet for that energy at the <br />moment. And clearly, there are a variety of other businesses that would follow the same or similar <br />escape route if the opportunity was there. <br />Yeah, urbanism definitely isn't a zero-sum situation. Certainly some enterprises won't succeed (and <br />nearly all will fail in the end, eventually), but very often we see positive feedback loops created that <br />encourage more business and more diversity. When one goes down, there are two others to take its <br />place.