Mayor R.T. Rybak

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Since taking office in January 2002, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak has streamlined the city’s development efforts, strengthened its code of ethics, created a $10 million housing trust fund, and closed a $50 million gap in funding. While Minneapolis is often cited as one of the most livable American cities, Rybak wants to increase that distinction by making urban development reform a top priority.

In 2006, Rybak worked with AIA Minneapolis to launch the Mayor’s Great City Design Teams as one of the AIA150 blueprint initiatives. Mayor Rybak has a background in business, journalism, and community activism. Prior to being elected, he was a business consultant and publisher of the Twin Cities Reader, where he also launched Q Monthly, a local gay and lesbian newspaper. A strong local arts advocate, he helped create and launch Minneapolis MOSAIC, a two-month celebration honoring Minneapolis’s diversity and rich cultural heritage.

Arts in Minneapolis: I believe we have a value system here that says that arts, architecture, and creativity are part of everyday life and not something we do on the side. That means that we have very high standards. For instance, back when I was a reporter in the early ‘80s, the largest bank headquarters in the center of downtown burned down and it needed to be replaced very quickly. The group of citizens and civic leaders went to the heads of this bank and said it must have great architecture—and that’s how Cesar Pelli was hired to build what’s now one of the tallest buildings in town. I think everyone has a high standard here, and we should. We have a beautiful city.

Urban focus during mayoral tenure: This is a city that has always valued urban planning, but I’ve made a real attempt to change the dialogue from being just about individual buildings into “reweaving the city.” Reweaving the city is something I’ve talked a lot about, because it means that Minneapolis has a collection of tremendous buildings, but they need to be woven back into an urban fabric that focuses on the pedestrian experience, increased public transportation, less sprawl, and more sustainable design. For instance, this city that’s been very focused on individual buildings will continue to have good buildings, but my focus has especially been on creating transit malls on two of the main streets downtown.

We’ve launched something called the Mayor’s Great City Design Teams that is part of AIA150. [Editor’s note: Mayor Rybak and Tom Hysell, AIA, president of AIA Minneapolis, launched the Mayor’s Great City Design Teams in October 2006 to encourage residents and community groups to create new visions for the City of Minneapolis. The design teams are composed of architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and developers who will work with residents and community groups to develop design visions for their neighborhoods.] We’ve had those teams fanning out into different neighborhoods in the city and as they move forward, we’re doing more on greening streets and using sustainability, but the main point is every street should be a destination.

Livable goal: I believe this is one of the most livable cities in America, but for us to take our rightful place as the most livable city we have to do more to take this remarkable park system we have and bring those values into greening every street. I feel we need to have significantly more focus on the pedestrian experience and I also believe that elements like public art and trees should not be things we do on the side, but be incorporated into everything we’re doing.

An urban housing model: We’re doing something right now that I think is a national model. Affordable housing has been a big focus of mine, and we’re pleased to say that our projects have also included great design. One of the most exciting is something called the Hawthorne Eco-Village. I had been speaking about urban design and affordable housing going together and was heard by the people from the Home Depot Foundation. They liked what we were saying and gave a half a million dollar grant so that we could [go into] a crime-ridden neighborhood in north Minneapolis that has suffered significant foreclosures and create new and renovated affordable housing with sustainable practices. We went into the Hawthorne Eco-Village and now we are not only fixing up houses, but renovating them with green principles that lower operating costs, creating rain gardens, planting significantly more trees, and connecting through streetscapes to a nearby park. In that way, [creating] affordable neighborhoods and affordable housing can have the amenities of a higher-income neighborhood. In fact, adding those amenities helps address the core issues of poverty and crime.

Minneapolis design community’s response to the I-35W bridge collapse: Well, they’ve been very supportive in pushing for a higher vision for the bridge. When the bridge first collapsed, the state Department of Transportation pushed to have a design done in a couple of weeks. The former bridge had no transit in it and the Department of Transportation wanted to build it exactly as it was. I advocated with support from the design community that we needed to make sure that this 100-year bridge was able to handle transit of the future, be it light rail or bus rapid transit or something we don’t even know about today, but it certainly should have the right of way and the footings to accommodate that. We won that battle and it was in part because there’s a strong design community here.

I think what’s also important about the design community here is that they’ve stepped up when asked. I gave a speech about a year and a half ago in which I brought up this whole notion of reweaving the urban fabric and talked about the need to take the city filled with greatness in individual places and weave them together. I said that I needed their help not only to talk about great design at a cocktail party, but now to step up and join the frontlines of a new battle for reweaving the city. They responded spectacularly, formed these Mayor’s Great City Design Teams, and now are working with us. They’ve finished five different community designs throughout the city, and just this afternoon I was calling the winners of the next three, so that work has been pivotal. I couldn’t do it if it weren’t for extremely strong advocacy from the design professionals of the city and those people who love great design, and that’s been tied directly to the 150th birthday of the AIA.

Architects’ role in shaping their cities: Architects should have lofty visions, but they need to get out of the ivory tower and do the tough work of going into their community planning groups, debating great design with not only government bureaucrats but community groups, and spend less time talking to each other and more time advocating in community. Minneapolis is blessed with an extraordinarily talented and vocal design community, but they only began to have a real impact on day-to-day life when they became personally engaged on an ongoing basis in those nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts, community-based conversations that are part of the messy business of building a beautiful city.

Favorite local building: I really like Gehry’s Weisman Museum, but I think my favorite is going to be the MacPhail Center for Music by James Dayton, a Minneapolis architect who’s about to explode on the national scene.

Vision for Minneapolis: Before the end of my term, I want to make sure that we have the transit malls built throughout the center of the city, and I want to turn a boring street called Washington Avenue into a great place called Washington Boulevard. But, before I die, I want to be able to make sure I can walk through every single block of Minneapolis and have it be a destination in itself.

Hero: Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston, S.C. You can walk through every block of Charleston and see that somebody who is passionate about great design cared enough about things like manhole covers, street lights, and brick pavements that he made everyone’s life a little better. He’s a wonderful guy. He is my hero.