North is up
This map is an extension of the map I made for Assignment 1.2 of Lake of the Isles Park in southwest Minneapolis. This map shows the neighborhoods surrounding the lake, including Kenwood, Uptown, East Isles (the neighborhood in between the lake and Hennepin Avenue), and Lowry Hill East. I live in one of the neighborhoods shown on this map, at the intersection of West 22nd Street and Humboldt Avenue South.
All of these neighborhoods are completely different from each other, and the character of each is defined primarily by its edges. Kenwood is almost completely made up of large single-family homes, which are occupied by largely white, upper-class families. Lake of the Isles and Kenwood Park bound the neighborhood to the east, Cedar Lake, which is not in view, bounds the neighborhood on the west, and Kenilworth Lagoon, the small body of water east of Lake of the Isles, bounds the neighborhood to the south. These areas insulate Kenwood from the rest of the city with greenery, given the neighborhood a more suburban feel. This is reflected in the area’s streets, which are not in the grid structure of the rest of the city. Kenwood feels completely detached from the city — one could almost forget they are in Minneapolis and not in a wealthy suburb.
East Isles is bound between Lake Street to the south, Lake of the Isles to the west, and Hennepin Avenue to the east. While the western parts of the neighborhood have a suburban feel similar to that of Kenwood, the eastern and southern portions of the neighborhood are greatly affected by the proximity of Late St. and Hennepin Ave., two major commercial centers. These areas are a mix between single-family homes and condos and apartments. In general, East Isles has a feeling of both attachment to the city and suburban privacy.
Lowry Hill East is almost entirely a mix of single-family homes and apartments, and is influenced heavily by bordering three main commercial streets, Lake St., Hennepin Ave., and Lyndale Ave. This neighborhood has a much more urban feel than either Kenwood or East Isles, and is much more a part of the fabric of the city.
Finally, Uptown is a bustling neighborhood that is almost completely populated with stores and apartment housing for wealthy young urbanites. This area is the cultural and commercial center of the area, and serves as a gathering place, shopping center, and cultural hub for East Isles, Lowry Hill East, and, to an extent, Kenwood. Uptown was heavily damaged during this summer’s riots, which spread west down Lake Street and north up Hennepin Ave. While this changed the character of the neighborhood for months, most notably through the closing of certain stores and the Black Lives Matter murals that were painted on storefronts, today, most stores have reopened and most murals have been torn down, returning the neighborhood to what it looked like in April.
I find it fascinating that, despite their relatively close proximity and shared spaces, each of these neighborhoods can be so different. Each neighborhood is deeply and fundamentally shaped by the spaces they border — the neighborhoods near Lake of the Isles are more suburban and the neighborhoods near commercial roads are more urban. These neighborhoods are defined as much by their edges as their contents.