Stephen Grittman's Aug. 10 counterpoint, "Dream of single-family homeownership doesn't divide, it unites," correctly debunks the notion that single-family zoning is the proximate cause of the Twin Cities' escalating housing inequality.

However, his statement that single-family neighborhoods that used racial covenants were "actually quite rare" is simply wrong. Consulting the University of Minnesota's Mapping Prejudice project, Grittman would find that local restrictive real estate covenants were ubiquitous.

Consulting Richard Rothstein's book "The Color of Law," Grittman would find that federal redlining policies, implemented through the Federal Housing Administration, actively discriminated against racial minorities in cities across the nation from the New Deal onward, constituting "a state-sponsored system of segregation." Bankers and Realtors have been only too happy to continue those racist policies sub rosa.

Grittman is correct that building apartments won't get us there, but zoning can be a positive tool. The market preference for direct access to an adjacent private yard is strong. There are many fine single-family housing models that could accomplish this and improve on the thin spread of Twin Cities development models.

Building attached homes on 25-foot-wide lots would double the unit-density of the average south Minneapolis residential block. Adding a granny flat above an alley garage would quadruple it. Such models never caught on here because land was cheap and urban sprawl was unconstrained.

The escalating cost of land is the main driver of runaway housing costs. Better management of that land must be part of any solution.

William Beyer, St. Louis Park

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I'm not a planning consultant, as Grittman is, and I'm not sure what credentials I'd need to be one. But while I don't disagree that people want to live in single-family homes, his third solution of highways that support access to land already naturally affordable makes me gasp. It seems that the role of man-made carbon emissions in global climate change is somehow not on the radar in the planning community. The absurdity of a single driver carrying two tons of steel everywhere they go and the subsidy of that absurd behavior through infrastructure should be apparent to anyone calling themselves a planner. He should be looking for ways to mitigate it, certainly not proposing to expand it.

John Cook, Burnsville

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In the last several years thousands of homes have been built in the Lake Elmo area. They appear to be selling quickly. (We wish there would be more solar panels installed on these roofs.)

One issue we think is important is that there is little or no public transportation available to these various developments. In fact Lake Elmo has previously rejected adding busses.

In order to do major grocery shopping or to go to a clinic, people would need a vehicle, since there are limited services in Lake Elmo. More cars on the road mean that traffic and emissions will increase in this East Metro area.

We moved here from Bloomington 24 years ago, where we could walk or bike anywhere we needed to go. That is not the case in this area of wide-open spaces.

Judith Lepp, Stillwater

CLIMATE CHANGE

Rural areas don't vote like it matters

It is heartbreaking to read of the difficulties being experienced by farmers in our state — especially dairy farmers — because of the current drought ("Farmers ask state to hurry help," Aug 7). I fully support state and federal government assistance for our farmers and ranchers. What I struggle with is the knowledge that rural Minnesota and much of rural America is voting in legislators and congresspeople who reflexively and consistently oppose measures that would mitigate the damage to our environment that is causing droughts and extreme weather events. I also struggle with the fact that much of rural Minnesota supports a political party that has demonstrated increasingly authoritarian tendencies and whose leaders routinely vilify and label policies and programs that help ordinary people as "socialism" in order to win elections, stay in power and continue to preference the interests of corporatists and the wealthy over the needs of the majority. Former President Donald Trump's trade wars damaged markets for farmers and ranchers. By the end of the Trump era, around 40% of farm income was in the form of government subsidies. He then threw billions of taxpayer dollars their way in an attempt to stay in power in 2020. This is also socialism by any other name, but in service to the personal political ambitions of an aspiring autocrat, and to cover up his incompetence. Any other explanation is cognitive dissonance.

I grew up in rural Minnesota and now live in Minneapolis. I support and believe in strong, healthy, economically stable rural communities. Minneapolis needs resources to rebuild following the summer of 2020. Senate Republicans have opposed this. We also all need farmers. Farmers need consumers and the tax base from urban areas to fund state and federal assistance. What I would appreciate in return is a recognition that "we all do better when we all do better" (from Paul Wellstone). Farm price supports and farm aid are, in fact, forms of social support — "socialism" — and it's extremely disingenuous to try to have it both ways. Misusing this term and fearmongering around social and financial support to those in need in order to put or keep "conservatives" in power, along with an avalanche of voter suppression laws by Republicans around the country and in our own GOP majority state senate, is weakening American democracy and harming us all.

Farmers who are thinking longer term might want to consider the needs of the planet and the country when voting, or this downward trend toward environmental degradation and authoritarianism will continue and worsen.

Anne Jones, Minneapolis

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The just-released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should set off alarm bells and motivate action from everyone ("'Code red for humanity,'" front page, Aug. 10). Although the new information and forecasts are not really surprising for anyone who has not been willfully denying facts, it paints a bleak picture especially for future generations of human civilization. Humans have known about the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide for more than 150 years. Governments have taken minor steps in response to this knowledge for 70 years.

Progress to avoid this dire future has been vigorously opposed by the fossil fuel industry and automobile interests using lies and misrepresentations. The American Petroleum Institute, and others, have funded organizations that provide a blizzard of misinformation to mislead people and reassure them change is not needed. In response to the release of the latest report, the Heartland Institute issued a news release falsely stating that "it seems that climate disaster is always just 10 years away, but none of the predictions of climate doom have come true."

One only need look around to see the future climate change will bring: violent storms, drought, extraordinary heat waves and wildfires so massive that almost the entire continent has been blanketed by smoke, making it unhealthy for people to be outside. Despite the mounting evidence that we are all experiencing, Republican politicians continue to deny the reality and oppose measures sufficient to protect our future.

When I think of the incredible sacrifices prior generations of Americans made to ensure a brighter future for us, this intense, willful destruction of our future for political games is shocking. What we need is a massive effort by every citizen and every governmental entity at every level to attack the causes of climate change. The will require different choices and expectations for everyone across the globe. It may be inconvenient, but if we act quickly it will not be as painful as a future without action.

Are we really that selfish that we cannot do the right thing now, when it is needed? If we wait, deny or obstruct, the pain and cost for all living things on earth will be beyond comprehension.

Scott Peterson, Mahtomedi

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