Visit North Minneapolis and learn from developer, entrepreneur, and local Culturemaking Podcast Host Houston White. He builds Black-owned, and Black-led spaces, and will give us a tour of his mixed-use business hub, showing us the importance of partnership and entrepreneurship.
This tour focuses on an area that has been lacking in our education, planning efforts, and society historically. North Minneapolis has been historically neglected and disinvested. By locals investing in Black culture for young professionals, and providing inspirational spaces for artists and residents, Houston White has been extremely successful in providing relevant businesses and placemaking. By visiting Black-owned, Black-created, and Black-led spaces, planners can learn the importance of culturally significant spaces. The spaces shown during this tour, Camdentown Flats, the Get Down Coffee Co, FRESH barbershop, and the future site of a mixed-use business hub, reflect the needs of the community. This tour will teach planners how to lean-in, think outside the box, and support Black entrepreneurs authentically.
Additionally, this tour will focus on how to create a blueprint that can be transferred to many different locations, and create a framework for community development done differently. We will focus on: - A market-driven approach, which is rare in these types of communities - How to engage social capital thoughtfully and effectively - How to reimagine your ROI for investors and political leaders - How to support the creation of non-exclusive social spaces
Houston White is a local Black entrepreneur, who is creating not only Black-owned and created spaces, but building a cohort for business development. He is willing to share his experiences investing in high-end, amenty-rich spaces for BIPOC individuals while working through civic and corporate leaders to advance vibrant futures.
Learning Objectives:
Bring back a blueprint of community development done differently, for the people, by the people, to their own communities.
Verbalize and understand the importance of culturally significant, amenity-rich, Black-designed spaces in Black neighborhoods.
Understand and mirror the civic partnerships that led to success for this Black-owned business hub, with coffee shops, housing, barbershops, and a future mixed-use building in a traditionally disinvested neighborhood.
