Powderhorn

Powderhorn is south Minneapolis at its most politically engaged, culturally diverse, and honestly complicated. The eight neighborhoods in this community — Bancroft, Bryant, Central, Corcoran, Lyndale, Powderhorn Park, Standish, and Whittier — form the densest, most diverse residential fabric in the city. Whittier alone contains Eat Street (the stretch of Nicollet Avenue with more culinary range in five blocks than most cities have in total), the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and MCAD. Powderhorn Park's lake is a true urban commons where every demographic in Minneapolis shares space.

The community's identity is inseparable from its activism. The MayDay Parade, organized by In the Heart of the Beast Theatre, is a giant puppet procession that is unlike any civic event in the country. The neighborhood associations here are among the most active in the city. The political culture runs progressive to radical, with organizing traditions rooted in labor, immigrant rights, racial justice, and cooperative economics.

Powderhorn took 2020 harder than almost any other community in Minneapolis. The Third Precinct burned. Lake Street businesses were destroyed. The park encampment that formed in Powderhorn Park was a traumatic community experience that tested every ideal the community claimed to hold. The rebuilding has been intense, contested, and ongoing. Crime spiked and has partially but not fully receded. Commercial corridors are recovering but not recovered. Powderhorn is for people who want to live in a community that takes its values seriously enough to be tested by them — and who understand that the testing is not over.