Howie: Downtown Duluth won’t revive until it faces its hardest truth
Downtown won’t be saved by consultants, binders or cheerleaders. It will be saved when Duluth faces its most challenging problem — the needles, the psychotic breaks, the encampments in doorways — and chooses to act rather than avert its eyes.
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Howie: The library isn’t the story. It never was.
This time, the leverage isn’t casino revenue. It’s downtown frustration — visible poverty, safety complaints, business dissatisfaction and the persistent sense that downtown Duluth has not lived up to decades of promises.
Howie: Fix downtown before you try to sell it
You can’t sell people on “vibrancy” if they don’t feel safe walking to their cars. You can’t advertise “connection” when the skywalks are dark and half-locked. You can’t preach “momentum” when storefronts still sit empty after a decade of ribbon cuttings.
Howie: Lot D optics in motion
Duluth’s short-term goal is tactical — keep Inland’s exclusivity alive, hit the paperwork milestones, and convince the Legislature to fund the $10.85 million in site-prep money the city calls the key that unlocks $250 million in private investment.
Howie: Downtown Duluth embraces for another long winter
You can’t police despair. You can shuffle people from doorway to doorway, but that’s optics, not safety. The folks drifting between shelters and liquor stores aren’t statistics.
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Howie on local prep hockey
I’m not handing Hermantown a boys hockey state trophy in January. I’ve been around too long for that. But when the Section 7A tournament begins and the pressure turns real, I know who I’m riding with. I’ve seen this movie before. It usually ends with everyone else wondering how they missed it.
Howie: Tryon and the quiet power of continuity in the Indoor Football League
Tryon oversees America’s longest-running indoor football league, and that detail matters. Longevity in this sport is not accidental. It is earned. The IFL’s continued stability under his watch has come from a narrow but demanding focus: franchise health, controllable growth and revenue.
Howie: The Indoor Football League finally becomes visible
Under the agreement, select league games — including playoff contests and the championship — will be carried on FanDuel Sports Network, while a broader slate of regular-season and postseason games will stream nationally on Yahoo Sports Network.
Howie: In arena football’s cycle of hope, the IFL chooses reality
The IFL has also benefited from institutional memory. Arena football has lived through enough boom-and-bust cycles to fill a bookshelf. Many leagues fail not because they’re poorly run, but because they convince themselves they’ve outgrown the fundamentals.