Perhaps fitting on my way recently to see renowned urbanist Alexander Garvin speak about the public realm was my own journey through the public realm of my fair city. In the one block between the light rail station at 5th Street and the Central Library at 4th, I witnessed the range of good and bad public realm that Nicollet Mall and downtown Minneapolis have to offer. From the train platform I stepped on to Nicollet Mall and passed by the adjacent Powers Block, on which once stood the Powers department store. Today the block is mostly surface parking, but there…