Lu, Weiming

Weiming Lu was born in Shanghai, China. Political unrest caused his family to flee to Taiwan in 1949. After attending Cheng-Kung University (where he earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering) and fulfilling a military obligation, Lu emigrated to America and entered the University of Minnesota to continue his engineering studies. After receiving a master of science degree in civil engineering (1954) he went on to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study regional planning. He returned to Minneapolis in 1959 to join the city planning department where he eventually rose to the post of Chief of Environmental Design.

During the next dozen years Minneapolis saw the construction of the Interstate 35-W highway, the Nicollet Mall, and the skyway system. Lu was involved in all of these projects, and co-authored the Metro 85 plan (1971), which was the blueprint for Minneapolis urban planning in the 1970s. He helped develop the first plan for the Metropolitan Planning Commission, and successfully lobbied for passage of the Heritage Preservation Commission Act and tax increment financing.

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