Residents of St. Paul’s West Side fight for cleaner air and safer streets in industrial neighborhood

Jazzalyn Baker’s migraines got worse when she moved to the Southport neighborhood on St. Paul’s West Side four years ago. Baker, the mother of three young boys, said migraines used to be an occasional problem. These days, she gets them regularly. She finds herself cleaning black residue off her windows, wondering if the neighborhood she lives in is safe for her boys. One of her sons has asthma, and his flare ups became more frequent when they moved to Southport. “I find myself going to urgent care constantly,” Baker told Sahan Journal. Baker joined neighbors and organizers from the West Side Community Organization on a tour of Southport on a sunny October afternoon. They wanted to give state, county and local officials a look into their lives in a neighborhood that often goes overlooked. Advertisement Southport is located on the banks of the Mississippi River. The neighborhood was once home to the West Side Flats, where Minnesota’s early Mexican American community settled. In the 1960s, roughly 2,000 residents were displaced when St. Paul tore down the flats to build the Riverview Industrial Park. That industrial legacy lingers. Southport residents today are boxed into a portion of the city near the St. Paul Downtown Airport and an industrial park by Hwy. 52. There’s only one way for vehicles to enter and exit the neighborhood, on Robie Street, and trucks coming from the highway to the industrial park constantly rumble through and back up traffic. Miguel Brito with the West Side Community Organization grew up in the neighborhood and spent his childhood in the pews Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. When he joined the neighborhood group as a community organizer in 2025, he learned about state data showing that pockets of the West Side, including Southport, suffer from poor air quality. So, he began knocking on doors in Southport and talking with neighbors about what they were experiencing. The West Side Community Organization started tabling on sidewalks to hear more from residents.