Minneapolis. - Affordable, great culture / food, low unemployment, tons of public companies, rapidly growing startup scene (100 meetup groups)...If you have kids it gets even better. The suburbs are amazing, with great parks, schools, etc. Work life balance is the norm.
Haven't lived in Minneapolis since college (yay MCAD!) but one thing to consider is the weather. Not saying it should be the sole driver of your decision, but there's a reason buildings in downtown Minneapolis literally have tunnels and bridges connecting them.
I am originally from Chicago, and when I went to school in Mpls it was possibly some of the most mild winters in history compared to Chicago. That said, they can be absolutely brutal.
As someone who is fed up with ridiculous extreme winter, I'll pay the sunshine tax to remain in the Bay Area as long as I can. Likewise, the sun out here did wonders for my mood in the winter. These things are not as easy to place a dollar amount on as rent, but that doesn't mean they don't have value.
+1 Minneapolis. I moved out of the city itself some years ago for more space out in the country, but it is by far the nicest place I've ever lived.
I found myself wishing I had moved there 10 years earlier.
Another +1 Minneapolis. Just moved last year, cost of housing is so much less and it's a great city with a lot to do year round. A small but successful and growing startup scene. It's the 16 largest metro area in the US so there are a lot of local tech jobs. If you can score a remote job earning SF/SV salaries and live in Minneapolis, even the better...
I am a native of Minneapolis proper and I would say move here to South Minneapolis. The suburbs suck and are absolutely terrible unless upper middle class white bumpkins are your crowd. South Minneapolis and midtown are super cool and you can still buy in before full gentrification kicks in.
The suburbs are more appealing if you have a family. However, if you are single or don't have kids, there is a lot of appeal to being in places like Uptown, North Loop, etc.
Plenty of great places to live in MN, Sotuh Minneapolis is only one. St Paul (downtown) is fantastic, northeast is booming - even living downtown is a viable option on a developers salary.
Certain suburbs are pretty yuppie, but definitely not all. Really depends on your living needs.
Source: MN native and moved once per year for 10 years straight.
It is pretty harsh, but I do think the suburbs around minneapolis are really really crappy. All the food gets delivered off the back off US food trucks, most people are openly racist and/or hickish, all the houses look like crap, etc etc.
Which part of south minneapolis are you talking about? There is a big difference between southeast and southwest.
I once played a hockey team from the suburbs when I was younger and one of the players had a confederate flag on their helmet and called one of our black players a nigger while on the ice. I am not making this up. Furthermore, all of our minneaplis cops are from the suburbs and they routinely harass minority people and think it's ok to shoot them in the face in north minneapolis.
I really think the minneapolis suburbs are elitist and racist. My source is that I have lived here for over 20 years and now work in the shitty elitist suburbs that I hate. I get a firsthand dosage of the institutionalized racism and elitism every day of my life.
I've heard some of this before. To me it is a little confusing since most areas in Minneapolis and the inner ring suburbs are expensive compared to the further suburbs.
My experience of the suburbs is different from yours.
Yeah. "Full gentrification" kicked in as far as I could tell 10 years ago. I loved it since it meant I sold my house in SW Minneapolis for almost double what it cost me 5 years prior, but that sucks for anyone buying.
That said, it's still a great place to live. Some suburbs suck, others are great. Depends on how you want to live.
I don't live there right now, but Minneapolis-St. Paul is IMO the most underrated city in the country. It has all the things people love about Denver, Portland, Seattle, etc aside from mountains, but it's cold in the winter so people don't even consider it.
My Dad grew up there and I grew up in Madison and lived in Minneapolis after college for a while. No mountains is a bummer but there is a shit ton of cool outdoor stuff to do.
It's called the land of thousand lakes for a reason. And the city planners were brilliant, every lake in the city has a green belt around it, nobody was allowed to buy land that was on the lake. Greenbelt, with a walk/bike lane, more green, then the road, then the houses. It's awesome.
On the border with Canada is the Quetico Provincial Park which is where you will start your love affair with canoe camping. If you are like me and my dad, it won't end there, there are too many people, so you just keep pushing farther and farther north into Ontario for your annual canoe trip. I could fill a book with my love for that area, it's one huge granite shield that was scraped into a series of lakes. Imagine waking up in the morning, the lake is covered in fog, Dad's asleep, you slip the canoe into the water and fog and paddle towards the sounds of the loons singing. The canoe parts the fog which closes around you. You just paddle into it, it's silent except for the sound of the water dripping off your paddle and the loons. Paddle some more, the sense of peacefulness is so hard to explain but so powerful. The sun comes up, melts the fog, you can see that Dad is awake so back you go for breakfast.
I adore the mountains, when I moved to the Bay Area I was a contractor for the first year for Sun and they didn't want me to bill more than 40 hours/week. I busted ass, pulled 80 hour weeks, then took the next week and both weekends off. Spent 29 days skiing and spent 6 weeks in the Sierras backpacking. Best year of my life. I still have fonder memories of canoeing with my Dad in Canada.
You could do a lot worse than living there. Hell, Prince is from there, I saw him at First Avenue in 1986 or 87 I think.
All the worry about cold is over rated. You end up helping other people because it's a little crazy to live through that so when their car is in the ditch you get out and help push it out and everyone is laughing at how crazy it is but everyone is happy. Cool place.
