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As far as overall healthy neighborhoods Mpls pretty much maxed that out: there are only a couple of neighborhoods that are bad (by Mpls standards) and a few neighborhoods on the south side have sketchy pockets, but I can't think of another city where you can go to the city's worst neighborhood and what is considered the city's worst bar in said neighborhood (on a weeknight of course) and actually have a good time without local patrons looking to do something bad to you for even considering stepping foot inside. So out of the city's 88 neighborhood like 5 are bad if you count ones that are good, but have a bad section. So, 94% with several walkable business districts largely occupied even in not-so-great areas is pretty hard to top.
Even so, I see plenty of room for improvement: more infill on Lake St east of Hiawatha (too many parking lots), east side of Downtown (parking lots again), expanding the bike share along the Minehaha Creek trail on the far south side, more revitalization on W Broadway which is the most depressed large commercial district, needs at least one more light rail line, more bike lanes/boulevards would be nice (even the poorest neighborhoods are decently connected to the rest of the city). I already see steps being made to address all of the issues: there's been a bit of infill on E Lake and a good deal on the east side of Downtown around Washington Ave, the still-expanding bike share has spread to St Paul, W Broadway has a couple newish entrepreneurs and a newer business incubator to jump start more activity, the Mpls-St Paul light rail line is U/C and due to open in just over a year, the city doubled the amount of on-street bikeways in the last year and a half, so for what faults do exist it's clear that the city isn't just pretending they don't exist. Now if only someone would get Kmart to move their big box store off the middle of a major commercial street (yes, it dead ends into the rear of a Kmart and you have to drive around it to get back onto Nicollet Ave to reach independent business in the urban storefronts south of there).
San Francisco in terms of economically and culturally. Its grown to its peak and its economy is growing despite the .com bubble and the recession. At this point san francisco's growth will probably make the city for the rich and make the city super dense.
Honorable mentions would be boston and d.c although they can still improve
All cities have plenty of room for improvement. I think New York and SF have come the closest to fulfilling their potential. Both are highly urbanized and dense with fantastic cultural institutions, and both have reasonable crime rates.
Oh please, there's a *lot* of NYC that is anything but significant.
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