Minneapolitans vs Saint Paulites (Minneapolis, St. Paul: apartment, homes, construction)

[DannyBanany]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

You need to get out more.

My opinion is from going out and about. I love the wannabe hippies that live in St. Paul. News flash: YOU'RE IN THE MIDWEST!!!

[uptown_urbanist]

What does the Midwest have to do with being (or not being) hippies?

[Norman Bergman]

The audiences for the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra (Minneapolis) and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra are often the same crowd, or at least with much overlap. The people share the cultural institutions of both places. They are frankly more like boroughs of the same city; what Buda and Pest have become to form Budapest, though with rather less color.

[audadvnc]

I've lived in the Twin Cities since 1974, in both towns over the years. Sure, different neighborhoods feel different, but not nearly different as the social crevasse between modern civilization and the hopeless suburbs.

[laxster]

Originally Posted by audadvnc

I've lived in the Twin Cities since 1974, in both towns over the years. Sure, different neighborhoods feel different, but not nearly different as the social crevasse between modern civilization and the hopeless suburbs.

Imagine wanting to have ample grass and trees all around. Imagine not having to live in a tiny little box that you probably don't own. Imagine dealing with all the noise.

I've lived in city and suburb. Give me the 'burbs any day. People weren't meant to live breathing in a cloud of constant smog. If that's "modern", then please turn back the clock for me!

[audadvnc]

Originally Posted by laxster

... please turn back the clock for me!

You got it - you're welcome to it. But the past isn't getting here any faster. Matter of fact, it's going the other direction. Good luck catching that train...

City life is better: Why?
Location, location, location. You can live in ultramod urban apartment style by the St Anthony falls or historic grandeur from an antique Nicollet Island or Cathedral Hill residence, within walking distance of endless varieties of food & drink establishments, entertainment, museums, businesses, the Central Library - or you can live on an acre of last year's corn field, saturated with 60 years of Rapid Gro and pesticides, mortgaged to your very own vinyl sided paste board box exactly like every other one for a quarter mile, watching it rapidly deteriorate from its shoddy construction. But the taxes are lower, for obvious reasons.

Location, location, location. You can walk to your friend's or to work, or skateboard, or in-line skate - on sidewalks. Or bicycle - your own or one of those green "Nice Ride" bikes that are everywhere this summer. Or ride a cute Vespa. Or take the bus, or the Metro light rail. Or take a car, a hybrid 45 MPG jewel, or an Urban Statement: a vintage Eldorado, a big chrome spinner wheeled ride with the neon lights underneath, the seats that go wa-a-a-ay back and the hydraulic shocks to pump you up and down around those corners! Out in vinylville, you've got a minivan (just like the neighbor's) to spend your morning sitting on Crosstown - and all evening too, just to get back.

Location, location, location. Things are happening in town - like different kinds of people, from different places, with other ways of seeing the world. Occasionally their worldview won't be familiar, or pleasant, it's true. But they keep the scared, stiff, boring riff-raff outside the 494 loop. Where they belong... in the past. Worried about hippies, of all things!

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by laxster

Imagine wanting to have ample grass and trees all around.

I know cities have a reputation for being treeless, but that's not true of the Twin Cities. When you see the city from the air, it looks like a forest.

Imagine not having to live in a tiny little box that you probably don't own. Imagine dealing with all the noise.

They have apartments in the suburbs too. They have houses in the city, I live in one. I prefer my 110 year old house to the ticky-tacky things in the suburbs that won't last.

Imagine having no community because there is no neighborhood. Imagine having no sidewalks because there is nothing within walking distance. If I want to go out for dinner, I have a great number of choices within an easy walk.

And what noise? It may seem noisy to you, but that's the sound of a living community. I hardly notice. It's the sound of having all the things you want to do right near you.

I've lived in city and suburb. Give me the 'burbs any day. People weren't meant to live breathing in a cloud of constant smog. If that's "modern", then please turn back the clock for me!

I've lived in the city and existed in the suburbs. If the air isn't clean in the city, it's not going to be clean in the suburbs. I don't recall smog in Minneapolis.

People were meant to live in neighborhoods.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by audadvnc

I've lived in the Twin Cities since 1974, in both towns over the years. Sure, different neighborhoods feel different, but not nearly different as the social crevasse between modern civilization and the hopeless suburbs.

City living can be cool, or it can be a real trial depending on a person's outlook on life, on their personal preferences, and on their situation.

Same with suburban life.

Why toss out all of these pointless stereotypes?

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

People were meant to live in neighborhoods.

I grew up in a circle (really an oval with a stem) in east Minnetonka where the homes were all built by families of roughly the same age, where most of the homes had kids, and where we all played together through high school.

I couldn't imagine a better neighborhood in the city for a kid growing up. We had a small wooded area, a vacant lot for bike trails and digging, a "swamp" (actually a small pond) with ducks and turtles, and a safe and well-defined area in which to play kick the can, cops and robbers on bikes, and various other games.

The place we live in now in suburban Atlanta is similar.

The city hardly has a monopoly on neighborhoods...

Walk somewhere to eat? We ate at home, as many families do. Going out was something we did on Sundays.

[uptown_urbanist]

I find it funny when people talk about wanting trees and grass and not wanting smog, therefore choosing the suburbs; both Minneapolis and St. Paul are overally very green, tree-filled places dominated by single family homes (with a LOT of parks). It's a very "suburban" city in that way. And I doubt that there's a big difference between air quality in the suburbs or the city, unless you live right next to a freeway (in which case that would apply to both suburban or urban homes). It's true that if you want a really big lot you're unlikely to find it in the city, but not all suburban lots are huge, either.