I'm a complete noob with questions (Duluth, Rochester: condo, crime rate, townhome)

[GhostPoet]

Hi, my wife and I are checking out various states and trying to decide on where we want to move. This state came up and sounds nice, but I had some questions…

1) How is the weather during the off seasons? More sunny than not? We live in Washington right now and trying to get away from the constant rain and gloom!
2) We are not outdoorsy…but we do really want a large movie theater, a mall (indoor or outdoor) and a lot of diverse eating places to go too….is there any of that in a single area or close by to an area?
3) How is the crime rate in the over-all state and what areas are safest, but still contain cheap housing and low cost of living? We are trying to keep it down to 150k for the house. But can go up slightly higher, just want to keep to a low monthly payment.
4) Work wise I do accounts payable…will I have lots of job opportunities?
5) I know nothing of the state or what areas are better than others or even what areas have what to offer. 

[Minnehahapolitan]

I'll go in order.
1)The state is amazingly sunny. Summers are certainly so, and the coldest days of winter are usually the sunniest.
2)This is the home of malls, we have the first, largest and prob. the most. We have urban malls, suburban malls, lively malls and dead malls. No. prob. there. As for restaurants, the Mpls. area spends most per capita on eating out. Most non-chain restaurants are in urban or immediate suburban areas. The best combination of the two will be easilh found in the area of South Mpls., Edina, Bloomington, Saint Louis Park. Some of the area is simply out of the 150 range, but you can find either a small condo, small old house, etc. You won't need to move to the ghetto.
3)Crime here isn't as bad as alot of people here will tell you. Unless you are a minority male between 15-25 or addicted to crack you will usually be fine. Use your city sense and the worst that will happen will be pretty minor. The highest crime areas are urban with some suburbs. Parts of Richfield and Brooklyn are shady, The Northwest quadrant of Mpls.(Glenwood-Dowling and I94-City Line) is bad, don't bother there. The Phillips and parts of Powderhorn on the Southside are bad, but quickly improving. Living there depends on how daring you are. If you want an urban area, I would look into Uptown and surrounding areas. There is a mall on Lake/Hennepin and tons of restaurants. Rents can still be decent. For suburban areas, I would look into East Bloomington. Older, mid-century ranch homes. Older demographics, close to freeways and everything. A good area. My two cents
The best of luck on whereever you decide on.

[judogl44]

We're in Alexandria, about 150 mi west of cities. It's a town of 14,000 with lots of places to eat, mall, fantastic downtown shopping with boutiques, movie theatre, summer theatre, and the Alexandria Arts which has a variety of great shows thru the year. Couldn't advise on employment but 3M has a big plant here. Summers are nice-we laugh when folks say it's humid (we're from Jersey shore-home of high humidity). Been here 2 winters and they have not been bad-not much snow and only a couple weeks colder than the norm.

[GhostPoet]

Man...I am getting more and more sold on this place!
Are there any specific areas/towns you would suggest I try looking for housing in?

Alexandria sounds really nice, so that's on the list for sure!

[GhostPoet]

Oh, one other question!
Where is the best place to live that has the least amount of bridges? That recent incident kind of scared me from places where you need to mostly depend on bridges to get around. (yes, i'm paranoid)

[Minnehahapolitan]

Thats unwarranted. You need bridges to get around anywhere. You can't be scared of the sky.

[yellowsnow]

Before you get sold on this place, come visit in January. Sometimes in the winter months, they measure our sunlight in hours per week. It can be very gloomy. Just as gloomy as Seattle. When it gets really cold, we usually get more sun. Beware of homes with huge driveways and decks. Someone(you) has to shovel them all winter.

Yes, this is the home of the shopping mall. Think about it. That's because it's so cold here! People wouldn't shop if they had to go outside. There are tons of malls, movie theatres, and restaurants. There's everything you could ever want.

The best opportunities for employment are in the Twin Cities area. Simply because most of the employers are there. Wages are pretty good. Traffic is bad so I would suggest trying to live close to work. Cost of living and taxes are pretty high. There is some crime. But the TC are a metropolitan area and that's true for most metropolitan areas.

There are lots of really nice small towns here. They would be nice places to live if you could find a good job.

[JenLee]

There are a lot of lakes and rivers here; but many towns and cities may only have 1-3 bridges which may or may not be necessary for you to use each day. I live in the Twin Cities on one side of the Mississippi River and work on the other side of it. I need to use bridges every day; but in spite of the fact that we had several near misses/close calls among loved ones; I'm not going to give up crossing bridges. As Minnehahapolitan said, "you can't be scared of the sky" like Chicken Little.

If you stub your toe on a stair step, do you give up climbing stairs? If you slam your finger in a desk drawer, do you give up using desks? No. These are all accidents; and life does go on after accidents; even after the collapse of a bridge on a major river and lives are lost.

So, back to the topic of the day: places to live.

Alexandria is a great little city here; I happen to love the Twin Cities; other places to check out for your requirements would be Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, and possibly Fergus Falls and Owatonna (which is close to an outlet mall).

[judogl44]

Small bridges in Alex-lots of big, beautiful lakes (Chain of Lakes), great winery with something going on every weekend and a fantastic Grape Stomp in Sept., golf if you like, and we also like the convenience of not being far from I-94.

[golfgal]

In your house price range you are either going to have to look at a townhome in the metro area or look more outstate. I would start looking in the Mankato area. You will find that Mankato has everything you are looking for and homes in your price range. I would also suggest Marshall MN if you don't mind having to drive to go mall shopping. There will be job opportunities there and the cost of living is very reasonable. THe SW part of the state has very few lakes/rivers. Marshall has the Redwood River running through town but it is VERY small, about 10 feet wide at the largest and this time of year MIGHT have an inch of water in the river so bridge crossings are not a concern.

Other options would be the far outskirts of the metro area-Faribault, Jordan, Rogers, etc.