Rochester Needs You! (Minneapolis, Mankato, Welcome: houses, college, place to live)

[Thedosius]

Perhaps Rochester needs to create an Uncle Sam-like character and put up posters...


Wanted: Workers to fill Rochester's growing labor shortage | Minnesota Public Radio News

"With the downtown Destination Medical Center project expected to add 30,000 more jobs in Rochester over the next 20 years, the problem is likely to get much worse...The region's adding only 600 workers a year, fewer than half of what it needs, which means Rochester will have to attract employees by essentially outbidding other cities, he added."

[gearedtowardssalad]

I do like Rochester, but I couldn't live there. It's a city that lacks character and really has no identity of its own. To me, there is no difference between the SW Minneapolis suburbs, Saint Cloud, Mankato, and Rochester, etc. They all look and feel the same with nothing to do unless you have vanilla G-rated type interests.

[Thorondor]

Originally Posted by gearedtowardssalad

I do like Rochester, but I couldn't live there. It's a city that lacks character and really has no identity of its own. To me, there is no difference between the SW Minneapolis suburbs, Saint Cloud, Mankato, and Rochester, etc. They all look and feel the same with nothing to do unless you have vanilla G-rated type interests.

I don't think you can say that it lacks character or a unique identity. Mayo Clinic definitely adds that, although it is not the type of identity that automatically makes it as fun a place to live as a college town, for instance. So it just has a different type of character, rather than none at all. While Mayo Clinic's influence may be underutilized currently, Destination Medical Center should do a lot to change that both economically and culturally. As for things to do, not sure what you expect a metro of ~200k to have that Rochester doesn't.

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by gearedtowardssalad

I do like Rochester, but I couldn't live there. It's a city that lacks character and really has no identity of its own. To me, there is no difference between the SW Minneapolis suburbs, Saint Cloud, Mankato, and Rochester, etc. They all look and feel the same with nothing to do unless you have vanilla G-rated type interests.

You can find some wicked fun orgies if you look hard enough

[gearedtowardssalad]

Hey look - more people on the internet who disagree with something I said. Cool.

[601halfdozen0theother]

Disagreeing with a Millenial is fun because they aren't used to hearing that they ever could be wrong. Welcome to adult life!

Every place has it's own character. You just have to be open to seeing and learning about what that character might be. And the characters of place change and evolve through time.

As for the concept that zillions of jobs are opening up because the Rochester region's boosters are working on the DMC concept (Destination Medical Center), I think that's unlikely.

Rochester has been growing steadily for several decades. I haven't observed a noticeable boom since the DMC idea has been eagerly discussed - just more steady growth. The small towns in the region have also been steadily growing, as many people do commute into Roch itself for work.

I actually hope growth slows so that the region retains it's beautiful environment and minimal slash and burn ticky tacky development occurs. We'll see what happens over the next few decades.

[r_shackleford]

Originally Posted by gearedtowardssalad

I do like Rochester, but I couldn't live there. It's a city that lacks character and really has no identity of its own. To me, there is no difference between the SW Minneapolis suburbs, Saint Cloud, Mankato, and Rochester, etc. They all look and feel the same with nothing to do unless you have vanilla G-rated type interests.

On the surface, I agree. But I've overheard a few too many people at beer league softball games discussing genome sequencing technology to say Rochester is not unique.

[HighFlyingBird]

Rochester is an awesome place of people with young kids. Single people, solo couples, families with older kids...not too much. Maybe in the future.

Houses ranging from 100k-200k are bing snatched up like crazy.

We need a lot of worker class people, but not fully ready to take them.