Chicago Suburbs vs Minneapolis Suburbs (public schools, manufacturing, trains)

[yourpalincal]

In what ways are they similar and different?

Thanks.

[cdubs3201]

Chicago suburbs stretch really far out to WI and IN, MN doesn't stretch out that far at all really.

The Highway layout and infrastructure is better in Chicago than the Twin Cities. But Chicago has way more traffic, but it the drivers are better/more aggressive so it flows a little bit better, but it stretches farther. Minnesota is known for having not as good drivers that don't deal with traffic as well.

Chicago, however, has the Metra trains. If you need to go downtown it is cheap and really well designed and is very reliable. Minneapolis has a light rail system which is really limited and from what I've heard, inefficient.

Besides that, there really isn't a whole lot of difference. The public schools in Chicagoland are just as good as the ones in the Twin Cities. There's the same things to do, there's nicer/poorer suburbs in both.

I'm sure the burbs are mostly the same for just about any metro area.

[chet everett]

No. The suburbs around Chicago do not get "rural" pretty much until you 40+ miles out these days. MN has much closer burbs that feel very much like the farm towns that they were not too long ago.

Some of the Chicago suburbs have a lot of industrial parks, manufacturing and truck traffic, MN is way down the list of areas with manufacturing jobs.

Suburbs around Chicago range from a handful that are integrated with some racial balance to some that are dominated by minorities. The numbers of minorities in MN is much smaller.

Ethnic differences are common in the Chicago suburbs, with some towns having a rich heritage of older European immigrants, as well as more recent moves from from Soviet Bloc countries while others have visible influence of the Indo-Asia or Latin American migration that are much more recent. MN is very much dominated by norther European immigrations from long ago.