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Except the poster conflates "dense urbanity" with tall buildings everywhere and jam-packed sidewalks. Silly Phoenicians don't realize that you can have dense urbanity with neighborhoods full of nothing taller than three-story buildings and little business districts here and there: you can see the sky, sidewalks are easy to navigate (I had to walk past a guy walking his dog from the bike shop to the coffee shop and I still don't know how we made it past each other unscathed) but mountains, well if you're in Denver sure. Here you'll be able to at least see the sky and the tall buildings are off in the distance, which makes for a spectacular sunset/sunrise. Too bad Phoenix also vastly under-performs in the skyline aspect too.
You can pipe down on calling out Phoenicians on what they do or don't realize unless you have a personal relationship with each and every one of them. If you haven't forgotten, the Phoenix metro is primarily made up of people from all over including your beloved Minneapolis. I've lived in Phoenix for 3 years now and I have yet to see and do everything that this metro offers, so I refuse to take seriously anyone's overgeneralized opinions about a place where they do not even live.
Phoenix should beat out MSP with a larger city and metro population, but the city and state as a whole just embrace a more banal culture: ugly (low quality cookie-cutter homes & strip-malls galore), cheap (crappy housing stock and strip-malls don't cost much), and lazy (god forbid anyone want to walk a block or two to get to a store/restaurant/bar/etc).
It's no wonder that the arts scene trumps Phoenix when you have a great urban culture. The lakes culture and social aspect of it in Mpls proper in particular I wouldn't trade for some tall rocks as a mere background. Climate-wise spring and fall are my favorites and winter isn't so bad as long as you dress for it especially when it's at its worst January into February: more people probably bike in the teens over here than when it's 70 in Phoenix. For education MSP clearly comes out on top just based on how people here live day-to-day. Downtown Mpls wins hands down: blocks and blocks of intact (especially by Phoenix standards) urbanism of full of destinations. And then when it comes to neighborhoods it's even more of a blowout: Phoenix's best urban neighborhoods have nothing on us. Could have, but didn't.
For transit there are several high-frequency bus lines all over Mpls and to a lesser degree St Paulwhere it's a maximum 10 minute wait (although not always consistent, especially the #10 at rush hour). The Mpls-St Paul LRT is going to be complete by the end of the year and operational the next with a third line that got funding and a fourth set to be started soon after. Then there's the awesome Nice Ride bike share in both cities which is absolutely huge with visitors, especially Phoenicians who wish their city was as much fun in one year as it is in a few days visit here.
Sports stadiums? That's a once-in-a-while type of thing and both cities have them, but if you're in Phoenix even having the best in the country wouldn't change the fact that you're having to exist in Phoenix and not live in MSP. Yes, I'm pretty much slamming Phoenix, but clearly by their actions they are striving to be the #1 anti-city in the nation and is competing with Houston and Jacksonville to see who can be the worst, err..."best".
Not to mention Mpls has an entrepenurial spirit and work ethic that just doesn't exist in Phoenix. Almost every major company that the city has now was founded there and they are still building big companies today while Phoenix quite frankly has a pathetic corporate presence for it's size. We've all heard about warm weather and mountains ad naseum and I say so what? Look at the city the people up there were able to build without any of those things. Why isn't Phx on the level Mpls is right now if climate was so important? Again, it all goes down to the kind of people you attract, not how much people. Regarding stadiums, we're getting a new Vikings Stadium soon and Target Center is being renovated. And we were smart enough to have all our venues centrally located and on the LRT lines.
You can pipe down on calling out Phoenicians on what they do or don't realize unless you have a personal relationship with each and every one of them. If you haven't forgotten, the Phoenix metro is primarily made up of people from all over including your beloved Minneapolis. I've lived in Phoenix for 3 years now and I have yet to see and do everything that this metro offers, so I refuse to take seriously anyone's overgeneralized opinions about a place where they do not even live.
Needing to know a Phoenician is absolutely irrelevant based on their actions in the form of their built environment, or in this case, the demonstrably untrue over-generalization on what constitutes dense urbanity. For a lot of people in the MSP metro area (4/5 of them) they live in a sprawling Phoenix-like suburb that's just as ugly and sprawling as anywhere in Phoenix. I honestly don't know why so many live around here when they could have the exact same cookie-cutter setting in a warmer climate; I know if that's what I was looking for I wouldn't be over here right now. I'd probably be in Phoenix. I live here because of the uniquely wonderful urban environment and culture, otherwise I probably would have moved to the PNW or Denver.
Needing to know a Phoenician is absolutely irrelevant based on their actions in the form of their built environment, or in this case, the demonstrably untrue over-generalization on what constitutes dense urbanity. For a lot of people in the MSP metro area (4/5 of them) they live in a sprawling Phoenix-like suburb that's just as ugly and sprawling as anywhere in Phoenix. I honestly don't know why so many live around here when they could have the exact same cookie-cutter setting in a warmer climate; I know if that's what I was looking for I wouldn't be over here right now. I'd probably be in Phoenix. I live here because of the uniquely wonderful urban environment and culture, otherwise I probably would have moved to the PNW or Denver.
Most people in the Minneapolis area live like they're in PHX?
-Arts- Minneapolis
-Scenery- Minneapolis.... Phoenix is pretty brown....
-Climate- Tie SUPER HOT or SUPER COLD
-Economy, Corporate base- Not even comparable, Minneapolis
-Education: Minneapolis
-Downtown: Minneapolis (Phoenix doesn't have one)
-Transit: Minneapolis
- a random one, sports stadiums: Excel Energy Center, Target Field, TCF Bank stadium, Target Center, and future Minnesota sports complex vs.... Chase Field and US Airways Center? MINNEAPOLIS HANDS DOWN.
Minneapolis in all categories except economy and scenery
Scenery?! i would choose lakes, rivers, and trees over arid desert land. Granted, you can find a few mountains not too far from Phoenix tall enough to get away from the arid desert look, but the area is mainly desert. I guess we have different preferences.
I'll give my 2 cents on the 2 cities. Coming from a Minneapolis resident I'd say I much prefer the the Phoenix climate and scenery. Some people like the lakes and woods for scenery, me being one of them, but as far as overall city scenery I'd have to go with Phoenix. For me, I have to drive to the lakes and woods, in Phoenix, the scenery is for the most part right there. I also say climate goes to Phoenix not only because I prefer heat over cold, but I believe the sun just makes everything better. The mood is better with the sun out. In Minneapolis, it is sometimes a week or 2 between truly sunny days. Education I would go with Minneapolis but not by as much as some posters say. Yes, they have a lot of different Universities, but I personally think many private Universities are overrated and to me it's not that impressive that they have 8 compared to if they just had 1. Downtowns I would definitely give to Minneapolis. Phoenix downtown is improving but is just not quite at the same level. Minneapolis has a great downtown and is a great time after sporting events.
Bonus category I say that Phoenix just has more things to do. For a weekend you could easily go to the Mountains in Flagstaff, Ocean in LA or San Diego, or go to Vegas. Both have nice sports stadiums but I give the edge to Phoenix due to these sports stadiums host Super Bowls, bowl games, and golf tourneys.
Please remember that this is all my personal opinion but feel free to argue it.
Have you ever heard of the chain of lakes well within the Minneapolis city limits just 2-5 miles south of downtown (depending on the specific lake)? Then you have just short drives to very large akes like Minnetonka, White Bear and Medicine (there are several others as well)
Have you ever heard of the chain of lakes well within the Minneapolis city limits just 2-5 miles south of downtown (depending on the specific lake)? Then you have just short drives to very large akes like Minnetonka, White Bear and Medicine (there are several others as well)
The Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix Rivers are also good sources of scenery and recreation in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I will also correct my own spelling in the prior post: It is spelled "lakes", not "akes".
I respect those who appreciate different scenery, but I will never get used to the desert "scenery". There was only one year when it rained more than usual everywhere and driving through the desert to visit my aunt/cousins in Lake Havasu, the spring wild flower bloom was more significant than usual and at least bearable.
UPenn, yes....it's a HUGE school. But you think Pepperdine has more name recognition than Carleton?
Sorry, I was trying to engage you in a rational discussion. It's pretty clear you don't know your stuff when it comes to academia...
West of the Rockies, Pepperdine probably has more name recognition. Everywhere east of the Rockies, Carleton has more. It is not scientific data, but it is generally true. People tend to know the colleges in their general regions better with exceptions for the super prestigious schools like Harvard, MIT, Stanford that have name recognition everywhere.
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