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Old 01-23-2010, 05:16 PM
 
Location: Minneapolis
306 posts, read 471,917 times
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Or, Is the biggest city the "NYC" of each state?

What I mean by this is, relitive to the rest of the state, are the native urbanites viewed as the fast paced, "in your face" attitude that most of Americans seem to view New Yorkers as?

For example, Minneapolis and the surrounding area are represented in the House by (D) Keith Ellison, who is the first Muslim Congressman. Minneapolis seems to be a world away from the people in (R) Michelle Bachmann's district.

Although that is a little off topic though, what I mean is, do people in more rural areas view their respective big cities as fast paced "jerks"?
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Old 03-06-2011, 04:50 PM
 
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Interesting question; absolutely yes. I have a perfect prospective on that one: I grew up around St. Cloud, in Bachmanns district, and have lived in Minneapolis for the better part of the last 10 years. There certainly is a huge divide amongst the Twin Cities area and the surrounding area of greater Minnesota. Growing up in the St. Cloud area, people tended to view the Twin Cities as that 'big, bad dangerous place', where 'if you go there YOU'LL GET SHOT', 'be careful in THAT part of town'. etc, etc. Rural Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities is generally a very ethnocentric, racist place to be honest with you (especially the St. Cloud area), coming from experience. It is no surprise that someone like Michelle Bachman can thrive in her district as she DOES HAVE the mindset of a lot of people in her respective district. Also, people who live in rural Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities are generaly reserved, rigid and fearful people who, overall, view the big city as a godless, immoral place. 'You're better off staying out here', 'where it's safe'.

Anyway- I'm not trying to be harsh or alarmist or anything, this really is how it is. I am happy to have broke that mindset and have been living happily in the Twin Cities. Have lived all over Minneapolis in many different quiet and 'hairy' neighborhoods and generally enjoy just accepting people and environments as they are oppose to being a fearful bigot who would much rather have the world consist of nothing but his or her clones in appearance and thought.
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Old 03-07-2011, 12:33 AM
 
Location: Southern Minnesota
5,984 posts, read 13,350,360 times
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Wait, what?! I'm from rural Minnesota (near South Dakota), and it's certainly not as you describe. It is NOT racist or ethnocentric out here. I don't know when you lived in Greater MN, but in 2011, it is not racist at all. I'm part black and politically progressive and I've never faced any racism in Greater Minnesota or South Dakota - not even in really tiny towns.

As for the Cities -- it isn't all dangerous, but there are some scary and sketchy parts (the Brooklyns, North Minneapolis, parts of St. Paul, Columbia Heights). The Twin Cities area is Minnesota in name only. It's a big, major urban area that bears little to no resemblance to the rest of the state. The Cities should really leave Minnesota and become its own state.
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Old 03-07-2011, 11:35 AM
 
Location: New York City
4,035 posts, read 10,254,643 times
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Minnesota is an unusual place. I’ve lived in a lot of states (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Washington, California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York) and I never experienced antipathy for the city quite like in Minnesota. Those other states may resent the wealth and influence of their cities, but they also have pride in having a great city like Boston or Seattle.

It comes down to how you feel about cities in general. Some people view cities as the pinnacle of civilization: centers of commerce, education, the arts and culture, etc. Other people see cities as dangerous, decadent and elitist.

The strange thing about Minnesota is that it embraces both extremes. People within the Twin Cites want them to be like Boston, with truly world-class museums, theaters, orchestras, libraries, colleges, etc. People outside the Cites see them as a necessary evil for business and something to be avoided if possible.

The whole country is evenly divided between both camps. The Twin Cities are really great coastal cities on the prairie.
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Old 03-07-2011, 11:51 AM
 
Location: Southern Minnesota
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The Twin Cities aren't on the prairie -- they're 90 miles east of the prairie/plains. Not trying to be rude, just saying.

Personally, I don't even think the Cities are a necessary evil . Most of the state would get by fine without the Cities, we'd lose tax revenue, but we also wouldn't have to keep funneling money into the metro area and could use it on projects to benefit Greater Minnesota.

I used to live in Minneapolis, and I didn't like it at all. It's NOT Minnesota. It was exciting at first, but it got old - I got tired of sitting in traffic, paying exorbitant prices for everything, worrying about crime and getting tailgated by people in brand-new Lexuses. Most of all, I couldn't stand the "fenced-in" feeling of being trapped by concrete, streets, buildings and people. I occasionally enjoy visiting Minneapolis-St. Paul and taking in the sights, sounds, going to Twins and Vikings games, etc., but I still think Minnesota would be better without the Cities. Let them become their own state, or join Wisconsin.
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Old 03-07-2011, 07:06 PM
 
Location: Denver/Atlanta
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In the case of Denver Colorado, i believe so. When i was younger, i thought Downtown Denver and just Denver in general was the largest city on this planet
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Old 03-07-2011, 07:32 PM
 
Location: Northfield, MN
765 posts, read 2,119,627 times
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I know this was the case in Illinois when I was biking through there on my way to Minnesota. The rural people seemed to mostly view Chicago with contempt, and thought the people there were corrupt and crooks. I think this is true of places where the city is the biggest thing around by far. I don't think its true in places where the population is more spread out, like in Ohio, or Wisconsin for example.
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Old 03-14-2011, 07:26 PM
 
Location: Moved to Gladstone, MO in June 2022 and back to Minnesota in September 2022
2,072 posts, read 5,036,752 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tiredsocks View Post
Interesting question; absolutely yes. I have a perfect prospective on that one: I grew up around St. Cloud, in Bachmanns district, and have lived in Minneapolis for the better part of the last 10 years. There certainly is a huge divide amongst the Twin Cities area and the surrounding area of greater Minnesota. Growing up in the St. Cloud area, people tended to view the Twin Cities as that 'big, bad dangerous place', where 'if you go there YOU'LL GET SHOT', 'be careful in THAT part of town'. etc, etc. Rural Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities is generally a very ethnocentric, racist place to be honest with you (especially the St. Cloud area), coming from experience. It is no surprise that someone like Michelle Bachman can thrive in her district as she DOES HAVE the mindset of a lot of people in her respective district. Also, people who live in rural Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities are generaly reserved, rigid and fearful people who, overall, view the big city as a godless, immoral place. 'You're better off staying out here', 'where it's safe'.
Im in St. Cloud, i'll agree partly with the racist stuff, I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be, but yeah, there is racism here. I go to the schools here and yeah, something happened, not sure what, but some people visited the school and interviewed students because the st cloud school district was providing a hostile environment to the somalians, and they had it posted on their site about it as well.

Im moving to st paul from st cloud this fall, and well I heard some people tell me you'll get shot from just walking down the street, but most of them were kidding, but there are a few people here in st cloud who genuinely believe I'll get shot days after moving down to st paul

Not everyone outside of the twin cities thinks its a dangerous, horrible place, but yeah, a lot of them do, and they tend to be very vocal about it, and which is why people like me and you generally stereotype people from outside the cities like that, because they're so vocal and its all we remember.

I had a teacher who grew up a couple hours north of St. Cloud, and well yeah, hes very, VERY anti twin cities, most of the reasons he gave were so stupid and pathetic and can be applied to any city with more then 50k people, even St. Cloud. There are people, very vocal ones, who view St. Cloud as some kind of utopia, I don't want to go there though.

People like kazoopilot I dont mind them dissing the twin cities at all, because they actually lived there and know what they're talking about. Hearing people who are over 50 years old that have lived in towns of <10,000 people their whole life it's so hilarious hearing them bash the twin cities. Someone here in St. Cloud was like "Have you ever driven in the cities? ugh, I don't have any flippin clue why anyone would live there, it takes hours to get anywhere because of the traffic, and theres absolutely nothing there except crime, and no activities besides malls. and you need to be incredibly rich or else you'll be homeless"

I just drove down to St. Paul last friday in the morning from St. cloud, traffic? You bet, I was on a freeway during rush hour, common sense tells me that there is indeed going to be traffic, why people when they go to huge cities with several hundred thousand people or even several million(los angeles/chicago) expect it to be dead, I have no clue, but it was free flowing the whole way, no slow down, I was going the speed limit from I-94 at Clearwater until I hit the exit on I-94 in St. Paul that I took. Not anywhere as bad as people in St. Cloud who have never left St. Cloud made it seem.

Last edited by Radical_Car; 03-14-2011 at 08:16 PM..
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