Young Couple moving to MPLS on a student budget - where to live!? (Minneapolis: renting, crime)

[pacobox]

hi!

i'm hoping to be moving to town in august/september to start work on my Ph.D later this year and was hoping for some suggestions on where to live.

I'm 30 years old and I'll be living off of a stipend and my girlfriend can afford about $600 on top of what i can afford - total of about $1150. We like good food, young friendly people, dogs, and like some peace and quiet. We don't need anything fancy or upscale like a loft. I plan on riding my bike as much as possible to get to/from school (the U - Civil Engineering) so don't want to be too far. we'll be sharing a car.

are there certain neighborhoods or areas we should or should not look at? we'd be open to buying a house (we both own houses in philly right now) or renting. We have a dog, so that comes into play.

Also, we're not afraid of living in an up-and-coming area that may still be a little sketchy, because we do now!

thanks for any suggestions. also one last question....i keep reading it is hard to get friendly with the locals in MN and i'm wondering if that is true. people aren't exactly super nice in philly, but we've made plenty of friends.

thanks again. i visited MPLS in august and totally loved it. Surly Beers rule and so did Bar La Grassa (which i will probably not be going to once i'm back on a student budget!)

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Hi,

I live in Philadelphia now, but went to school in Minneapolis. What neighborhood do you live in in Philly, out of curiosity? Odds are that even the worst of Minneapolis neighborhoods are still going to be better than any "up and coming" area of Philly. Really, only a small area of North Minneapolis has the same problems as large chunks of other cities too. So you should feel pretty liberated at that. I lived in an area of Minneapolis that was considered sketchy by some folks - and it was quite a paradise compared to some of the rough areas in Philadelphia and really even the small cities around SE PA and South Jersey.

Assuming you're looking for the best value, close to school, easy to bike or bus there ...Seward might fit it. Lots of young people there, but also lots of older people and some immigrants. It's got stuff to do, but not so much that hordes come in from other places in the city. If you're looking for something more like a Northern Liberties...Uptown Minneapolis is the main option for street life likes bars and restaurants and walkability. You'll be paying a little more, but you'll be able to find something within your budget I'm guessing pretty easily. If you're talking about any of the more "coming" of the up and coming neighborhoods on the periphery of Center City...your fishtown, brewerytown, francisville, spring garden, point breeze, graduate hospital....you'll probably be comfortable anywhere in Minneapolis, especially if you have the one car thing going for you. Public transit isn't as good, but a lot of people seem to bike and the city is aware of that and makes thing easier for them (from what I hear). Lots of people bike to school and even work.

[uptown_urbanist]

I agree with Seward. That seems like the best fit. Como in Minneapolis could be good, too, but you'll encounter more student parties there. Still, it's a nice neighborhood close to the U. Another option would be to explore the area right around the St. Paul campus; it's a short bike ride to the Minneapolis campus via a direct bike route. There are shuttle buses that run between the two all the time, too, so you'd have that option for days when you don't feel like biking. When I was at the U I used to go over to the St. Paul campus to study sometimes; it's much quieter over there, and definitely would give you peace and quiet and lots of nice places to walk your dog.

[lalife]

Weird, but Seward came to mind when I read the post too. Seward is close enough to the U and and the neighborhood is hip. Uptown would be too far away to bike from. Maybe near Northeast would be a good option too. Something close to the river trails.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by pacobox

thanks for any suggestions. also one last question....i keep reading it is hard to get friendly with the locals in MN and i'm wondering if that is true. people aren't exactly super nice in philly, but we've made plenty of friends.

I missed this part of your question the first time through. There are all kinds of debates about this on the forum, and it's always a heated discussion. So you can look through them. If you're from Philly (or anywhere on the East Coast that's not an isolated small town), and that's what you're used to, it'll be a lot different. People in Philly can be outwardly hostile, but you can develop relationships with people at least. In Minneapolis, most people will be outwardly friendly, but you probably won't make any close friendships. You're in luck though, in that you're like me. You'll be going to U, there will be a ton of people from other places, and plenty of friendly young people from all over Minnesota looking to meet people on top of that. You should do fine - I met all of my friends from Minnesota while I was at the U - it was a different story when it came to my neighborhood and work, but that was fine. I don't need to be friends with everyone. Plus, if you live in a place like Seward which has a little bit of a student population, those stereotypes won't exist there as much, obviously.

[uptown_urbanist]

I missed the making friends question, too. I think it's a moot point for anyone in school: people from the U come from all over the country and world, so you won't be spending your time in an environment exclusively made up of native Minnesotans. If you live anywhere near the U you'll be living in a neighborhood similarly made up of people from all over the place, so I don't think it will be an issue. I don't think those stereotypes are particularly relevant to young people living in the city, especially since you'll already have a built-in connection at the U and your girlfriend will also presumably be meeting some additional people through her day-to-day life, too.

[pacobox]

thanks for the input, everyone. i'm sure i'll find some things in common with my fellow students, but usually have some issues in that i'm not really engineer-y. i've been reading on mplsbikelove and hopefully can meet up with some of those people as well.

@famousblueraincoat - i live in newbold near the SPTR. i guess it's more of a small section of point breeze

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by pacobox

thanks for the input, everyone. i'm sure i'll find some things in common with my fellow students, but usually have some issues in that i'm not really engineer-y. i've been reading on mplsbikelove and hopefully can meet up with some of those people as well.

@famousblueraincoat - i live in newbold near the SPTR. i guess it's more of a small section of point breeze

At the U there are a ton of opportunities to get involved that aren't related to your actual field of study, so I think you'll be in luck that way. There's a lot of interesting things going on, and they often involve people who don't even attend the U. And the biking community is indeed pretty hard-core around here. Biking is definitely a big thing in this city. If you do a few volunteering things (with your new neighborhood, with biking issues, or whatever other hobbies or interests you have) you'll be able to meet lots of new people. I know a couple of former very non-engineer-y engineers, too (one was a civil engineer grad student at the U), so there's hope for people within the program, too. Good luck with the move!

Forgot to add: you might also want to look into some of the neighborhoods along the Midtown Greenway. They have an active group of volunteers, too, many of them bikers. It's basically a bike highway that runs from over by the lakes to the river; I know there are people who bike all the way to the U from Uptown. There are a lot of interesting neighborhoods along the route, some of them more "transitional," but it sounds like you're okay with that. My favorite Greenway neighborhood is Lyn-Lake (by Uptown), but there are a lot of other options all along the way. It's bike-central.

[MarcyHolmesMaven]

Wow, I'm surprised that no one has championed the neighborhoods on the east side of the river more: Marcy-Holmes and the various Northeast neighborhoods. Seward is great, we like it a lot, but I do think of it as more "hippy" (in the best possible way, e.g., Birchwood Cafe) and Northeast (and Marcy) as more "hipster," what with Art-a-Whirl, no end of cool restaurants (Anchor Fish & Chips, Northeast Social Club, Modern Cafe, Psycho Suzi's, etc.) , art galleries, live music, etc. We originally ended up in Marcy when I was attending the U, and it was great because I could walk every day or hop on a short bus in cold weather. There are a lot of students around, but hey, you're students, and on the west side of 35W, we're not so dominated by students as on the east side (Dinkytown & Como). We've ended up staying in our house for 19 years and raising two kids there, besides. We're never moving. Good luck with your search!

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by pacobox

thanks for the input, everyone. i'm sure i'll find some things in common with my fellow students, but usually have some issues in that i'm not really engineer-y. i've been reading on mplsbikelove and hopefully can meet up with some of those people as well.

@famousblueraincoat - i live in newbold near the SPTR. i guess it's more of a small section of point breeze

Yeah, if you live in or near Point Breeze - I've heard of Newbold but I'm not sure of the specific boundaries (it's basically a new name so that people don't associate it with Point Breeze, right?) - there's basically nowhere in the city of Minneapolis that you wouldn't want to live in. I say this as someone who thinks Point Breeze is a pretty neat place. I found a really cheap place on Pine Street when I moved to Philly, but was looking down there too. So don't worry about anything anybody says about crime in Minneapolis is probably the moral of the story, if you're fine with where you live now.

Seward isn't overrun with students, and it the students who are there tend to be hipsters, grad students, or just people more mature than the normal big 10 student. They have some collective or cooperative run businesses. So depending on what you're looking for, I suppose. I'm a big supporter of Seward (although I didn't live there), but you might find a better fit for you.

I used to work at a place with a bunch of bike couriers - and a lot of them seemed to live *near* uptown...like Lowry Hill East I believe, as well as the part of Northeast closer to downtown (this is also pretty close to the U). Just trying to be helpful on that, though, those may or may not fit what you're looking for.