St. Paul Neighborhood comparisons

[Skyway Mom]

Just moved this last fall to downtown St. Paul with my husband and 2 kids (6 and 4). We are in heaven. The quality of life here is incredible. There are so many free or inexpensive activities (as well as top notch expensive ones too.) The "deadness" everyone speaks of means my kids can run and have fun (which we do) without bothering anyone and without me fearing I'll lose them (because I can always see them). We walk everywhere-we can choose indoors or outdoors. The buses to everywhere all come in front of our building. The dearth of fast food choices after 5pm and on weekends means we eat at home more and save money. The learning curve was steep, but 5 months later we are getting it down and we have no plans to leave. We had our single family home with a yard and big garage for over a decade. It was great, but apartment/condo living has its merits too. I actually started writing about it, I've been so gobsmacked that we seem to be the only ones. Welcome to the Skyway - Skyway Mom

I looked at Highland Park, Hamline-Midway and Mac-Groveland too for their high walk scores--but downtown has skyways, children's museums, science museums., libraries...if you move to another neighborhood, you just might move downtown when you have kids

[cheddar]

Skyway Mom, I hope you keep blogging about your downtown experiences. You seem to have found a niche others haven't thought of in Skyway parenting.

[AndreaSoup]

Originally Posted by cheddar

Skyway Mom, I hope you keep blogging about your downtown experiences. You seem to have found a niche others haven't thought of in Skyway parenting.

I agree!

We have often tossed around the idea of moving downtown. I work there, we love the offerings, etc.

But, with kids, it is a scary idea. My kids are bigger than yours, and I do like the idea of them being able to walk out my front door and play in the yard or go down the street to play in a friend's yard, without me needing to be present. If I could get over that, I would probably be joining you

[Skyway Mom]

I totally understand - I was worried about the same things. You should visit a few places downtown though. Our apartment building has a private, fenced in courtyard the kids can play in. There are 3 parks 2 blocks or less from our apartment building (Mears Park, Wacouta Commons, and the toddler park by Union Depot). Instead of going down the street, they go down the hall to play at a friends house. There is a game room here with ping pong and foosball tables, plus an indoor swimming pool. Plus it's a completely cement encased building which make noise transmission near zero. We'd love to have more families around to share it with.