Twin Cities, MN vs Ann Arbor, MI (Rochester: appointed, how much)

[Renelou]

Hello All,


I was recently laid off due to the virus and now am looking to sell my house in Colorado.


I'm wanting to move to an area with a lower COL with great schools (7+ Great Schools rating) and a great sense of community. Tired of living the city life and dealing with traffic noise where you don't even know your neighbors. Maybe something more rural, but with great internet access (an oxymoron?)


Can you please give me your opinions, or suggest different areas, on the Twin Cities/Rochester, MN area VS the Ann Arbor, MI area?


Things that are important to me:

• Great high school (vaccine exemptions? Choice enrollment?)
• Sense of community
• Internet access
• 2+ acre property
• Nice people
• Quiet area
• Decent hospitals
• Outdoor recreation

Thank you so much for your help. It is a very difficult choice to leave Colorado. I appreciate you taking the time to provide your opinions, good or bad.

[Citykid3785]

Ann Arbor is most likely going to center on the college. While there are nice parts, I have also been to very ghetto parts.

MN does allow vaccine exemptions, and a majority of the suburban schools are excellent. You could easily find 2 acres outside one of the fringe suburbs. I'd vote Twin Cities.

[Tyryztoll]

I'm originally from SE Michigan and have been in MN for 3 years now.

Since you were just laid off, the first thing you have to do is take every step you can to ensure that doesn't happen again. Going by that logic you should rule out Michigan immediately. Furloughs are happening here due to the shutdown at the moment, but the economy here remains the best in the Midwest and stuff like that is not the norm in these parts by any means. It is the norm in Michigan, however, and has been for close to half a century now. Don't get me wrong....I love my home state and it gets plenty of bad raps that tend to be more stereotypical than true, but the employment issues there are 100% legit.

I'm not going to comb over your list....instead I'll just tell you that the Twin Cities metro (I live in a exurban county about 40 miles north of the Cities) is the nicest, cleanest, friendliest, most comfortable, best bang for your buck place I have ever resided and that list includes several areas spanning 7 states. Jobs are plentiful and the pay is great. The taxes are high, but they actually put them to good use here and so I don't mind paying them. The roads, schools, parks, libraries and many other things are exceptional in comparison with my previous stops. I find the roads particularly impressive considering the notoriously extreme winters we have here, and note again that I am comparing those with places like Chicago and Detroit that I have lived in previously. Their roads look like they are incessantly bombed by the Luftwaffe no matter how much construction they seem to do.

I have special needs children. The programs and services offered for such in Minnesota are second to none that I have experienced, particularly within the school system. That was one of the reasons we came here and we have not been disappointed.

Ann Arbor is a cool town, but that whole vicinity stretching over to the western Detroit suburbs is way overpriced, IMO....especially considering the unstable employment circumstances that continually hang over that region like vultures at a roadkill convention. The landscape is not nearly as pretty as you'll find in the metro TC (the river/lake country here is particularly beautiful) and although the University of Michigan hospital along with several in Detroit are certainly more than capable you will not experience any drop in quality or quantity of medical care here. Several of the most renowned medical institutions in all the world are based in Minnesota, including the University of Minnesota hospitals, Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare and of course the one and only Mayo Clinic, which is widely considered the finest hospital on the planet.

As for Rochester, it's not a bad town, but like you I had the choice of taking us there or to the TC metro and I'm glad I chose the latter. Rochester is only 80 miles or so from the cities but it feels more isolated than that to me, as it's surrounded by mostly farm land, which our area has also, but ours is mixed in with a plethora of river/lake country, forests and rolling hills. Olmstead County, where Rochester is, is the only county in Minnesota without a natural lake....which always seemed like a deal breaker for me. I mean if you're gonna live in the land of 10,000 lakes why would you pick the one area that doesn't have any? So much more to see and do in our area up here as well.....no comparison. The Rochester vicinity - and all of southern Minnesota - are also much more prone to severe thunderstorms due to being at the northern tip of the traditional tornado alley. You could probably get a couple acres a lot cheaper down that way but the tradeoff is job availability/lower wages with Rochester being so much smaller than metro MSP. Depends what you want most, I guess.

I personally think Minnesota would be a good landing spot for you coming from CO. The Twin Cities are a major metro but not large enough to prevent you form living rural while maintaining easy access to all they have to offer. That's what we're doing and we love it. We don't have much land at this point, but we plan to check that box within the next 3 to 5 years and there is more than enough to go around here.

[bostonguy1960]

Interesting post! Thank you.

[Renelou]

Tyryztoll, thank you so much for your response. That is great information. We were leaning towards MN, but were concerned about the taxes.

[Tyryztoll]

Originally Posted by Renelou

Tyryztoll, thank you so much for your response. That is great information. We were leaning towards MN, but were concerned about the taxes.

As I said, not gonna try to pretend like the overall tax burden here isn't high, but when they actually put your money toward top notch schools, excellent libraries, good roads (again, comparatively), a great park system and more it definitely makes me feel better about it. I also like that property taxes in MN are still reasonable in contrast to other states I've lived in such as Texas and Illinois. Texas in particular is known for having a low tax burden because they don't collect state income tax, but between the sky high property taxes and all those toll roads in their big cities they're making up that difference, let me tell you. When the dust settled following our move here I discovered that we were able to live every bit as comfortably as we did there in correlation with our finances.

I lived in the southern US for 30 years and we've been going back & forth about going back down there after our older kids get out of high school in a few years, but after only 3 years in Minnesota we already know it's gonna be hard for us to leave. It's not perfect because no place is, but this is a really nice place to live, especially if you're raising a family. Only thing that might eventually sway us are the winters because I have more and more trouble dealing with them the older I get, but as of now I've just accepted them as a collateral nuisance.