Moving to MSP from the Chicago Area

[JenLee]

My kids were in the Roseville School District and did well there (we live in Shoreview). I think Roseville and St. Anthony are both great. Shoreview is also a suburb you might like, Maplewood and White Bear Lake would also be a comfortable commute to either downtown areas and close to relatives in Blaine.

As someone who lives in the northern suburbs, I would never consider choosing Maple Grove, Woodbury or any of the southern suburbs if you have relatives in this area. If you would someday need/want the relatives to help with childcare; the road gets pretty tedious after a while.

I know a family where the grandparents babysit the little ones while the parents work: problem is; Grandparents live in Roseville area and the couple lives/works in the St. Louis Park area. So the young mother drives the kids to Roseville every AM to drop them off, then drives back to her work and the dad drives over to Roseville every evening to pick the kids up and then back home again. That little 15 mile trip is now a 30 mile trip twice a day and is a major pain for them to do all of the time!

[MNNative]

Originally Posted by JenLee

My kids were in the Roseville School District and did well there (we live in Shoreview). I think Roseville and St. Anthony are both great. Shoreview is also a suburb you might like, Maplewood and White Bear Lake would also be a comfortable commute to either downtown areas and close to relatives in Blaine.

As someone who lives in the northern suburbs, I would never consider choosing Maple Grove, Woodbury or any of the southern suburbs if you have relatives in this area. If you would someday need/want the relatives to help with childcare; the road gets pretty tedious after a while.

I know a family where the grandparents babysit the little ones while the parents work: problem is; Grandparents live in Roseville area and the couple lives/works in the St. Louis Park area. So the young mother drives the kids to Roseville every AM to drop them off, then drives back to her work and the dad drives over to Roseville every evening to pick the kids up and then back home again. That little 15 mile trip is now a 30 mile trip twice a day and is a major pain for them to do all of the time!

Not to mention gas prices! Yuck!

I am with those who recommend living near where you'll be most often.

When we were trying to figure out where to look at purchasing a home we used a Geographic midpoint calculator With Maps and found it somewhat helpful. You can only enter 2 places at a time, so we would play around with a constant (eg. my husband's work--5x/week) and a place we visit regularly but not as often (eg. my mom's house where we go at least 1x/week or the building we attend seminars 1x/week, etc) and based on these various midpoints we were able to rule out certain places of interest and develop new ones as well. Hopefully that helps a bit for you, too.