Anyone else here's favorite Minnesota city: St. Cloud (Minneapolis, Duluth: lofts, houses)

[knke0204]

St. Cloud's Top Ten (not in any particular order)

10. Val's - Best Burgers in town
9. Riverside Park - Trail, scenery, disc golf, playground, tennis courts, river access. what else?
8. Quarry Park - Quaint, nice place to escape to
7. SCSU - The campus serves as an anchor, has jobs, educates, and Husky D-1 Hockey.
6. Crossroads Mall - Newly rennovated, almost all the stores you could need.
5. Downtown - For a city it's size it's a decent DT. Many bars, shops, food places, retail, finance.
4. Mississippi River - USA's largest river flows through town. Kayaking, fishing, etc.
3. Munsinger Gardens- On the river, and one of the coolest places in the area
2. Paramount Theater - Staple of DT STC
1. Lake George - Skating in the Winter, bandstand, etc.

runner up - St Cloud Hospital - one of the best on the USA.

[ozzie679]

Originally Posted by knke0204

runner up - St Cloud Hospital - one of the best on the USA.

We are lucky to have St Cloud hospital. Top 100 nationally!

[MrMinneapolis]

I grew up in St Cloud, this place sucks balls point blank. Cops are a bunch of 120lb weaklings who think they're hulks, the schools are ****ty, the people are racist, everyone hates somalians, who are isolated into their own world anyway...(all the Somalians I met in the cities were always pretty friendly, I think they know the hatred that people up in St Cloud have for them).

The streetlights take forever to change, after 9PM the streets are DEAD. Theres really no decent parks (whitney is alright). The quarrys are pretty fun for biking an trail riding, even off trail hiking.. Warner Lake (not warren as someone said) is about 15 minutes away, the beach sucks you get maybe 20 feet of sand from the water to the tree line. The east side is scum but they cleaned it up over recent years. Theres nothing for under 21 yr olds to do...St. cloud state is meh. Theres no jobs since you have maybe 50,000 jobs and 100,000 people contending for them and most are low paying retail BS as people have said.

The surrounding "suburbs" Ie sartell, sauk rapids, waite park dont have anything noteworthy. Oh yeah sartell cops are the worst they will pull you over for spitting out your gum like we're in singapore or something.

Not much diversity or culture for that matter...the library is nice tho. The cops are about to turn st cloud into a martial law stronghold (2 cop shops, 1 brand new all within 2 blocks), but it still takes 10 minutes for them to make a 3 minute drive from downtown to your house.

Theres NO public swimming pools. They closed the best one (Municipal by tech highschool) years ago due to "lack of funds"...yeah but they can build up the bogus police force which takes forever if you ever call them.

Saw a lady take a dive off her scooter in front of the cop shop by the post office today. Cops were right on the scene, 20 minutes later on our way back she was still laying there no ambulance in sight. Wtf.

Positives? Well its the closest "big city" to Minneapolis. If anything just move to a burb of the cities, maybe Maple Grove or something which is St. Cloud x 100 and only 15 minutes from the skyline.

If Minneapolis was the acheiving sibling with charm an charisma and confidence, St. Cloud would be its infantile glue eating brother.

[tvdxer]

I don't know St. Cloud very well, except from passing through it. But from that I have to say I don't think it's very pretty. Division St. is a mess, full of parking lots, chain restaurants, and generally sprawl-style development. Plus, it's REALLY flat.

[Aylalou]

St. Cloud - Not a favorite of mine; I think I like Mankato better if you're talking about small towns.

[Sarimn00]

I live in the Willmar area, so on our big shopping trips, we always went to St. Cloud instead on the Twin Cities, and it seems like a lot of us in our area do. I've also attended SCSU for a while and worked at a law firm there. The worst thing about St. Cloud is by far the traffic. I know people from the Cities that say rush hour is worse in St. Cloud than in the TC area. If you work downtown---It's a mess. They need to do something with those stoplights!
Other than my vent, I like St. Cloud. I still go there shopping more than any other city in the state, and they have a lot of great places to eat. It's pretty Republican compared to many other places in the state, and pretty Catholic, too, I think. St. Cloud Hospital is one of the best in the state (especially the heart center), and I love the mall.

[Sarimn00]

Originally Posted by ozzie679

My issue is more with the drivers than the traffic. Does anyone know how to merge in this town.

LOL. From what I have heard from people out of state, and my experiences else where, Minnesotans don't seem to know how to merge. Period.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by Sarimn00

LOL. From what I have heard from people out of state, and my experiences else where, Minnesotans don't seem to know how to merge. Period.

Yep, they pretty much don't, it's really obnoxious. I wasn't going to chime into this topic because I didn't want to burst the St. Cloud fans' bubble but I think the last few posters echoed my opinion for the most part. St. Cloud is one of my least favorite places in Minnesota for those reasons. I studied undergrad at St. John's a few exits west on 94 in Collegeville and even though St. Cloud was the closest decent size city we all pretty much avoided it like the plague. The only time I ever went into St. Cloud was to see a movie or maybe go to the mall/Best Buy if I needed to buy something. Beyond that there is really nothing note-worthy there. Mankato is similar in that regard.

[ozzie679]

Golfgal, what are you doing to me? Did I offend

[knke0204]

Many of you are eating your own words. You say things like "It's the closest big city to MPLS, or its closest for shopping", while saying "the traffic sucks". This is pure ignorance. Do your homework, then come back here. Think about it real hard folks. Ok, St. Cloud Minnesota is a regional hub center for employment, education, finance, and recreation. For many in central Minnesota it is the "big city". The Arrowhead has Duluth, South east MN has Rochester, South has Mankato and Central Mn has St. Cloud. Crossroads Mall draws higher volumes of crowds from surrounding counties than anywhere in the US. Also, there are many colleges in and nearby St. Cloud. Plus the suburbs. During school years, the metro area is home to nearly 260,000 people. Of course there is going to be a lot of traffic. That's how it is.... You can't blame transportation either. The city has many heavy cooridors such as Highway 23, Highway 15, Highway 10, I94, so there are plenty of adequate routes to take, and the city has a bus system. You can't blame a city for being bad because it's busy. It is a city that grew too fast, and is paying for it now... Many great things are happening though. St Cloud State University plays a giant role in the city, a new library, new Police HQs, new roads, neighborhood revitalization, civic center expansion, and downtown... its a city on the rise.