Minneapolis vs Atlanta--Cost of living, life (St. Paul, Brooklyn Park: apartment, to rent, condos)

[AUalumWDE]

Hi all,

So as the title suggests, I'm looking for input from people who have lived in Minneapolis mainly. I was born and raised in the Atlanta area and currently live in Augusta. Although GA is nice, I am ready to experience some change. Minneapolis seems appealing to me mainly because I am an engineer and manufacturing in general seems fairly plentiful (Polaris, Pentair, etc.). I also love snow and cold weather in general (It was 16 degrees here this morning and I enjoyed my morning walk with my dog. Usual temp in the apartment is pretty chill around 60 degrees in the winter) .

As far as housing, I am looking to rent at first and then possibly purchase a home later.


So my questions for you : Is housing expensive?
Is heating expensive?
During the cold do you experience extreme power outages?
What type of dogs would do best in cold weather environments (for future references)?
What's the overall cost of living like?
Is Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota in general pretty diverse in terms of ethnicity?

Thanks

[rzzz]

I lived in ATL in 2012 and currently live in the St. Paul suburbs (originally from MN).

Rent is 20% higher in the TC metro and anywhere from 30-100% higher to buy than in ATL. There was never a housing crash like the one in ATL so prices never dropped. You can't buy a $50-100K condo anywhere like you could in ATL.

Heating is expensive but over the year it evens out with what you'd pay for AC in ATL.

There are not power outages in winter.

Dogs like samoyeds, huskies, st. bernards, bernese and other alpine and Russian dogs do best in winter. Any dog can manage but some are bred for the winter. Keep in mind those same dogs don't do as well in the summer and usually need a yard.

Overall CoL: Groceries are about 30% more expensive in MN. There is nothing like Your Dekalb Farmers Market or Buford Highway Farmer's Market. I mentioned housing. Everything else is the almost same price.

The state of Minnesota is not diverse. Minneapolis is sort of diverse, although not as diverse as Atlanta.

[golfgal]

MN is diverse if you use the proper definition, however, yes, there are more African-Americans that live in the Atlanta area than there are in MN


MN is expensive, especially the Twin Cities area. If you get outside of the TC metro, however, I think you will find costs similar to what rzzz is stating he found in Atlanta. We had friends that moved from Atlanta several years ago and found costs here much more expensive, to the point they wanted to pay their contractor from Atl to come here to build a house--until he explained he couldn't build the same house he had in Atl in MN because it wouldn't last 5 years .

I would say that overall the quality of life here is significantly better, however and that justifies the added expense for most.

[QuietBlue]

Originally Posted by rzzz

There was never a housing crash like the one in ATL so prices never dropped. You can't buy a $50-100K condo anywhere like you could in ATL.

Both of these statements are wrong. There definitely was a housing crash here -- I don't know how it compared to the one in ATL, but locally it was enough for most places to see a serious drop in their values. Things have improved over the past couple of years, but not across the board, and some areas are recovering faster than others. And there are plenty of condos (including some very nice ones) available in that price range in Minneapolis and St. Paul, to say nothing of the suburbs as well.

[Mr. In-Between]

I'll tell you one thing, if you move to the Twin Cities, you're going to spend one hell of a lot less time in traffic. A lot of Minnesotans complain about the congestion, but I think that's mostly because it's gotten a lot worse over the last 20 years and people remember when it wasn't that bad. It's nothing at all compared to Atlanta. So if that's one of the things on your list of reasons to leave Atlanta, mark it down as a "plus."

You asked about power failures in the cold weather.... that's pretty rare, but it isn't completely unheard of. The way it works is, if you get a wet, heavy snow (or even worse, heavy snow and freezing rain), some of the tree branches will break off and cause power outages. But those are very unusual, and even when they do happen, they tend to be very localized and quickly repaired.

Summer storms are much more likely to knock out the power; the summer weather in Minnesota tends be much more violent than in Georgia. I think I had at least one power outage each of the last 6 summers in my neighborhood in the eastern suburbs, sometimes 2 or 3. I finally just bought a generator. Not a bad investment, especially if you have a freezer full of meats (like I typically do).

[unnativeelpasoan]

Originally Posted by AUalumWDE

Hi all,

So as the title suggests, I'm looking for input from people who have lived in Minneapolis mainly. I was born and raised in the Atlanta area and currently live in Augusta. Although GA is nice, I am ready to experience some change. Minneapolis seems appealing to me mainly because I am an engineer and manufacturing in general seems fairly plentiful (Polaris, Pentair, etc.). I also love snow and cold weather in general (It was 16 degrees here this morning and I enjoyed my morning walk with my dog. Usual temp in the apartment is pretty chill around 60 degrees in the winter) .

As far as housing, I am looking to rent at first and then possibly purchase a home later.


So my questions for you : Is housing expensive?
Is heating expensive?
During the cold do you experience extreme power outages?
What type of dogs would do best in cold weather environments (for future references)?
What's the overall cost of living like?
Is Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota in general pretty diverse in terms of ethnicity?

Thanks

Another thread that belongs in the Mpls-St Paul forum. But...

I am not gonna answer the COL questions because I don't currently live in Minnesota, but when I lived there heating (gas) was not that much. (At least compared to my current location.) Power outages due to cold are rare in Minnesota - unlike other parts of the country. As for a dog, do you plan on keeping it outside or mostly inside?? The state of MN overall is something like 95% "White, non-hispanic", I believe. So, not much racial diversity. Minneapolis proper and St Paul proper have the most diversity in the state, but both still have "White, non-hispanic" majorities. The Mpls-St Paul suburbs are also mostly white, but with significantly higher white majorities than Mpls proper and St Paul proper.

[emcee squared]

A lot of the questions have already been answered, but I want to address the power outage issue. As someone who moved from Minneapolis to Atlanta, I have never been so unhappy with the power. In the 16 years of living in the Twin Cities, I can count on one hand the amount of times my home lost power. Just last week, the power went out 5 times at my current residence. All we had was moderate wind and cold. Unbelievable.

Also, quality of life is much better than in Atlanta. Incomes are higher, unemployment is lower, traffic congestion is less, education is superior, exercise options are greater. Take that quasi-subjective list how you want.

And why isn't this in the Minneapolis-St. Paul forum?

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by unnativeelpasoan

The state of MN overall is something like 95% "White, non-hispanic", I believe. So, not much racial diversity. Minneapolis proper and St Paul proper have the most diversity in the state, but both still have "White, non-hispanic" majorities. The Mpls-St Paul suburbs are also mostly white, but with significantly higher white majorities than Mpls proper and St Paul proper.

Not quite. The state of Minnesota is about 83% non-Hispanic white.

Minneapolis about 60% non-Hispanic white, St. Paul even less than that, and there are two suburbs (Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center) that are minority-majority.