A vibrant, cosmopolitan Midwestern city.
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4/8/2008
This is a very cosmopolitan city with an expanding immigrant population. Suburbia is bad, but not worse than most around the country (Chicago's is much more massive and sickening). There's not a single Best Buy within the city limits, and there are many, many great restaurants. The music scene has something for everybody - I've been playing here as a musician for over four years and every time I look in a City Pages I'm astounded by the number of groups I've never heard of. The winters are terrible, particularly this last winter - it's April and I'm still thawing out. Your car won't start, your skeleton will freeze and your sinuses will burn from the cold. But May and September are the most beautiful months, and June through August will make you think about how nice snow is, or you could just go to the beach. There are clean public beaches. As for the job market...
I'm only a recent grad (I graduated from the U of M in December of '06 with a degree in Urban Studies) but have yet to land a job with benefits, or decent pay approaching the local, much less national, average. It could have something to do with our smug, hack-job governor slashing the budgets of every department and municipality to the point where no one's making sure that bridges don't fall down. I'm leaving, eventually, to go to grad school, see what else is out there and search for better career opportunities, but not because I don't like it here. It's the best city in the Midwest, up there with Chicago, and I've toured around a lot. Columbus and Madison have some good things going, too; these four cities are somehow immune from the depressing "rust belt" plague affecting the rest of the region.
If you like parks (don't take the "City of Lakes" moniker seriously, though - there are several, but unless you live in a million-dollar-plus house they're not omnipresent like in Chicago or Madison), biking, seasons, music, food and a global city feel then Minneapolis could be for you, but be prepared to wear next to nothing and still sweat in the summer and seven layers per limb and still shiver in the winter.
Boettcher | Minneapolis, MN