In a similar vein to the DC question, where’s the good areas to live in in Mpls/St. Paul. I’m moving there in January and need a centrally located type area - my husband will be working in White Bear Lake, and I’ll be working in a currently undisclosed location (read: job search is tight; there’s not much for technical writers). Most likely I’ll end up working in the Minneapolis/Southwestern 'burbs area. Therefore, I need a location that’s relatively convenient for both of us.
Currently, I’m looking at the following:
Roseville
Shoreview
Como area
St. Anthony
Vadnais Heights
Phalen
There’s probably some more, but I can’t think of them right now. Ideas? Thoughts? Any help would be appreciated.
If you end up in working Mpls or southwest, your husband works in White Bear Lake, and you get something centrally located…your hubbie owes you big time, because you’re going to curse Henry Ford for the rest of your life. He’ll have it easy because he’ll be going in the opposite direction of rush hour traffic.
A suggestion…maybe Mendota or thereabouts–overlooking the Mississippi River? (I’m assuming you’ll be making decent bucks.) He can hop on I-494 and go east and you can take the same interstate west.
Things wou want to do:
Avoid I-94 between the TC’s during the morning and evening rush hours.
Avoid having to cross the Mississippi River on I-494 eastbound in the evening or westbound in the morning (damn Cheesers clog it up. :D).
One suggestion (since you haven’t found your job location yet) would be for you to try to find something downtown Minneapolis and take the bus. Then find a place in St. Anthony or Roseville, both are right on bus lines. Hubby won’t have too far to go, and you could ride the bus.
Roseville and Como area are gorgeous. Beautiful. Nice suburb-to-near-suburb areas. And either one gets you close to Como Park Zoo…ooh, timber wolves! It should be noted that the Como area is very proximate to the Job Corps Center, however, and, as an alumnus of said Center, I have to warn you that that means lots and lots of usually at least slightly ethically-challenged teenagers wandering the neighborhood.
I’m not very familiar with any of the other places mentioned…only lived on the JCC (Como/Roseville) and just south of downtown Mpls. I can tell you not to look too hard in the city south of I-95 (I think that’s the right highway)…the neighborhoods aren’t that good, and as you approach Lake Street, become downright dangerous. I lived on the block south of Franklin on Nicollet (about six blocks south of downtown and about eight blocks north of Lake Street) for a year and was never particularly comfortable walking around.
While I can’t say I know Minneapolis very well personally, my grandparents just moved down here from there. Their house was on Penn Avenue, near 50th Street, south of Lake Harriet. The lake was absolutely beautiful, and it was a nice neighborhood. That’d be in the southwestern part of the city for you, but that does put White Bear Lake on the other side of the city. And I do remember sitting with my grandpa in traffic on Diamond Lake Road, trying to get on I-35W… (Now I drive that same car and sit in traffic on the Causeway. Nothing ever changes.)
When I was but a wee little Sani (around 3 or 4, so in 1986-87), we had an apartment out in Minnetonka. At the time, it was somewhat in the country, but the last time I was there (August 1999) it was hidden behind restaurants and car dealerships and a grocery store off of an interstate frontage road. Much different from the way my dad remembered it.
Well, I don’t think any of those areas are particularily dangerous. I will give you one caveat about the Como & Roseville area (especially the Como area)–The Minnesota State Fair. You will either love this or loathe this. For twelve days–late August through Labor Day–your neighborhood will be inundated with the traffic, noises, and smells (oh, those strange smells) of “The Great Minnesota Get-Together”. Some in the Como neighborhood, especially along Snelling Ave., take this opportunity to make a few bucks–they park cars in their yards and rent space for or put up their own refreshment stands. If you love the fair, it’s great. If you don’t…it could be hell. Even if you like the fair, it gets a little old to have to dodge all that traffic for every single trip to the store.
You may also like the St. Anthony Main neighborhood of St. Paul (opposite side of Snelling from the Como neighborhood) It’s right next to the St. Paul campus of the U of M. Beautiful place with curving streets and quite a few large Victorian houses and other interesting architecture. It’s a bit expensive, though, because it is so convenient to both downtowns and the U. I think that a lot of professors live there. (The fair traffic caveat does apply, but not quite so much. There may also be a U traffic caveat in certain areas.)
OK, I’ve got one more pet peeve about Roseville. Snelling Avenue and its stupid frontage roads. I don’t know what it is about that street, but I have gotten into so many near-accidents there trying to get out of McDonald’s or around Har Mar Mall or anything having to do with Target’s parking lot. YMMV. This may be just me (but my husband agrees with me.)
I’ll wait until you answer Beadalin’s question before I say more. What kind of housing are you looking for?
First important safety tip is that the “long commutes” these people are whining about are 30-45 minutes. Speaking as a transplanted SF Bay Arean, that’s nothing. The average where I came from was 45 minutes. If I took public transit, it was two hours.
I’m in Merriam Park, which is St. Paul just south of 94. I have worked in Shoreview, downtown Minneapolis, and the Lakes area (near lake harriet) and have always had a 20 minute commute no matter where I was going.
If you got a house south of 94 (that’s kinda important–just north of 94 is the Midway, which is kinda, as Rysdad put it, kevlar country), you’d probably have the same commute to southern Minneapolis as your husband has to WBL. Shorter, actually.
If you have kids and are planning for the future, Merriam Park is walking/biking distance to a bunch of colleges, and right on bus routes to the U of M.
Biggest problem I’ve seen in St. Paul is snow removal on side streets. Minneapolis does a much better job.
Oh, another point about the Como Park Zoo? It’s free.
Do you require public transport access, or will you be a two car family?
I live in Maplewood, a neighbor suburb to White Bear. Very nice. Though I do take that I-494 bridge every day Rysdad is talking about (actually, I avoid it, I can hop on it from 61 in the morning - no line - and take Shepard Rd. home).
Are you looking for old homes, new homes. Established neighborhoods? Do you have kids? Looking for diversity?
The Twin Cities are a lot bigger and a lot more diverse (i.e. the neighborhoods are a lot different, not necessarily the proportion of Swedes to anyone else) than people tend to give them credit for. Give us some more info and we can help out.
Roseville - homes tend to be built after 1950. Very little free land. Good access to St. Paul and Minneapolis, but definately feels like a suburb. Decent bus access. Good mall type shopping.
Shoreview - much farther out of the city than most of what you are talking about. Lots of newer expensive homes. Northern suburbs upscale (which isn’t the same as Southern suburbs upscale).
Vadnais Heights - Shoreview 10 miles east. Farther out than it looks on a map. But a nice neighborhood (one of my girlfriends lives there).
Como/St. Anthony/Phalen - Inner city homes primarily built before 1930. All have wonderful parks close by. St. Anthony is the most upscale. Phalen and Como both vary a lot by block, with some really nice neighborhoods, and some unkept neighborhoods. St. Paul public schools aren’t bad for metro public schools, but I moved to the 'burbs in part to get away from metro schools.
Home prices in the city have gotten ridiculous. They’ve remained slightly more affordable in the burbs - especially East and North.
Oops–it’s St. Anthony Park in St. Paul. St. Anthony Main is an area of Minneapolis near the old mills and the river. That’s a nice place, too, IMO. It’s where Minneapolis shoots its fireworks from. You could walk downtown from there! And, of course, there is also the city of St. Anthony, which I believe you mentioned.
Have you considered looking farther west–Fridley, New Brighton, Columbia Heights, NE Minneapolis, etc.? Fridley has a lot of light industry, and probably a greater than average need for technical writers. Medtronic’s world headquarters is there, along with United Defense and many, many more companies, including the one my husband works for (he is a mechanical engineer). That area is a very convenient commute to downtown Minneapolis, too–you can take city streets or I-94 (I have never seen congestion on that road between I-694 and downtown Minneapolis–for whatever reason, they had the foresight to build that particular area 8-10 lanes wide!) My aunt lives in Northeast Minneapolis, and she loves it there. There are some good, solid neighborhoods in that area. I-694 runs through that area, too, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get to White Bear Lake.
Ack - bad commute, bad commute. 694 goes to ONE lane between Fridley and Roseville. One of the TCs worst commutes (nothing compared to the Bay, but 30 minutes to go 6 miles - and the Bay doesn’t get much snow, at least three days a year you need to triple your commute time). And the backroads are really bad up there, few direct East West roads.
My parents are in Lino Lakes, close to White Bear, and just a hop skip and a jump (via Cty J) from Fridley and Medtronic. But one hell of a commute from Bloomington, where there are lots of technical jobs.
It does? Maybe my memory is completely off, but I don’t remember that! I think that it does narrow to two lanes after you get to I-35W. I will admit that I don’t commute, though, and I rarely go east of Snelling Ave. on I-694 anyway, so I don’t have much of an idea of rush-hour congestion to White Bear Lake.
It looks like, from my map, that you can take I-35W north (easier than going south, probably) from I-694 to Highway 96, and Highway 96 will take you straight to White Bear Lake. Maybe that would be better–I don’t know.
Its right around there (Snelling) that it does go to one lane (well, two lanes, but one is an exit lane). I used to have staff at Medtronic I’d take out to lunch when I was working from home and take 694 over and back. Eastbound wasn’t bad IIRC, but Westbound was bad even at 11:00.
Sorry about the absence - and excellent thoughts, all. Here’s the Dope on me:
Young couple, no kids. No plans for kids in the nearish foreseeable future. Probably 2 cars, but there is a chance we’ll just have one. Just looking to rent for right now, but we’d prefer to rent a house/duplex/townhome rather than another apartment (we’re really rather sick of the apartment thing). And I know about the commute - I’m screwed either way. We grew up around the Eau Claire area, and my parents have long held Vikings season tickes (going on 17 yrs. now!), so I know the area, kinda. I mean, I can get to the airport, the Dome, MOA, Target Centre, and maybe Ordway (with help!). That’s why I’m relying on you good people for info. And my husband magnanimously said that he’d be willing to drive 10 - 15 minutes to work. Thanks. At that rate, we’ll live right next to your workplace, hon.
So here’s what we’ve got so far - avoid immediately north and south of 1-94 (and it’ll be a bitch if I have to drive it). Shoreview good, but farther out than I’m thinking. Phalen/Como/St. Anthony - all pretty good bets (mmm…MN State Fair fries). NE Mpls - nice. I hadn’t thought too much of this, thinking it too far out for Mr. Snicks, but Fridley and Columbia Heights do look nice. We’ll have to re-evaluate that decision.
Here’s the weird stuff - the spouse really likes living in the city (we’re both from very rural, small town western WI). I think he’d go hard for living either downtown St. Paul or Mpls (as would I), but on the other hand, we’re tired of the apt thing and I love looking at stars. Should we maybe rethink that decision too and look closer at the downtowns?
Western Wisconsin (Hudson) if you want to skip the whole city thing. White Bear is very commutable (is that a word?) from Hudson. I can get to the Woodbury shopping areas in 15 min., downtown St. Paul in 20 min., downtown Mpls. in 25-30 min., taking I-94 straight through. There is a lot, I do mean a lot, of new housing going up in Hudson right now, you will have no problem finding a house/duplex/townhome to rent or buy.
What am I doing? I hate the influx of people to my once small town. But if you are looking for a decent place to live, look at Hudson too.