I spent my first 21 years there and didn't appreciate it as much as I do now many years later. Every time I go back to visit I'm reminded of what a great place it is and how real the people are. I've lived and travelled all over the U.S. and I find the people there to be as straightforward and genuine as anywhere I've been. I now live in Seattle where the home prices seem to be about 2-3 times what you'd pay for a nice place in the Twin Cities. Why, then, do I live in Seattle? Because I can't handle those sub-zero winters and the heat of summer! But if you like the changes of season, you're going to love this. There are many nice areas, and I am reluctant to suggest many because the two cities and their many suburbs are really spread out, and it would help if you could be a little more specific about where your husband will be working because I assume he would want to keep his commute to a reasonable length. I'll get started, though, by suggesting that the Como Lake area in St. Paul is a nice place to consider. Also, I've included a link which gives a lot of helpful info about the area.

Here is a link that might be useful: Minesota city data

We lived in St. Paul from 1996-end of 2004 and found that it was a very welcoming community. It's big enough to have lots of diversity, but small enough so that things like traffic aren't horrible. Housing costs are lower than Chicago, where we live now. We're old house lovers and during the time in St. Paul, we lived in 2 different old homes. If you are an old house person, in St. Paul look anywhere fromt the cathedral to the Miss. River. In Minneapolis, look in SE Minneapolis. The metro area has suburbs just like any place but we found that most of them are farms that were converted to subdivisions. i.e. no mature trees. Outdoor activities are huge! Whether it be winter or summer, people spend time outside...gardening, fishing, hunting etc etc. We have a friend who's in a softball league that plays on the frozen lakes in winter!

We left the area because I couldn't stand the length of winter. I've always lived in the midwest, but when you can't regularly wear shorts in the evening after Labor Day and then can't start wearing them again in evenings until late May/early June, winter is long!

If you/your husband decide to live in a location where you'd have to take highway 100 to get to work, think twice about your living location. This highway and it's congestion are one of the worst in the US and it's going to be an awful project when they start work to widen it.

When you get specific questions, please post and we'll try and answer them.

I've lived in the Mpls/St. Paul my whole life so I have nothing really objective to compare it to but I love it here. Even though the winters are long- I do love them and would really miss them if I moved somewhere without. It does get ond in February! But we have a lot of great indoor areas (Edinborough Park, Como Park Conservatory, several water parks, the amusement park at MOA, Minnesota Zoo) and parks to help get us through the winter and tons of fun outdoor activites to take advantage of the season. They do the winter carnival and other outdoor winter celebrations big here.

Nice neighborhoods- it really depends on what you're looking for. One of my personal favorites is the Bryn Mawr neighborhood in Minneapolis. Very small town feel but very urban at the same time. Backs up to beautiful parks on the east and west sides (Bryn Mawr meadows- recreation- and Theo Wirth Park with the Elosie Butler Wildflower Garden). Lots of bike trails, walking paths, wild life, etc. Very involved neighborhood association, lots of fun activites. A small downtown area with a great coffee shop, garden store, market, pizza joint. It really is a great place.

Living close to your dh's work is a good idea. Traffic in general is pretty bad and it seems to be getting worse. Hwy 100 was just recently widened and it's not nearly as bad now. Hwy 169 is. So is the crosstown (62). Traffic south of the river (cities of Savage, Shakopee, Apple Valley, Burnsville) have really only two routes north to Minneapolis so I wouldn't recommend living there if he's going to be driving north into the city.

The real estate market in general is pretty slow and will be getting much, much slower in the next few weeks. Between the holidays and winter (which can be pretty harsh) things drop off dramatically. Typically, the homes that are on the market are ones that need to sell (owners transfered, estate, foreclosure, etc.) Your choices will be smaller but you might have a bit more leverage. It won't pick up again until the weekend after the Super Bowl. The last I saw there were almost 10 homes per buyer out there so it's very much a buyers market right now.

I've got to get my kids off to school so I've got to wrap this up but I'll be back late with some links. If you can let me know what area your husband will be working in I can find specific links for info on surrounding areas.

Here is a link that might be useful: A beautiful urban park

I apologize in advance if this is overkill- here are a bunch of websites with some good information for your research.

Minneapolis neighborhoods:(Personal favorite- Bryn Mawr, Tangletown, Northeast, North Loop)
http://neighborhoods.minneapolis.org/
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/neighborhoods/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhoods_of_Minneapolis

About Minneapolis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis

About St. Paul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Paul,_Minnesota
http://www.saint-paul.com/index.php

St. Paul neighborhoods: (Personal favorites are Como Park, Mac/Groveland, St. Anthony and I love the Grand Avenue area)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul_neighborhoods

This is a weekly community newspaper. It covers about 44 suburban communities. If you're interested in a specific suburb, it'll give you a peek into what's going on there. If you click on Community News near the top, you'll get a drop down of all the communities it covers and a link to that specific communities paper. Personal favorite is Hopkins
http://www.mnsun.com/

Weekly Minneapolis Arts and Entertainment newspaper. I love City Pages- it's a fun resource. In addition to the weekly, they put out several annual editions that you might find helpful: The Annual Manual and The Best of Twin Cities.
http://citypages.com/annual/
http://www.citypages.com/bestof2006/
http://www.citypages.com/

If you are planning on raising children in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area, make sure you do your homework. Someone recently told me they knew someone who would not come to the area because they heard the schools were so bad. Not so, depending on where you go. The suburban Minneapolis schools usually far outshine the Minneapolis-proper schools and are actually ranked quite well.

I goofed - when I said Hwy 100 was bad, I meant the Crosstown Hwy 62. Sorry.

Minnesota schools generally rank fairly high nationally. I think I heard 7th in the nation? That standing might be from a few years ago. Being a large metropolitan city- there are some Minneapolis schools that struggle. And some that are fabulous- both South and Southwest are highly regarded. Suburban districts- Edina, Wayzata, St. Louis Park to name a few are also well regarded. This school search tool is pretty objective.

Here is a link that might be useful: School search

Great towns! Wonderful Arts scene. But bring your long johns - 30 below (real temperature - not wind chill) was not as uncommon as I would have liked! I thought Golden Valley was beautiful, but I lived there in the 80s. Don't know what it's like now.

sparksals, can you give us an idea about where your husband will work? There are many wonderful neighborhoods all around the St. Paul / Minneapolis metro, but you will not want to travel diagonally (live in the northwest and work in the southeast, for example). Mass transit is improving, but that's one downside - despite the size of the area, light rail is slooooow to grow, and most people still require a car to get where they need to go.

On the plus side? Great schools, clean air and water (it's more like 15,000 lakes than 10,000, and many right in the cities), thriving fine arts communities, wonderful theatres and museums, skyways downtown to keep you sheltered from the winter wind and cold, professional sports teams... oh, I could go on and on. I love it here!

Politically very progressive, still a strong Scandinavian Socialist tradition, with many newcomers from all over the world (and much improved food!) lately.

But, be careful about your housing location relative to the airport. It is right next to the city. This is convenient, but can wake you out of a nice sleep when NW starts landing planes at 45 second intervals at 5:40 AM. Oh, they try to stop by 11 PM or so. Grrrrr.

-Lena

Here is a link that might be useful:

Sorry to mistype.
-Lena

kudzu9 - thank you so much! I can relate to the feeling of appreciating a wonderful place after you leave. I am from Canada and have never been so patriotic until I left.

I don't know the exact address where dh will be working, but I'm told it's in St. Paul. I know M/SP are called the twin cities. Are they close together, like suburbs of each other? Or do you have to drive a ways to get btwn the two?

How old of an area is Como Lake? Thank you for hte link! I'll be sure to check it out!

kec01 - thanks for the important tip about Hwy 100! We're not really old house people, but we don't want a new subdivision with no trees either.

I'm actually used to what you described. The more I hear about it, the more it sounds like my hometown, Calgary, Canada. thank you!!

mcsnookerson - we think that we'll start looking in the spring. We dont have an exact date for dh's transfer, he has to get some further education that is required and he will be gone from here for 4 months, while i take care of selling the house and finding one there. So, it sounds like we'll be looking in just the right season! He will be working in St. Paul. I'm sure that's too general , but hopefully, i will get an area narrowed down so we can compare areas and commutes. Thank you so much for your response!

OH MY GOODNESS!! Thank you so much for all those links! NO! they are not overkill! They are just what I was looking for! Thank you!

overnunder- thanks for that tip. We don't have kids, but we do know that it's important to buy in a good school district when it comes to resale. Thanks for the tip!

deeje - we don't have alot of details yet, but hopefully we will know soon. All I know right now is St. Paul. How long have you been there?

Lena - what a fabulous tip about the airport! I remember driving on one of the M freeways outside of London and I couldn't believe all the planes coming in at what seemed like 10 second intervals!

For anyone in M/SP feel free to email me through my profile. I'd love to hear more!

I also have to say that no matter where I ask, I hear nothing but positive things about the area, despite the cold. I'm so excited to move to such a fantastic place and so close to my home and native land, ta boot!

I think the best real estate site for the Twin Cities is edinarealty.com - they have everyone's listings posted. Do an "Area Search" and then within St, Paul, I'd check neighborhoods Como, Highland, Crocus Hill, Mac/Groveland, Town and Country. That would give you a good assortment. If you'd like the name of a good realtor, I can provide one - a woman we worked with twice when living there and she's with Edina.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are side by side cities and the Mississippi River is the dividing line between the two. St. Paul is east, Mpls is west. St. Paul is the smaller of the two cities - I think the population is about 250,000. Woodbury is another suburb a few miles east of St. Paul. It's the St. Paul suburb with the most growth recently and it's where all the serious shopping is - Malls etc.

Hope this extra info is helpful!

kec - yes! Your info is VERY helpful! I talked to a guy at the pub last night who is from the area and he mentioned Woodbury too. I've heard Como from more than several people as well. Thanks for the listing info - I checked remax.com last night and I couldn't believe how much more house we can get for the money up there!

sparksals-
The Como Lake area is a mature, well-established area. Homes surrounding the lake are probably from the 1930's and later. St. Paul is the sleepier, quieter twin, but still quite nice. If your husband will be working in St. Paul, you will most likely want to settle there. You should get his job location and start focusing in on potential areas. The cities are entirely continuous...if it weren't for the Mississippi River, you wouldn't know you were passing from one to the other.

Kudzu - thank you for that info. We are looking for a well-established area. I'm not keen on older homes, but hey, my parent's house was built in 1965 and they can get 1.5 mill for it in Calgary. As long as it's not a fixer upper, that may be the plan.

I take it all ammenities are available in St. Paul or would we have to go to the other side to do major shopping/restaurants et al?

If someone says they are from the "Twin Cities" they are from a suburb. Any self-respecting Minneapolitan or St Paulite will make it clear that they are from Minneapolis or from St Paul, LOL, with much civic pride. There are still a very few acres between the two cities that have not been paved - ex. the Univ of MN farms near the State Fair Grounds.

You might also consider locations such as St Anthony VILLAGE (as compared to St Anthony Pk, a suburb), Falcon Heights, and Highland Park.


I take it all ammenities are available in St. Paul or would we have to go to the other side to do major shopping/restaurants et al?

This varies on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. With a few exceptions It is tough to find anything but the standardized chain restaurants and big box stores in the 'burbs. There is much more diversity in the city proper.

Check out the property tax levels too. The cities pay higher taxes for lower service; i.e. in Mpls it has taken three days to get plowed after a big snow. Day 1 is Snow emergency Routes, Day 2 is North-South street, Day 3 is East-West. Edina streets will be clear the next day. But with a good sled and well kept team of huskies you will be just fine. (That last sentence reflected the locals' tendency to exaggerate yet be proud of the climate extremes :-).

Seriously there is a phenomenon known as Minnesota-nice. I think it all comes from having to always be nice to everyone because you might have to ask them to help jumpstart your car, or push you out of a snowbank sometime. This can be annoying for people who are used to paying for their groceries without discussing their dinner plans with some unknown cashier.

-Lena, missing the homeland.

For better snow removal, live near the Governor's Mansion on Summit Ave in St. Paul. Streets are all cleaned on Day 1 around there!

Seriously, St. Paul is in Ramsey County and Minneapolis is in Hennepin - taxes will be different. Alot of Woodbury is very new (less than 15 years) and has much newer housing stock. I lived in St. Paul and it's a 15-20 min drive to all the shopping in Woodbury. We never found the Twin Cities in general to have huge diversity in restuarants etc until the last couple of years. Up until about 1990 there wasn't much ethnic diversity, but as that has changed, restaurant choices have expanded so you can eat out at a small variety of places now where you couldn't 10 years ago.

The phenomenon known as Minnesota nice is somewhat true - as a transplant I wouldn't have said it applied all the time, though. One thing about the overall area, though, is that you can still write checks to pay for things up there - including restaurants! Residents are trusted - what a concept!

If you have the chance to get up there to start poking around, do so. The good thing is that you'll be getting there in a buyer's market! Another thing - gardening is huge up there. If you are a yard person, you will find tons of places to shop and prices for plants etc are excellent.

Have fun starting to do your homework!

The Ramsey County Historical Society has online information about many of St. Paul's older neighborhoods - I think that the Como area is absolutely beautiful.

The map link below might help you get your bearings...

Here is a link that might be useful: Neighborhood maps and info from the City of St. Paul

sparksals-
When I said older, I didn't mean rundown. I meant quality, sometimes stately, homes in beautiful condition. And the older ones have often been beautifully updated. You won't be able to tell until you actually look if these meet your criteria. I've lived all over the U.S. and St. Paul has all the amenities that I can imagine one needs, but there's always Minneapolis if you want something exotic...say, yak butter. Since St. Paul is the capitol of the state and of decent size, it's not a 2nd-rate city.

Lena, your post made me laugh. I know exactly what you mean about needing someone to boost your car in the winter. I have found in this neck of the woods, it's more difficult to get to know the neighbours. I don't know if it's the culture here, but it really surprised me. I grew up on a street where the neighbours frequently would come out to help if you needed a boost or your walk shovelled.

I can also relate to the civic pride. I think it's similar to a Canadian making sure they are not mistaken for an American because we are Canadian, a different country.

kec - thanks for all that info. I am getting into gardening, but I haven't had much luck here in Tucson. I just don't have a solid grasp of what grows here and doesn't. I want all the colourful flowers we have at home, but they just don't grow here.

I went to the local Basha's grocery shopping one day in the early fall and I nearly jumped out of my pants when I saw rhubarb in the produce dept. When I went to check out, the young man said, "m'aam, I don't think your celery looks too good!" I explained to him what it was and he had never heard of it before. Just one of the differences in climate.

I can understand why gardening is so popular up there. the growing season must be short and people take advantage of it. In Calgary, restaurant patios are very popular because you can't sit outside in the winter. The season is so short there, that people are outside in the summer as much as they can to take advantage of the short warm season.

I have already started to do alot of research. I just started looking at MLS listings to compare what we can get there compared to here. We can definitely get more house for less money. That's a good thing!

deeje - thank you so much for those links! They are all very helpful. You're about the 10th person who told me that como is much desired. Do homes go up for sale often in that neighbourhood? I ask because my parent's area is very desirable and homes rarely go up for sale because once people move there, they stay. On the rare occasion a house is listed, it's gone before the sign can be put up and there are few contingencies because people just want to be in the area. My parents house is older, they are elderly, they updated years ago, but now those updates are out of date. They won't have to do anything to their home whatsoever and people will pay top dollar for it.

kudzu - I don't believe I implied older was rundown or that SP was a 2nd rate city. I'm just trying to get info about a new place that I've never been, but will be making my home. I don't know the size or what ammenities are available and I have lived in other places that seemed to be large enough to have everything, but didn't.

What is Yak Butter?

If you are flipping for rhubard, you will love the Farmer's Markets in both Mpls and St. Paul. St. Paul's has a requirement that all items sold must be grown or made in Minnesota. Mpls doesn't have the requirement so theirs has greater variety. The Farmer's Market season starts early in the spring with donuts and goes through the winter with meats (fresh turkeys at Thanksgiving!)

You have to be a Minnesota resident to learn about yak butter! It's right up there with lutefisk! Start listening to Prairie Home Companion on public radio on Sat. evenings. You'll be able to start your transition next weekend!

sparksals, it depends on what type of housing you like. There's a wide, WIDE variety of homes within a few miles of Como Park (as well as more lakes, a couple of colleges and the Minnesota State Fairgrounds).
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Actually, I live in a western suburb of Minneapolis, so I'm not as familiar with the specifics of the real estate market in the St. Paul area, but below is a link to the homes for sale in that zip code (three of which are the ones pictured).

Here is a link that might be useful: realtor.com link to the general area

All the best on your move!
-Lena

Here is a link that might be useful: How to talk Minnesotan

My Mom was born there and I have visited relatives there often. I love the beautiful old houses and what impresses me most is the friendliness of the people. Living in Chicago, I'm accustomed to really friendly people, but Minnesotans are particularly nice people!

Minnesota is a great place to live. But driving etiquette is a bit strange. When you come to a stop sign, everyone is polite and wants the other to go first - "You go. No you go. No you, I insist." But wait until you try to merge into traffic. Many don't seem to want to let you in, acting like you are budging in line to get popcorn at the theatre.

If you are looking at St. Paul, be prepared to learn a whole new way of understanding how streets run. Our former governor implied that the people that designed the streets in St. Paul were tipping a few when they did it. It is somewhat strange until you get the hang of it.

deeje - all three of those houses are really cute... really nice curb appeal!

Lena - Does that mean I'm gonna have to learn a new language? LOL

over/under - if I can get the hang of the streets in Seoul, Korea, I can get the hang of them anywhere!

Sparksals, Make sure you reread over/under's first paragraph about driving etiquette! Over/under wasn't kidding! Highway driving in the Twin Cities general area is the worst I've encountered in my life because there is no driving etiquette on highways - you have your life in your hands at all times because of the guy in the left lane going 45 or the girl in the right lane who won't let you enter or the moron who hops lanes at 70 miles an hour and weaves their way in and out! In my experience, there are more drivers like these than not! I've never heard a transplant to MN say they think MN drivers are good drivers!