The main con for a hacker is that the tech scene is grim. The jobs are very boring and the salaries in general are pretty bad. In addition, the jobs that do exist are usually really out in the burbs. Every so often I go through the motions of creating a cost of living spreadsheet and even with the cheaper cost of housing, when I factor in car ownership and utilities I still seem to come out behind with the lower salaries. On the other hand, the bar seems to be pretty low for getting a home loan. I have a college friend who is an unemployed music instructor who "owns" a home in Powderhorn, and the person who cuts my hair in Brooklyn actually lives in Northeast and makes enough to money cutting hair 5 days a month in Brooklyn to cover her mortgage.
I don't agree that MPLS has great nightlife but there is a much better local music scene than any other place I've ever lived. The reason is that you can afford to rent a house with a basement in which to practice your drum kit on a drummer's salary. I also would not say there is great public transportation. The bike friendliness is awesome, though.
It's a little odd to put the whole north midwest into one group, each of those towns are hundreds of miles apart from each other. The culture can be quite different. I never felt MPLS had much in common with Chicago, for example.
Nitelife, music scene, etc. are all criteria I pulled from Joe's article. I'm not particularly into the "bar scene", but I do know that entertainment (theater, music, etc.) is top notch.
I agree that bunching all of these cities together is kind of dodgy, but I get the feeling that most everyone that writes posts like Joe's are from the edges of the country and I personally would love to see the middle of the country represented more here. So I grouped the entire middle together. :)
In Portland you can go out for a wonderful $50+ per plate meal in t-shirt, jeans, and a multi-inch-long beard. In Minneapolis the only other bearded guy in the bar I was at was the drunk that wandered in off the street and promptly got thrown out, and I think his beard was better groomed than mine. Definitely the cleanest city I've ever been in.
However, when I asked for local beer, I was given a bottle some fairly unexciting porter from New York for $8. A 22oz bottle of Deschutes Abyss costs $11 in Portland...I didn't want to become a beer snob; it's just hard not to.
Minneapolis is (or at least seems) far more diverse than Portland. Except for certain areas in North and far SE, Portland is excruciatingly white.
There may not be any 14k foot mountains in the Midwest, but pretty much the entire northeast corner of Minnesota is covered in forests, lakes, and parks. Not the Pacific Northwest but still impressive. Minneapolis also recently stole Bicycling Magazine's #1 Bike City award from Portland. I think that was enough to scare our mayor into raiding the sewer fund to improve the bike infrastructure.
I saw a hipster in Minneapolis riding his fixie in just a hoodie (no gloves) in sub-20 degree weather with snow on the ground... It may be cold there, but the natives don't seem to mind.
Not sure where you went, because even most chains have Summit in the twin cities. And you can definitely find places that at least come close to stacking up against the Colorado/Oregon scenes.
> I saw a hipster in Minneapolis riding his fixie in just a hoodie (no gloves) in sub-20 degree weather with snow on the ground... It may be cold there, but the natives don't seem to mind.
Also, they plow the bike paths with bobcats, often faster than the roads. Studded tires are rarely needed, although watch out for hardened ice shelves flinging you into the middle of the lane :)
Minneapolis is really really nice... from May to September =).
yellowblkpk i'm assuming you live in the twin cities too, do we have good meetups tailored to an HN like community here? i haven't found anything good yet.
We are here, come find us:)
I organize PyMNtos
If you want a tech scene to happen, you need to WORK to make it happen. Or just complain about it and move to a city where someone else has already done all the work.
However, I did make visit before the winter. Not sure how I'd feel about that aspect.
Other commenters have mentioned the brutally cold winters (seriously spit goes clink), but they fail to mention that the summers suck too. Humid and over a hundred. Don't bother fighting, the mosquitos will win. Land of 10,000 standing pools of water! I'd rather spend a summer in Phoenix.
Pros:
- If you like seasons, you get them.
- Excellent beer. Many bars. Great nitelife.
- Clean. No poop on the streets, even in the worse parts of the city.
- Great public transportation (except Milwaukee).
- Cheap rent (2BR for $1500 along the river with a view of the skyline)
- Many excellent CS departments in-state and in the states surrounding. (UW-Madison, UIUC, UMN)
Cons:
- Tech scene is slowly simmering. Madison's is growing like a weed, but elsewhere it's quite slow.
- Not as much outdoorsey stuff to do as in the Pacific Northwest, but there's still enough to do (skiing, fishing, hiking, biking, etc. -- just not on 14kfoot mountains)