Moving to Minnesota - Need help finding good communities

[vladlensky]

I'm in the reverse scenario, grew up in Plymouth, lived in Minneapolis and Hopkins then moved to the NYC metro for work. I feel better positioned to talk about MSP suburbs having lived there for many more years than out here in the East.

Plymouth, as others have already mentioned, is kind of your typical suburban area, there are a lot of housing developments and shopping plazas but no clearly defined central business district or 'Main Street'. Many areas of Plymouth don't even have sidewalks, so walkability is fairly low if that is a big concern for you. I would say the same for Eden Prairie and Maple Grove, however the latter two have a lot more to offer in terms of retail shopping. Public transit to and from these suburbs to downtown Minneapolis is good but virtually non-existent between the suburbs.

Hopkins and Wayzata, on the other hand have centralized business districts with 'main street' shopping and some higher density housing (apartments, condos), both are more walkable and Hopkins even has a direct bike greenway through the town and also that takes you into Minneapolis - one of the reasons I loved living there was that it was possible to get places without my car, or just enjoy the outdoors without worrying about being run over.

As others have mentioned, driving in MN is nothing like driving in NJ. While 5 miles in NJ can be painful, you can find yourself driving 15 miles in MN suburbs without realizing it - Freeways are wide open, and apart from rush hour traffic in and out of the metro you'll feel like parking and space in the suburbs to be plentiful in comparison. Running errands is pretty low hassle, whereas in NJ/NY it can be a major headache due to lack of parking and traffic.

I can't speak to the schools having neither attended them nor having kids attend them, so will leave that for others.

[Izzie1213]

It working in Plymouth and driving to and from Eden Prairie would be a pain. The traffic getting in and of some, if not most of Eden Prairie is really bad during rush hours. Just a heads up.