Also, there are too many suburbs in this town. I tried my best here.
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| [Richfield dreams.] |
TWIN CITY SUBURB POWER RANKINGS
1. Richfield -- your urban hometown, now with awesome bike lanes; this is best suburb these days
2. Hopkins -- by far the most rental and affordable housing in any suburb, plus tons of bike trails, and soon to have a light rail train
3. Miesville -- best ballpark and burger combo in the state
4. Robbinsdale -- lovely main street with great food
5. North St. Paul -- lovely main street with OK food
6. Excelsior -- quaint-if-far-too-bougie perfectly situated walkable downtown on the lake; they have parking meters for boats!
7. St. Louis Park -- they really are trying, honestly
8. Roseville -- sometimes sort of has sidewalks, nice lake and parks
9. Wayzata -- awesome lakefront downtown and bike trail; the people tho…
10. Bloomington -- sometimes sort of has sidewalks, nice rivers, close to other cities, has light rail
11. Hastings -- amazing riverfront downtown history, many walkable sidewalks
12. Willernie -- one-of-a-kind place with cool dive bars to boot
13. Shakopee -- historic river downtown with sidewalks
14. South St. Paul -- some great sidewalks; weird enough to be cool
15. Columbia Heights -- has sidewalks, old theater, diversity and awesome strip mall shops
16. West St. Paul -- sidewalks, diversity, some historic bits
17. Lauderdale -- no sidewalks but a bizarre pocket between STP and MPLS with great views of industry and freeways
18. Stillwater -- great historic river downtown with sidewalks, but that bridge tho
19. Chaska -- great historic river downtown with sidewalks
20. Nowthen -- best name
21. Lilydale -- scenic, has the benefit of not really existing
22. Hilltop -- the only suburb 100% surrounded by another suburb; has a Flame Burger!
23. White Bear Lake -- quaint walkable downtown, a little too quaint
24. Anoka -- i want to hate it but i can’t hate the historic downtown
25. Burnsville -- well, they tried
26. Falcon Heights -- if only there were somewhere to go; this really should be part of STP
27. Shoreview -- best off-street suburb bike lanes in the state, every ‘burb should do this
28. Fridley -- kind of like a city, i guess
29. Newport -- quaint town right on the river, if only it didn’t smell so bad
30. Brooklyn Park -- the most diverse suburb, now with a City Council that's not all white!
31. Mendota -- the smallest town closest to the big city
32. Mound -- best mini golf in the state
33. Afton -- good place to bike to or to be from
34. Landfall -- lake and 10 mile per hour streets!
35. Dayton -- i like a bar there
36. Brooklyn Center -- i hear it’s cool but cannot personally say
37. Mendota Heights -- i grew up here
38. Coon Rapids -- has a nice a roller rink
39. Edina -- has a nice library
40. Inver Grove Heights -- the part along the river is cool
41. Chanhassen -- good ads for the theater, i guess, some sidewalks in farm fields
42. Coates -- great bar in the shadow of the refinery
43. Lakeville -- at least they built an arts center
44. Apple Valley -- if you can find the park, it’s cool
45. Maple Grove -- they tried to create a downtown sort of
46. St. Paul Park -- right on the river is nice
47. Little Canada -- the other Flame Burger!
48. St. Bonifacius -- cute place to bike to
49. Marine on St. Croix -- also a cute place to bike to
50. Plymouth -- i have heard there are lakes here, minus points for having opt-out buses
51. Elko New Market -- i biked to the speedway once
52. Cottage Grove -- a least there’s an old street
53. Maplewood -- should really be Saint Paul
54. Scandia -- quaint, and they have a bike rack now
55. Medicine Lake -- hosted the Art Shanties a few times
55. Medicine Lake -- hosted the Art Shanties a few times
56. Shorewood -- not to be confused with Shoreview, they’ll have you know
57. Golden Valley -- they invented the Minnesotan corporate campus
58. Victoria -- I like the brewery
59. Ramsey -- Anoka’s evil twin
59. Ramsey -- Anoka’s evil twin
60. Forest Lake -- i bought something on Craigslist here once and it was a weird experience
61. Woodbury -- yeah
62. Eagan -- not a fan
63. Oak Park Heights -- I blame them for the bridge somehow
64. Medina -- like Edina but worse
65. Eden Prairie -- Bearpath is in this
66. Crystal -- i think i went here once
67. Dellwood -- points for having my Grandpa’s name
68. Minnetonka -- birthplace of LeAnn Chin’s
69. Oakdale -- nothing to report
70. Vadnais Heights -- tore down the best dive bar in town
71. Blaine -- good place to play soccer
72. Spring Lake Park -- used to have a decent mini golf course but it was torn down
73. Rosemount -- worse than Lakeville, somehow
74. St. Anthony -- despite some sidewalks, everything is bad here
75. Farmington -- is like it sounds
76. Sunfish Lake -- a lake surrounded by millionaires with good lawyers
77. Circle Pines -- not sure where this is
78. Deephaven -- if you can find it, you must live there
79. Arden Hills -- their City Council seems terrible
80. Hugo -- good awards ceremony
81. Lino Lakes -- everyone here voted for Trump
82. East Bethel -- everyone here voted for Trump
83. Independence -- everyone here voted for Trump
84. Rogers -- the only things people care about here are freeways and fences
85. Ham Lake -- five-car garages are the norm
86. North Oaks -- Jim Crockarell lives here
87. Lake Elmo -- the worst
UNRANKED
(lack of information)
I don’t know where these are or haven’t intentionally been and don't really plan on it either
Mounds View --
New Brighton --
Savage --
Tonka Bay --
Jordan --
Andover --
Bayport --
Belle Plaine --
Bethel --
Birchwood Village --
Carver --
Centerville --
Champlin --
Cologne --
Orono --
Osseo --
Columbus --
Mahtomedi --
Minnetonka Beach --
Minnetrista --
Maple Plain --
Corcoran --
Gem Lake --
Grant --
Greenfield --
Greenwood --
Hamburg --
Hampton --
Lake St. Croix Beach --
Lakeland --
Lakeland Shores --
Lexington --
Long Lake --
Loretto --
Mayer --
New Germany --
New Hope --
New Trier --
Norwood Young America --
Oak Grove --
Pine Springs --
Randolph --
Spring Park --
St. Francis --
St. Marys Point --
Vermillion --
Waconia --
Watertown --
Woodland --
A lot of these I have never heard of don't think I would count many as suburbs, Miesville? how is that a suburb? Why isn't St Paul on the list?
ReplyDeleteI would rank Richfield a little lower and Victoria a lot higher, its easy to bike to and near my favorite nature preserve. Hopkins for the win, obviously :-).
Interesting thought exercise.
Doesn't Northfield belong somewhere on this list?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see Meisville on here too, but I guess since it's technically in Dakota County it counts as part of the metro...as opposed to Northfield.
ReplyDeleteNorthfield is statutorily defined as not part of the metro area for state purposes, even though 1/3 of the City lies in Dakota County. In any case, the best parts are in Rice County.
ReplyDeleteNot sure it helps any, but St. Louis County, MO (it surrounds the city of St. Louis, which is also, legally, a county in Missouri) had at one point 96 municipalities, but that was just in ONE county, not an entire metro area. Nonetheless, I agree – there are far too many on this list, and like many a suburb in many a metro area, most of them don't really have a reason to exist beyond the egos of a few local politicians.
ReplyDeleteLOL! This is great! (I'm SLP, btw. We are trying.) 81 to 83... say no more
ReplyDeleteThis is the most obtuse list I've ever read...
ReplyDeleteHOPKINS!
ReplyDeleteA couple of notes:
ReplyDeleteHilltop - Notable for being mostly composed of several trailer parks. Kind of interesting if nothing else. In addition to the Flame Burger, there's a motel that gets frequent Police calls.
Saint Paul Park - should get some points for being host to a liveaboard marina (Hidden Harbor Marina), that's kind of neat (Saint Paul has one too, of course. Lilydale used to I think.).
Lino Lakes - Hammerheart Brewing is kind of cool, but it does seem pretty awful otherwise. I don't know why they chose that location
This was a fun read :)
tanx
ReplyDelete