Moving to the Twin Cities

Chaska is a great area and I love the schools very impressed with how nice the people are. With the new highway 212 shopping is close by. If you have any other questions feel free to email me ____@____.com

If you are looking in the western suburbs, you might want to look at Plymouth/Maple Grove area. There is all kinds of shopping up here. Plus they are currently building a new hospital. Plymouth was recently voted the #1 city of live in in the country. The towns are located north of Minnetonka off of Highway 494. Commuting to Minneapolis is easily done either via Highway 94 or Highway 55 which runs south east. Hope that helps. Good luck with your move!

I lived in a Chicago suburb until I was nine and still have family there. My father's job relocated him to Minnetonka. I went to the U and my husband and I have lived close to Minnetonka, but when needed a bigger place decided to move back. We love it here!

You are right with the school district. We really feel like we are getting a private school education even though it is public school. We may be biased since we graduated here, but they continue to make impovements and stay current with the technology.

We also like the area because it is clean and people are friendly. I don't really know much about Mound. Seems nice too, just never lived there. My sister in law lives in Minnetrista. They got more home for their money and loved it at first, but now hate the commute! It didn't bother them at first, but when it is day in and day out it really gets to them.

Hey, Carrie! My hubby and I have been in the Twin Cities for quite some time now and have lived in several of the suburbs (Burnsville, Edina, Minneapolis, and Fridley for the most part). We chose to buy a home in Fridley as it's where my hubby grew up and is more of a middle-class suburb (plus the elementary school just a few blocks from our home has been winning awards for excellence for the last five years or more). However, if you're trying to decide between Minnetonka and Mound, I can give you a bit of information on those two. I worked for the Minnetonka school district for a while and yes, they are one of the "better" school districts. That's due greatly to the fact that the district includes several of the wealthiest suburbs (Excelsior, Shorewood, etc.). Minnetonka is a bit of a "snootier" suburb, so it may be a little harder for you to meet people there. Mound is just quite a bit smaller than Minnetonka, but with the same general attitude from the people, so you might have a bit of trouble connecting there as well. That being said, both are nice areas to live in with beautiful lakes, parks, etc. As long as you're willing and able to make the effort (volunteering in the schools is one possible way), then you should be able to make some connections. If you're interested in looking at other suburbs, I can recommend Bloomington and Edina as being nice, somewhat-wealthier suburbs with great schools. Burnsville and Eagan are also really nice and fall more into the middle-class catergory.

Good luck with the move and if you do find that you're having trouble meeting people, there's an online forum just for moms in MN (http://minnie-moms.com) that you could always join!

Carrie, we went through that years ago. I know how you feel. If both houses are equal in your eyes, then I would say it would depend on what lifestyle you want. Mound is very diverse economically - very wealthy on the lake and middle class the rest. Also very small town and less convenient to shopping/dining etc. Minnetonka is middle class, upper middle class (in comparison) and nice location to just about everything. Both have good school districts. Minnetonka is very large, population-wise, Mound is very small. It depends on what you are used to. If you lived in Chicago suburbs before and liked that lifestyle, then Minnetonka is for you. If you are trying to "get away from it all" but not be too far from downtown, then you'll like Mound better. Hope that helps! Personally, I love St. Louis Park. Top 100 cities in the country for kids and VERY convenient to everything.

We recently were relocated to the twin cities for my husband's work, after living in Cincinnati and the Los Angeles area. After much deliberation, we chose Shakopee. Eden Prairie is really nice to, as is Chaska. The twin cities are very spread out, and I remember how hard it was to narrow down our search. We ended up renting for this first year to get the lay of the land and decide exactly what neighborhood and schools we wanted for our kids. God bless!!! You'll make the right decision!!!

I'm someone who has lived in various places: LA, Philly, Providence, Baltimore, Des Moines, etc all before coming to the Twin Cities. I'd really recommend that you rent for at least 6 months - 1 year before you make a decision on where to live. Yes, you'd have to move twice but the good thing is that it will give you time to figure out where you want to be. (Rather like dating before committing to marriage.)

When we moved here in 1998, we found everyone's advice to be rather confusing because everyone recommended where they were living (which was all over the area, from St. Paul/ Woodbury/Eagan to Apple Valley/Lakeville/Burnsville to Minnetonka/Bloomington/Edina/Hopkins/St. Louis Park. They are all good places to live. The problem is that you usually don't know what you want and what you're willing to sacrifice for it, until you've lived someplace a while.

Some suggested questions:
1)How much time do you/hubby want to spend with the family? That would factor into your commute time. And the commute time does matter when winter comes and it begins to snow. There are very few roads around the lakes and very few bridges across the rivers. These will matter when the weather gets bad.

2)What kind of activities/hobbies do you like to do? How far away are they from your intended location?

3)Do you have any friends/acquaintances already in the area? if so, how often do you want to be able to see them.

4)Are there any health concerns in your family? Is there a specialist or clinic that is recommended for that medical condition and how close is it?

5)Most people no longer stay at their jobs for a lifetime. If you or your husband decide to leave your job, where are other jobs in your field located in the twin cities? Are they on the western side of town, eastern side, southern, etc.

6)In terms of housing, do you have certain "deal breakers" . For example, some people with young children do not want to live next to a swimming pool, a pond or a lake (we live next to all 3 in West Bloomington and we have a 3 yr old child). Do you plan to stay in this house forever, or move within the next 3-5 years? Where is the house in terms of flight path of the airplane noise? Yes, there are actually maps on the web which map this out. We consulted them when we initially thought of building or buying a house in Eagan, MN.

We were initially intending on living in Eagan (A suburb of St. Paul which is on the east side of the twin cities.) We decided to rent in Burnsville (the southern end of the twin cities) for 6 months. This gave us time to "try out" all of the suburbs, visit people we became friends with in the various areas and then we decided to nix our initial idea of building a house and instead bought an "older" 1973 home in W Bloomington. This is so far from what we thought we would do when we first moved here and it only took us 6 months to change our mind. And yes, school district was important to us even back then---not because we had any children but because of the resale value of the house in case we ever decided to move. But we love it here, we love our neighbors and we love our pool, our pond and Hyland Lake which is behind our neighborhood. We never knew this existed when we first came to MN. We only discovered it over time.

So, good luck,
C.

Carrie,
I live in Minnetrista/Mound and love the area. But... we do drive A LOT. The area does have most of what you'd need, however as the kids become involved and more serious in certain unique activities, your choices can be somewhat limited. We drive to Minnetonka for skating, Wayzata for dance, Eden Prairie for MyGym etc. For mall shopping it's a bit of a drive as well. We pretty much take the stance that no matter what we'll usually have to drive about 30 minutes to get where we need to go, but for us it's worth it to live where we want to live. Mound is a great, growing community with amazing schools. It is also extremely diverse economically (as others have said).

It can be an amazing community especially if you don't have other ties in the Twin Cities yet, but I can't say that I don't wish we lived closer to things sometimes (especially with friends spattered all over the twin cities). If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

M.

We just moved to Excelsior (kind of between Minnetonka and Mound) and we love it! We moved here b/c of the schools - our daughter started K this fall - and have been very happy! Shopping here is great - except there isn't a mall close by -- Ridgedale is closest - it is in Mtka - but is only about 20 minutes away. SuperTarget, CUB foods, restaurants, etc. are lots closer. Minnetrista is a bit further out but is really pretty!

If you're concerned about access, I would definitely recommend Minnetonka over Mound. We just bought a house and we looked at a beautiful house in Mound, too - but it really is pretty far out. Minnetonka is pretty centrally located - a pretty easy drive into Minneapolis, but also into other larger suburbs like Eden Prairie.

Another concern for me when we looked in Mound is that the lakes limit access - it looked like there was just one road in and out. This is really obvious if you go to googlemaps.com and enter Mound, MN. I can't say for sure, since we didn't buy out there, but it's definitely something to consider.

Good luck with your search, and welcome to Minnesota!

K.

Mound is a haul because there is really no quick way to get there. You wind around the lakes on 30 mile an hour roads, and in the winter can take hours to get anywhere. I speak from experience as my oldest son's dad lived in Mound and I had to drive from Wayzata to Mound to pick him up one winter evening and it took me 2 hours to get to his place because the roads were that bad. Minnetonka can be the same way with winding roads, but not as far out. I grew up North West of the Twin cities in St. Michael, which is a fabulous close community, but growing fast. Only 30 minute Drive to Downtown from there. I currently live in North Minneapolis, and love it here as I am close to everything! Anywhere I want to go around the cities is within 1/2 hour drive tops. Have you looked South MPls Edina area? There are beautiful old homes with a lot of character near or on beautiful lakes. Look near Lake Nokomis. That is a very popular trendy area. I also agree with another post that Plymouth/ Maple grove are great places to live. My aunt and uncle live on Weaver Lake in Maple Grove and love it there. I would make sure you do a lot of shopping around before you settle on your place here. Talk to a local realtor who knows the area. If you need reccomendation let me know.

Carrie:
First of all -- good luck to you in the move! I know you will really enjoy the Mpls/StP area! There are many nice places to live in the area. I personally like the Maple Grove/Plymouth area. Its in the NW corner of the metropolitan area. Depending on where your hubby will work, will depend on the commute. Its about a 20 minute drive to downtown Mpls from Maple Grove/Plymouth. If he will work on the St. Paul side, I would recommend Woodbury...but I don't know the St. Paul side of the cities as much.
Minnetonka is nice, but personally its older and very populated. Plymouth is part of the Wayzata School District and Maple Grove is part of Osseo School District. Both are very good. Good luck!

I grew up in the South Suburbs of Chicago and have been in Minnesota for quite some time. I really miss Chicago-atmosphere,friends,family,food etc.

I have to say though now that I'm a mom I would never want to raise my child in Chicago. MN is such a safe, happy, green, friendly, place to raise children and the school system here is outstanding. Minnesota has very strong communitites, lots of neat things to go and see and it's not as large as like downtown Chicago so it's nothing to go dwntwn Mpls.

Minnetonka,Minnetrista,St.Louis Park, Hopkins, Plymouth area is a great place to live.

I have lived in the twin cities my entire life. First let me say that anything you can do to cut down your commute should be done. Traffic around here is horrible, even during slow times/non-rush hour. I don't know anything about Mound except it is quite a way out. Minnetonka is central to a lot of things. It's quick to get to three different malls from there including Mall of America. It's very pretty and the school district is good. I live in West Bloomington which is centrally located, and love the convenience to everything and our kids' school. Maybe rent first until you get to know the area? Good luck!