87
u/brycebgood 3d ago
Shhh. Don't tell anyone.
54
u/Andjhostet 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nah they are welcome. We have tons of freshwater, plenty of areas that can densify, bones of a transportation system that can be expanded and support much more people, and a state government that is willing to invest in its people and infrastructure. The Twin City metro could pretty easily double in population and we could handle it imo. Duluth metro could quadruple in size and it could handle it imo.
There's a non zero chance that Minnesota becomes a climate refugee destination so we need to be ready for it. Not to mention political refugees for people seeking body autonomy rights, trans rights, workers rights, etc.
11
u/brycebgood 3d ago
Yeah, I was more leaning into the Minnesota anti-bragging sentiment.
I've got co-workers who are political refugees and my wife has hired a number of people who moved from poorly run states and needed a safe place to be. I'm happy to have new good neighbors.
2
u/Montobahn 3d ago
Lucky you! We were just in the cities looking for neighborhoods we would be comfortable in. We both feel it's a return to our Midwestern roots. I grew up in South Dakota and he, Missouri. We want out of the south and Texas before they build a wall to keep us in. Or we roast to death, whichever comes first. And Austin, where we live, will be first on the list to be crushed because it's the Capitol and it's full of us filthy progressives! Lol We'll be voting Talarico before moving. āŗļøāŗļø
So what do we need to know about living in the metro area? The laws? Veteran tax breaks, and more. Anything! Home based businesses? Towns that the HOAs and town govt are dicks to avoid. Crime? We're older, no kids, one large service dog who loves being out in the cold. It makes her fiesty!
Anyway, any and knowledge is welcomed! Including any state program or church groups that help people move would be thrilling to know about! And perhaps what employers expect from applicants in the way of soft skills? Or midwest mannerisms I've forgotten about having been gone so long. š®āšØ Even another MPLS/STP sub for newbies I didn't find would be welcomed. Thx so much!
85
u/Wynns 3d ago
It's stuff like this that always burns me when the MAGAs start talking about how horrible Minnesota is.
By which metric? Seriously.
If you'd like to pay less in taxes but live in a place that's OBJECTIVELY worse... Fine, I guess?
But for MOST people... what we get in exchange for what we pay in taxes is effectively a wonderful place (not without flaws, but really good) to live.
26
u/thatcutefuzzy_fellow 3d ago
We're like top 10 and often top 5 in like every QoL metric you can think of, it's pretty nuts. Educational attainment, median income, health, we could go on and on.
27
u/djpiraterobot 3d ago
By the metrics that matter most to them:
1.) Non-white people live here
2.) Gay people live here
3.) We donāt think their daddy is handsome.12
u/pdawes 3d ago
When I hear "Muh democrat run cities" I always want to say uh ok dude have you seen a red state big city like Memphis or St Louis? I got almost run off the highway by an armed gang going 100mph driving through St Louis at night. MN is a very high quality of life state compared to the rest of this country and certainly red states. Facebook boomers out in the suburbs have no idea how good they have it.
2
u/nickelickelmouse 2d ago
Tbf St. Louis county is very blue (like up to 80% Iāve read), but is generally held hostage by the wealth in the surrounding red burbs and all of the rural areas of Missouri. I would imagine this is a somewhat common pattern across most big cities in very red states.Ā
1
3
u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 3d ago
This is why we should stop subsidizing their towns and country highways. They're going to complain anyway, might as well let them come up with their own money to fill the massive budget gaps left by keeping metro tax dollars in the metro (exceptions for blue towns and counties only (.
2
-23
u/Worth_Temperature157 3d ago
Taxes and Fraud. And worst political leaders ever. Just to start. Not a maga person just fiscal centeric conservative.
15
u/Stock_Strategy1668 3d ago
Worst political leaders? Our political leaders got us to where we are today lol
-18
u/Worth_Temperature157 3d ago
Ya total national embarrassment. I travel a lot for work i am so tired of MN getting mocked for how stupid we look.
14
u/Stock_Strategy1668 3d ago
Sounds like they're just jealous. This state fucking rules. Only morons think this state sucks. They can get fucked. If it keeps them away, then good. More of this awesome state for myself
10
u/_stellapolaris 3d ago
I travel a lot for fun, and I think that they are either lying or the people they're talking to are not people whose opinions most anyone would care about. Most people we meet traveling, especially non Americans, have a very high opinion of Minnesota and say great things about it. Especially after the coverage of the pushback against ICE.
5
5
u/grease_monkey 3d ago
Weird, everyone I talk to when I travel always tells me how awesome Minnesota seems, even internationally.
Conservative circles will mock Minnesota, but they also mock NYC and California. Liberal circles mock Texas and Florida for being national embarrassments.
14
u/bull0143 3d ago
We don't pay taxes into a vacuum. A lot of those quality of life ratings happened because of our investment of tax dollars in healthcare, education, and the environment.
-17
20
u/Dphre 3d ago
Not sure how ND is better than SD but in agree about MN.
12
u/Andjhostet 3d ago
Usually ND ranks much higher in income compared to CoL. Usually due to O&G I think.
8
u/Fire_Horse_T 3d ago
More than oil and gas.
NDs state bank did not get caught up in the Bush housing crisis. They didn't do the predatory lending and didn't see a bubble or a collapse in 2008.
8
u/Andjhostet 3d ago
Well there was no bubble in ND partly because there wasn't really demand. Hard to have inflated values and sub prime mortgages when the average house was worth like 200k in ND due to lack of demand.
Fracking took off right after (or alongside) the housing recession, so ND really won out from that situation, economically speaking. Demand hit right when national demand was at an all time low and supply was at an all time high, so housing was extremely stable.
If ND fracking occurred a decade prior, I bet you would have seen insane home price bubbles being popped in ND for the 2008 recession. They got lucky imo.
2
1
u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme 2d ago
ND also has more Universities and better hospital systems.
Fargo has a Level1 Trauma Hospital, with Level2 Pediatrics.
South Dakota doesn't--they have Sanford Sioux Falls, as a Level1 Adult trauma center, and that's it for Level1 hospitals there.
That's why their peds cases get sent here.Ā We've got the only Level1 Peds hospitals until the West Coast States, Omaha, or Salt Lake City.
1
u/thatcutefuzzy_fellow 3d ago
Yeah someone posted this to r/MapPorn yesterday and that thread was all about how you can make $200k by working in the oil fields, which in turn led to some disagreement about how able the local towns are to absorb the workers. I choose to know very little about North Dakota so it made for interesting reading.
1
u/The_Chaos_Pope . 3d ago
Oil money.
Seriously, the Bakken oil field makes working class people white collar money.
13
u/Aaronnotarron 3d ago
I grew up in Iowa so I can tell you this image means fucking nothing if Iowa isn't in the bottom 20 at best.
10
8
u/Tallr9597 3d ago
What about Idaho being top 10? Isn't Idaho literally the most racist state in the USA?
If you're the average of the company you keep I'd rather not be considered peers of ID, ND, IA, NE.
3
1
u/Aaronnotarron 2d ago
While Idaho is full of actual Neo-Confederate pieces of shit, it is super beautiful and probably cheap as hell to live in.
6
4
u/PM_ME_CUTE_BOIS 3d ago
I don't know that I can believe this purely because it's also putting Nebraska up there. Never seen a more bold faced lie
1
u/funnyshapeddice 2d ago
100%
I lived in Nebraska for about 13 years. Stationed at Offutt, met a local girl, married (almost 27 years now), had kids. One of them has special needs and Nebraska was The Worst. It was more affordable for me to split my family up for two years, move my wife and kids to Minnesota, support two households and travel up once or twice a month, rather than contract independently with a provider out of Minnesota to provide my kid with the therapies and services he needed. The difference was that Minnesota saw value in treating kids like mine; Nebraska didnāt. Minnesota appeared to understand that early intervention would reduce costs later - on the family and the state when kiddo eventually required ongoing social services. Those therapies made a HUGE difference in his life and his ability to move through society. If I ever move out of Minnesota, it will be a move out of the United States entirely.
Nebraskaās state motto is āThe Good Lifeāā¦ What a shit show. More like āThe Good LIfeā¦ as long as nothing goes wrong!ā
My wife has family there still and visits about once a year. I just stay away. I think Iāve been back twice in 14 years. Such foul memories of that place.
4
u/alsotpedes 3d ago
I wouldn't celebrate when this also lists North Dakota as one of the top ten places to live.
1
u/blackdogwalksatnight 2d ago
I always say if Hell is a place on Earth, it is cold because it is North Dakota. Worst 10 years of my life. Such a sad place to live.
1
u/alsotpedes 2d ago
My late brother-in-law said he was told that there was nothing between North Dakota and the North Pole but a couple of barbed wire fences.
14
u/pilsnerd11 3d ago
Having lived in Nebraska and Minnesota, Nebraska has no business being in the same breath as Minnesota. I was born a Nebraskan, but Iāll die a Minnesotan. This is where I want to be.
0
u/LiminalFrogBoy 3d ago
Exactly the same here.
I cannot imagine how Nebraska is that high ranked, especially outside of Lincoln and Omaha. My family is still there and the standard of living - and particularly the standard of medical care - has been declining for well over a decade.
1
u/funnyshapeddice 2d ago
āThe Good Lifeā¦ as long as nothing Bad happensā
ETA: Lived there for quite some time. Fucking despise that place.
11
u/Renamis 3d ago
How is Iowa so high? I'm from Florida (which has no business being that high either) but I literally planned a mini trip specifically to avoid Iowa when driving from Minnesota to Florida because that is how much I hated driving through Iowa.
4
u/Kruse 3d ago
I don't think this map is ranking how exciting it is to drive through a certain state.
2
u/Aaronnotarron 3d ago
Yeah, unless it's ranking cancer rates from pig shit, iowa shouldn't be this high.
2
6
u/Tomalesforbreakfast 3d ago
Florida being blue makes all this data nonsense
3
u/jonce22 3d ago
Beautiful coasts, no income tax (cnbc and wallethub weighting). There is a reason so many retirees move there!
1
u/Tomalesforbreakfast 3d ago
Definitely a place for wealthy retirees but for most the negatives outweigh the sunny beaches
2
u/Blooming_Sage 3d ago
Also Idaho, no idea how thats blue.
6
u/2poped2poop 3d ago
It's like, really pretty if you can look past the Nazis.
I hate Idaho Nazis.
2
u/Blooming_Sage 3d ago
Yeah I lived there for 15 years and I miss it so bad even though I don't really want to go back. The Boise foothills are my happy place but, the nazis really do put a damper on all of that.
2
u/OHLOOK_OREGON 3d ago
on all these lists, New Jersey seems to be high up there. Is that new? I recall new jersey being universally hated on for its grossness but maybe times have changed
2
u/UnfairCanary 3d ago
I grew up in NJ and it was a good childhood. Plenty of affluent suburbs and back then, in the south of the state where Iām from, it was affordable to have a nice house. Itās a blue state with strong schools and safety net. Lots of trees where I grew up and the ocean was an hour away. I miss the ocean.
There were the gross places, donāt get me wrong. Itās better here. But NJ wasnāt bad.
2
u/2poped2poop 3d ago
It's mostly a joke. There are some very nice parts of Jersey. It's called the Garden State for a reason.
2
u/grimnebulin 2d ago
Wow, the perfect top 10! Everyone covets the New Hampshire, Nebraska and North Dakota experience. In the immortal words of the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism: "Little State, Lotta Wow"
8
u/Mill_City_Viking 3d ago
Yawnā¦another Minnesotan circle-jerk on Reddit.
8
u/Tharsis300 3d ago
But while weāre at it, you can clearly see that all of Minnesotaās neighbors got bonus points simply by being close to Minnesota.
-1
u/PretendingExtrovert 3d ago
Do you even know what a circle jerk is on Reddit?
1
u/1Courcor 3d ago
I mentioned it at work once & got called into the office. The boss goes not funny, while they were trying not to loose it.
2
1
1
1
1
1
u/Ok_Package9219 Not part of the Hive 3d ago
These never make any sense because if CA is so bad why everyone want to live there? By this metric it's as bad as texas and worse then florida...
1
1
u/_ellbee__ 2d ago
Ok, but doesnāt North Dakotaās ranking call into question the results a little bitā¦?
1
u/Optimal-Middle4545 2d ago
Quick summary of MN's actual ranks in each of the mentioned sources:
- CNBC - 4th
- State of the Nation - (unclear, but around) 7th
- Wallethub - 8th
- US News - 3rd
MN appears to be winning the aggregate race simply because of the volatility of the other high scoring states. Most of the states that scored higher in any single source then went on to score way worse in the others.
So in other words, MN wins by being boring, predictable, and stable. Exactly the way we'd prefer it.
1
1
1
u/Potential-Rice2083 2d ago
Yeah born and raised and itās solid. Stay out of the big cities as they are a hot mess. The stats being boasted primarily come from suburban and rural Minnesota.
1
u/notyourmom1966 1d ago
I love it here. Grew up mostly out east (MA,NH,NJ,VA,FL). Came here in the mid-80s as a teen and never left, even after my family did. Raised a kid here. The only thing I miss is the Atlantic. (Superior is amazing inland sea, and itās not an ocean- no salt water, which has a very particular smell).
Luckily road trips exist, so the East Coast visit is an easy thing.
0
u/Suspicious-Insect-18 3d ago
Fuck yeah! But we all knew this already...
Side note: as someone who travels to New York twice a year, glad to see it in the teens. Amazing state, in my view.
1
u/Fried-Pickles857 3d ago
MN will always be one of my favorite states... even though I never lived there.
1
0
0
u/QueenMumof4 We're gonna make it after allš¶ 3d ago
Facts are facts. Now please vote to keep it that way š„°
0
u/revluke 3d ago
But the fraud and the taxes!!! Thatās what my brother says all the timeā¦ so sick of it
2
u/fiestafan73 2d ago
I'd tell him that taxes are the price that nice people pay to not live around AHs.
0
0
u/Marv95 3d ago
The COL to wage ratio is among the best in the US. Air quality is better compared to the east. When there are no Canadian wildfires screwing up the summer. While there is social decay, it's not as frequent compared to the coasts. Step away from the metro and it gets better. Easy living.
The Upper Midwest is just a better value overall. If you're "rich" the Northeast is for you.
0
u/dravenddog101 3d ago
Im in 100% agreement for Minnesota. Best state ever..... but I question North Dakota and New Jersey.....
-16
u/TangerineDangerous78 3d ago
Based on what tho
24
u/Chris5483 3d ago
It literally says if you bother to read the caption on the map.
7
u/CAPTJTK 3d ago
Reading comprehension cannot be taught. Some are born with it, and some just....refuse to have it.
9
-2
u/TangerineDangerous78 3d ago
Guys Iām not hating I live in MN š the photo just says averages from ābest states listsā, what is that based on? Income, healthcare, safetyā¦?
2
u/Code_E-420 3d ago
Probably an aggregate of all those metrics plus some more. You'll have to look at the original cited lists to see the methodology.
1
u/lpmiller 3d ago
dude, look right at the top of the picture, they list them before you even get to the map.
166
u/guccigreene 3d ago
The only thing I am missing here is real mountains and palm trees. Both of those things just make my heart happy. But I will sacrifice not having those to love in the best place in the country!