St. Paul vs. Minneapolis

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What makes St. Paul a "European" style city? Because it's mostly historically preserved? But I've never heard that claim of Boston or Philadelphia or DC.

St. Paul gets overlooked because besides the state government functions and a bunch of universities, not a whole lot goes on there. It's very far from a city that never sleeps. The downtown has some cool bars and restaurants, some historical sites, the state government and some hotels, but that's kind of it. It doesn't have the very happening downtown of Minneapolis and is actually kind of dead even on Saturday nights. Plus not a whole lot of commerce outside of some banks, unless you work for the state, said banks, a museum or in a bar/restaurant you probably aren't commuting there. The outskirts have some prestigious colleges but each neighborhood is kind of separate with their own separate downtowns kind of, it's more like a bunch of college towns stuck together. It doesn't have much of a hipster area or equivalent to Uptown Minneapolis, closest is Frogtown, but seriously that is not Uptown. In fact the comparison to Des Moines is made quite frequently, and I think it fits, St. Paul isn't even much bigger than Des Moines really, more like that than Minneapolis, Milwaukee or Chicago.

That said though I think St. Paul is kind of similar to how movies will take some by all standards very attractive actress and put her next to some A-lister than then pretend she's ugly and undesirable. If it wasn't right next to Minneapolis, it would be better thought of. Far worse places you could live, and the downtown is actually notable in that you can get a great place there without being insanely affluent.

But for comparison this is the St. Paul skyline:



Minneapolis skyline:



Contrast is pretty clear.