What Type of Lifestyle Fits Best in Minnesota Suburbs?
A buyer called me from his rental apartment in Dinkytown on a Thursday evening with a question that came from a conversation he had been having with himself for about six months. He was thirty-one years old and had been living in the Minneapolis urban core since he graduated from the University of Minnesota eight years earlier. He had genuinely loved his urban life during that period. He had been deeply embedded in the social fabric of his neighborhood, he had walked to work during a period when he had a downtown job, he had used the light rail regularly, and he had organized his daily life around the walkable commercial corridor that was steps from his apartment. Things had changed in ways that were changing his calculus. He had taken a new job at a technology company in Eden Prairie that made the light rail commute impossible. He was in a serious relationship with a partner who had a job in Minnetonka. They were thinking about the future in ways that included the specific possibility of children. And his two closest friends, both of whom had been enthusiastic urban residents, had moved to Maple Grove and Lakeville respectively and were describing their suburban lives with an enthusiasm that had surprised him. He had started to wonder whether the suburbs might fit his life better at this stage but was uncertain because he had always associated suburban life with a particular type of person and was not sure that type matched who he was. “When I picture suburban life I picture something specific,” he told me. “And I am not sure whether that picture is accurate or whether I have a stereotype in my head that does not reflect what suburban Minnesota is actually like. Who fits well in the Minnesota suburbs? And am I that person?” His question was exactly the right one to ask, and his instinct that he might be working with an inaccurate stereotype of suburban life was probably correct in at least some respects. Here is the honest answer about who fits best in Minnesota suburbs and what the suburban lifestyle actually looks like for the people who have chosen it. The Stereotype and What Is Wrong With It The cultural stereotype of suburban life, which the buyer in Dinkytown was working with, typically involves a homogeneous, politically uniform, commuting-to-the-city, driving-only, big-box-retail-consuming, yard-mowing landscape that is defined primarily by what it lacks rather than by what it provides. This stereotype contains enough truth to be recognizable and enough distortion to be genuinely misleading. The distortion is most significant in what it leaves out. It leaves out the extraordinary outdoor recreation infrastructure of the Minnesota suburbs, particularly the Three Rivers Park District’s regional trail and park system, which is genuinely one of the best urban and near-urban trail networks in the country. It leaves out the genuine community depth that develops in suburban neighborhoods where people stay for decades, know their neighbors by name, and build the accumulated social fabric that long-term residential commitment produces. It leaves out the cultural and culinary richness of communities like Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Plymouth, and Woodbury, which have genuine restaurant scenes, arts programming, and community events that are not pale shadows of city culture but expressions of their own community identities. And it leaves out the demographic diversity that characterizes many Minnesota suburbs, particularly in communities like Brooklyn Park, Eden Prairie, and Apple Valley, where immigrant communities from East Africa, South Asia, and Latin America have built significant and vibrant presences. The stereotype also overstates the sameness of suburban Minnesota. The difference between Edina and Brooklyn Park is as real as the difference between Linden Hills and North Minneapolis. The suburbs are not a monolithic category. The Outdoor Enthusiast The lifestyle fit that is most unambiguously strong in Minnesota suburbs is the outdoor enthusiast whose recreational life centers on cycling, running, trail hiking, cross-country skiing, kayaking, fishing, and the full range of activities that the Minnesota natural landscape enables. The Three Rivers Park District, which serves the western and northwestern suburbs, maintains approximately one hundred miles of paved regional trails and additional miles of natural surface trails connecting parks, lakes, and natural areas across multiple communities. A resident of Plymouth, Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Hopkins, or similar western suburban communities can access this trail system from their neighborhood without driving to a trailhead. The Dakota County park system in the south metro provides comparable regional trail and park infrastructure for residents of Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Lakeville, and surrounding communities. The lake access that is dispersed throughout the suburban landscape, with hundreds of lakes accessible for fishing, paddling, swimming, and winter ice activities within a relatively short drive of virtually any suburban address, provides the particular quality of outdoor life that Minnesota is known for and that suburban residents describe as one of the most significant lifestyle assets of their communities. The outdoor enthusiast who is choosing between an urban Minneapolis address and a suburban address is not choosing between outdoor access and the absence of it. They are choosing between the concentrated lake system of the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes and the more dispersed but equally rich outdoor environment of the suburban park and trail network. The Family in the Active Phase Families with children in the elementary and middle school years are the demographic category that suburban Minnesota serves most completely and most naturally, and understanding why helps both families with children and people who will eventually have children evaluate the suburban fit question. The school community dimension is significant beyond the quality of instruction. When children attend a neighborhood school in a strong suburban district, the school becomes the primary social organizing institution for the family. Parents meet other parents. Children build friendships with neighborhood peers who live nearby rather than across the city. The school calendar, the school events, the school relationships organize a meaningful portion of the family’s social calendar in a way that produces