Feb 17, 20223 min read

The Cold "Far-Off" City

I’ve been living in Minnesota ever since I was born, so it was actually really nice coming to Ithaca because that meant warmer winters for me. I’ve spent a limited amount of time in Ithaca (relative to my time in Minnesota), but I’ve honestly spent more time in downtown Ithaca than I have in the downtown parts of Minnesota. For my entire life I’ve lived in the suburbs just outside of the main city center of Minnesota: Minneapolis. I would occasionally go to downtown Minneapolis for sporting events or for food, but my relationship with the city can only be seen as that of a spectator.

The suburb that I live in is called Edina (e-dine-uh) and (probably because it’s the only thing I’ve really ever known) I really like the area that Edina encompasses. There are really nice parks and lots of cool places where you can just walk around and enjoy nature. Anything that I needed was just a 10 minute drive to a nice area called Southdale, which I recently learned contains America’s first indoor mall. I had a few friends that I knew through the soccer club that I played for that lived in Minneapolis, but a majority of my friends were just people that I knew in Edina. It’s for all of these different reasons that despite the city being only about a 20 minute drive away that I never really ended up spending much time there.

As a result of my limited interactions with Minneapolis, and urban areas in general, whenever I do end up going to the downtown area I always feel incredibly cramped and claustrophobic. The fact that there’s little to no nature also really throws me off and makes things seem a lot more dreary due to the fact that nature is really what I’ve been surrounded by for my whole life. The Mississippi River does help with the lack of nature a little bit, but oftentimes you enter Minneapolis by going over the river so it’s usually the last bit of substantial nature that you’ll see until you leave.

As I previously said, the winters in Minnesota can get pretty brutal because of how much snow we get. It can get to the point that driving with too much snow on the roads can basically be considered an extreme sport. Living in the city center arguably ruins the only good part of actually having all of that snow, and that’s being able to play in it and admire its beauty. In the suburbs, however, because there’s so much open space for the snow to be in, all of the snow doesn’t end up getting super dirty and gross very quickly which can make winters in the suburban areas of Minnesota a lot more tolerable and fun.

I really didn’t mean for this to end up being a complete bashing of the urban parts of Minnesota. However, just because of who I am and where I was raised I can’t help but feel a fair bit of disdain for the downtown area despite the many nice attractions I know it has to offer. To make up for my harsh words I'll attach some nice photos of Minneapolis.

Overlooking the (frozen) Mississippi River into Minneapolis with snow l