Money Magazine's Best Places To Live 2010: Minnesota Town Earns Top Honors

For those of us looking to relocate, look no farther than Eden Prairie, Minnesota, which was named by Money Magazine as the best small city to live in America.

This year, Money's annual rankings examined 746 cities with populations between 50,000 to 300,000 and winnowed the list down by removing areas that had significant job losses, low salaries, overly expensive housing or poor school systems. (Check out the FAQ on their criteria here.)

Eden Prairie's ranking was bolstered by strong local employers -- including the NFL's Minnesota Vikings, who hold their training camp in town.

Rounding out the top five were Columbia/Ellicott City, Maryland; Newtown, Massachusetts; Bellevue, Washington; and McKinney, Texas.

In this economy, it's not surprising that all of the top five were bolstered by considerable job generators nearby. For example, Columbia/Ellicott neighbors the National Security Agency and other government job providers; Bellevue is boosted by Microsoft and T-Mobile; and Newtown benefits from Boston College and other Beantown job centers.

Mashable reports that those looking to visit Money's "Best Places to live" can now take a mini-tour of local haunts on Gowalla. For those interested in acquiring Gowalla badges for local establishments in McKinney, Texas, you already have options.

Check out Money's full list here.

Comments

[Andrea Goldstein]

10:52 AM on 08/10/2010

Hey there, I grew up in MN, but for the past 18 years have lived in San Francisco, LA, and Chicago (in each city respective­ly) and I travel to NYC monthly. I am now 6 months from 40 with two kids (trying for a third) a dog and a husband. Home is where you make it. Small town people sometimes resent being from a small town. The truth is there's good and bad features to every city--you just have to find what's right for you. After living in a town home with 2 bedrooms, 1250 square feet (for 650K) and paying 4000 a month for private school, Eden Praire looks like a dream. Plus has anyone every driven in LA traffic?

[Charlie Dogue]

06:06 PM on 07/14/2010

Um. Speaking as someone who lives there, it's "Newton", MA. Shameful. Really.

[gabygz]

02:48 PM on 07/14/2010

Their Rep, Erik Paulsen, went to St Olaf College. Rose Nylund would be proud.

[Matt Mihaly]

12:44 PM on 07/14/2010

Very subjective­. I'd automatica­lly rule out anywhere that gets overly humid in the summer or too cold in the winter (ie the entire Midwest, Northeast, and South). Just my personal preference­.

[dansup]

11:13 PM on 07/14/2010

same here......­...i'll stick to the west coast

[missygoose]

11:33 AM on 07/14/2010

Yeah, except the trade off is you have to live with Minnesotan­s.

[DakotaMinnesota]

11:47 AM on 07/14/2010

Where are you from?

[philosopherkingtomas]

11:13 AM on 07/14/2010

Montana!
Billings, Missoula, Kalispell

[SF TKF]

05:49 PM on 07/13/2010

I'm sorry, Bachmann alone should preclude this from making any such list (clearly the voting populace is mentally deranged as well, making them quite questionab­le as potential neighbors)­.

[DakotaMinnesota]

10:40 AM on 07/14/2010

She is in a completely different district.

[SF TKF]

01:55 PM on 07/14/2010

Still too close for comfort.

[runfastandwin]

03:17 PM on 07/13/2010

What's better, an apple or an orange? An orange, by gum. No, an apple, by jiminy. APPLE! ORANGE! APPLE! ORANGE!!

[bklynnupe]

02:28 PM on 07/13/2010

small cities sux!
many on this list are great to pass through for a day or two, but they are not for everyone.
I’m also don’t like generaliza­tion that these smaller cities and towns need to be worshiped for their values and their closeness to American virtue. You can have most of these things in parts of big cities as well.
I’m not impressed my many of these cities that made the list and I will continue to think of most of them as places along the interstate­t highway to stop, tinkle, have an ice cream cone and get back on the road.

[SF TKF]

05:48 PM on 07/13/2010

Seconded!

[missygoose]

11:35 AM on 07/14/2010

I've lived in small towns and big cities - they each sukk in their own ways. Philly - where I am now - STILL sux and always will because people here are miserable, nasty and angry by birth. Before this I was in Portland, which is much nicer, more polite (albeit fake-polit­e), cleaner, but way goofier.

[progressivegreg]

12:30 PM on 07/13/2010

On the downside you have Michelle Bachman!

[inorbit]

11:20 AM on 07/13/2010

It's only the best place to live in America if you can survive the -70 degree wind chill in the winter!

[Hugh Briggs]

11:01 AM on 07/13/2010

BS - anywhere with Michelle Bachman cannot be good. Enjoy being cold and ignorant. (Oh ya I've been there, and if you haven't you not missing much except bad accents, cold weather, rustbucket vehicles and bad drivers.)

[Keith House]

12:03 PM on 07/13/2010

Thank you for staying away from Minnesota.

[bluntobject]

12:14 PM on 07/13/2010

lol...I lived in St. Paul, MN from 2004-2008. You are pretty much spot on.

[Brian Udell]

10:21 AM on 07/13/2010

After travelling to 45 of the 50 states, I decided to settle down in Minnesota, and it was a great decision. I absolutely love it here, the winters are cold and long, but the summers more than make up for it.

That said, Eden Prairie is nothing more than a generic suburb. If you like chain restaurant­s, strip malls, huge parking lots, oft congested highways, and cookie-cut­ter McMansions on cul de sacs in subdivisio­ns that seem to go on forever, than EP is the place for you. It's kind of what I envision hell to be.

I live in South Minneapoli­s, and it is vibrant, diverse, and you can bike/walk to thousands of parks, lakes, shops, restaurant­s and bars. My neighbors are awesome and there are tons of families raising kids here who didn't sell out and go to the burbs because they're "safer and cleaner". Eden Prairie, to me, represents everything we did wrong as a nation over the past 50 years.

[inorbit]

11:24 AM on 07/13/2010

I couldn't agree more with you about Eden Prairie. I do have a problem with the extreme winter cold in Minneapoli­s, but otherwise I think it's a great place.

[Brian Udell]

11:36 AM on 07/13/2010

Yeah, I mean, every February my wife and I get a little stir crazy and start contemplat­ing quitting our jobs, selling everything we have, and moving to Costa Rica. But come springtime that melts away and we're reminded why we live here.

Also, long term, in the event of any sort of climate crisis or fuel shortage, it's not a bad place to be. Heating might get a bit tricky (then again...mi­ght be a non-issue)­, but the access to fresh water and the abundance of arable land is always something nice to bank on.

[tantamnt]

05:22 PM on 07/13/2010

And the other nice thing is Michelle Bachman is 25 miles to the east and provides constant entertainm­ent.
I worked in Eden Prairie for about a decade, though I lived in Hopkins, Wayzata and South Minneapoli­s.

[jdmn17]

10:11 AM on 07/13/2010

Eden Prairie is not really a city, it's more like an urban sprawl of bedrooms with those silly little strip malls. The road system is a nightmare made worse as most of the houses look the same. There are little neighborho­ods with catchy names like Woodlands, heaven help you if you get turned around in there. It has a large mall that's half empty because the locals spend all their money on their homes or shop at the outlet malls since they are cash strapped living up to their neighbors. Most of the residents work in Minneapoli­s and flee there before dark because they need the safety of the lily white community. It's a bit of a joke here in the Twin Cities and for it, and the other suburbs from here who made the top twenty they really are not a part of the metro area. Oh, winters are cold but the good news is it cuts down on the riff raff. We enjoy the winters mostly be looking SO forward to our marvelous springs, summers and falls. While you bake further south we get cool breezes, lots of lakes and parks, well I better shut up before more of you decide to come here.

[DakotaMinnesota]

11:41 AM on 07/14/2010

Right on the mark here.

[wowisdabomb]

09:33 AM on 07/13/2010

another silly list, they should of just called it the places in the US where the economy has not ravaged the citizens due to being in a economic bubbles or islands associated to government jobs or big corporatio­ns.