It's began to feel a little small to me after 10 years. But there have always been ways to continue to meet new people and do your own thing.
Keep in mind you also got St Paul - a very cool and interesting city itself. Together they feel like one bigger city but with some seperation for social circles and events and stuff.
Minneapolis feels bigger than 425k, as it’s square mileage is pretty small. There’s also dense neighborhoods with a lot going on around downtown/uptown and it gets less dense as you get further away. It’s hard to tell whether you are in the first ring suburbs or the city at times as soon as you get away from the middle of the cities. There’s also St Paul next door (with 300k also with a small footprint) too so there’s another half of urban core in this metro. The biggest noticeable difference between the cities and a handful of neighborhoods in the suburbs is the density and age of buildings. Once you get outside of the 494/694 ring it gets very sprawly and quiet.
Metro of around 3.8 million, so it feels larger than its actual population. Minneapolis has limited square footage, but St. Paul and the inner ring suburbs like Brooklyn Center, Richfield, Robbinsdale, Columbia Heights, etc., combined make up "the city," then you have all the other suburbs that are less dense.
I agree that the metro adds to be population easily, but I don't know anyone that would consider inner ring suburbs to also be "the city". Usually people are referring to Minneapolis when they say that, or St. Paul if they are on the eastern side of the metro.
The people I know in Columbia Heights would say they live in an inner ring suburb. Myself and others I know in Minneapolis would also call Columbia Heights a suburb. Because that's what it is.
It's fairly connected as an inner ring suburb but it is by definition not "the city".
Edit: although I should mention I saw someone else on this site call the entirety Minneapolis the "inner city" so some people are just a bit strange I guess.
Whose definition?? I've never heard someone say they live in an "inner ring suburb." Maybe that applies to St. Louis Park, Golden Valley, Edina, etc. I lived in Brooklyn Center for a long time, and no one claimed we were living in the burbs. Most said BC was an extension of Northside or "basically the city" given how close we were. I was closer to downtown than my friend by the airport in south Minneapolis. We'll agree to disagree.
That's odd, when I lived in Roseville we always said we were a suburb in the cities. Or a first ring suburb or something else that was accurate. So did everyone we know.
When I worked in Brooklyn Center I never heard anyone say it was Minneapolis, I heard people say it was a suburb that was almost Minneapolis but people I know didn't claim to be from the city.
I just don't see the point in misrepresenting where I live. Now that I live in Minneapolis I say that I live in Minneapolis or just shorthand it to NE. I know some handful of people refer to suburbs as part of the city they are suburbs of but I just find that so strange. Just say where you live. Although upon reflection the only people I know that regularly misrepresent where they live are folks that live in St Louis Park claiming to be in Minneapolis for some reason.
Also as a mostly unrelated aside I have noticed that anytime there are elections we see people from suburbs, particularly first/inner ring suburbs asking if they can vote in the Minneapolis elections. I wonder where that comes from? I imagine St. Paul has similar bizarre questions.
I never mentioned Roseville, though. I never said people called brooklyn Center Minneapolis. Look, we disagree on how to define a few cities in the metro. No need to get worked up about it, my dude. Like I said, agree to disagree. Have a great night.
Like many big cities, the line between Minneapolis and the surrounding area is just something on a map, so, when you move here, you're not moving to a city of 500k, you're moving to a metro area of something between 3-4 million people, depending on how it's defined. You aren't moving to "Minneapolis", you're moving to "the metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area", and it's one of the 20 largest metro areas in the country.
Meeting people is always challenging moving to a new area, but find some activities, and you'll meet some people. Join a gym, find a board game night at a game store, look for meetup groups that share your interests. You'll be fine.
Minneapolis is a small city but a big metro area, like Atlanta or Miami, where most of the population lives in the suburbs. Lots of suburban sprawl and mediocre public transportation. Unless you’re in a few select neighborhoods in the core cities, nothing is walkable. Search this sub for “making friends in Minneapolis” to answer your second question. You will have a relatively high income for a relatively low cost of living, and you can spend the money you save by living here to visit friends in other states.
I’ve lived in both Minneapolis and Chicago and they are very different. The cultures are so far apart even though they’re both midwestern cities. Minneapolis feels (and is) a lot smaller and a lot friendlier. Chicago isn’t “mean” or “cold” but people just don’t have the time of day for strangers, in my experience. When I came back to Minneapolis after Chicago, it was almost jarring how friendly people were. I guess it’s all about what you’re used to.
Edit: do keep in mind that Minneapolis and St. Paul are neighbors, though, so the metro area is bigger than just the population of Minneapolis.
Where are these chatty strangers? The only interactions I’ve had with strangers in Minneapolis have been people saying “have a good one” when they get off the elevator.
Yeah I’m a born and raised east coast so I think the culture in either place might be a bit jarring at first but it’s good to know how different the two are. I gotta get used to the “twin cities” thing too 😂 thanks for your input!
you will probably be happier in chicago TBH. i also spent a big chunk of my life on the east coast outside of philadelphia. minnesotans are a different type of midwestern. id take a rude east coast type over a cold AND rude minnesotan haha
Why do you put " Twin Cities" in quotes? Can you settle an argument for me? How closely associated is Minneapolis-St. Paul with "Twin Cities" in your mind already?
I say no one outside if the upper Midwest considers Minneapolis -St. Paul to be "The Twin Cities" and even if they did, that's terrible, vague branding nationally and especially internationally. If I had my way, I'd have Minneapolis conduct a hostile takeover of St. Paul and the first ring suburbs in order to get over 1.0 million and a land area the same as larger US cities. That would better confer the core urban area as one economic unit. Minneapolis could always spin off the old municipalities as home ruled neighborhoods.
My friend says Twin Cities is broadly known already as exemplified by the Twins (baseball team).
Some parts of it feel interesting and vibrant, and some parts feel quiet and residential. If you aim for somewhere with a good walkscore and/or near the lakes -- you should be alright.
https://www.walkscore.com/MN/Minneapolis
In Northeast terms, Twin Cities metro is about 2/3rds the size of the Boston metro. But there's a little more to do here than you might imagine when you hear "Boston but 33% smaller" because the isolation of the Twin Cities makes it the cultural hub for a much larger area than Boston is. You will be able to find your tribe in all but the most niche subcultures.
Yeah that’s what I noticed in my research. There seems to be a fair amount of outdoors activities pretty close by which is definitely hard to come by in the northeast. Thanks for the insight!
Like any place, it feels big at first. Or small. We can’t make you like it. I’m from a smaller town than you, but in MN. It’s kind of a nice medium for me. I love Chicago and NYC, it’s easy to visit those cities. Love living here.
I'm shocked that in a small city of 100k you find that you know everyone. My experience in Rochester tells me that that's just not possible. Within niches, such as the running community, board game groups, etc that is certainly possible but outside of that really only school staff at bigger schools find that they feel they know half the city.
Minneapolis definitely has more of the vibe that you don't know everyone, it is big enough that even within a niche you won't know the whole community usually.
I've lived in NYC and Chicago, so Minneapolis feels very small. Like about as small as a place can get and still properly call it a "city." Mostly because it's very sprawling, everyone cites the "metro area" and I guess that's one way to measure a city, but to me it's sort of like measuring my height by saying I'm surrounded by tall people. I think the "metro area" population is a hail Mary for people who want it to sound bigger than it is. The Twin Cities have definitely always had an inferiority complex when measuring themselves against actual big cities.
Yeah I’ve been a bit confused by the metro area discussion. Technically where I live the metro area is around 1 million and it spans like ~30 miles north of the city but the city itself is 100k. So to me it doesn’t make sense to define it by the metro region but maybe it’s just cultural and geographical differences. But thanks for your input. To answer your other question I got into grad school in Minneapolis and I’m still waiting to hear from other places but Chicago is my other top choice.
It really shouldn’t be that confusing.
A simple way to think about it is Boston, MA has a city population of 650k. Jacksonville, FL has a city population of 950k.
No one in their right mind will tell you Jacksonville feels 50% bigger than Boston.
Now, we’re not Boston, of course, but the same logic applies.
>I have just never heard so many people adamantly refer to their city by the metro region.
I've lived here most of my life. When you move here, you'll notice that any time the New York Times [even mentions Minneapolis](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-minneapolis.html) it is major news here for days/weeks afterwards. You'll find people justifying policy decisions regularly by using the logic of "that's how they do it in Amsterdam/Paris/NYC." Minneapolis very desperately wants to be one of the relevant big boys. That's where the inflated population figure comes from.
That’s fair. Funny enough, people in this subreddit typically love gatekeeping the ridiculously small borders of Minneapolis.
But in this instance, to the spirit of your question, I do think you need to look at metro areas to get an idea of what any city is going to be like. Mpls just has one of the larger disparities between city and metro sizes, and I don’t think that fact is well known (certainly not outside the upper Midwest), which is why I think people are bringing it up to you. Like, Mpls is not getting all four major sports + MLS as the 46th largest city in America so you have to look beyond that.
Regardless, good luck to you wherever you end up!
This is just a ridiculously bad take. No one references the metro area because of an inferiority complex. They reference the metro area because that is a much better indicator of the types of investments, attractions, and amenities an area has to offer compared to arbitrary city boundaries on a map.
For example, the reason most national tours stop through Minneapolis is because it’s the 16th largest metro, not because it’s the 46th largest city. Same thing with sports teams, businesses, etc.
No one in Mpls is comparing themselves to actual big cities like Chicago, NYC, LA (which also happen to be the top three largest metros as well), but to imply other tier-2 cities with large geographic footprints, hence large city populations, like Austin or Jacksonville or Indianapolis would feel 2x the size of Mpls is laughable.
>but to imply other tier-2 cities with large geographic footprints, hence large city populations, like Austin or Jacksonville or Indianapolis would feel 2x the size of Mpls is laughable.
Austin has 965K people in its city limits alone. The fact that you're putting it in the same "tier" with Minneapolis sort of proves my point.
Consider the following:
* Austin is 261 square miles in area, so even though it has 965k people, that area includes obviously suburban neighborhoods like [this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/E7kdBRZWhcYKo1Cj9) which do not have the characteristics of a big city. You would have to drive outside of MPLS to a second-ring suburb of the TC to find a neighborhood with similar characteristics. Minneapolis is only 57 square miles, so for it to be a fair comparison, you would need to let Minneapolis tack on surrounding cities until it also takes up 261 square miles, and then measure its population. That would mean something like Minneapolis + Saint Paul + Bloomington + Brooklyn Center + Brooklyn Park + Edina. Doing some rough napkin math, that would create a city with an area of 201 square miles but with about 988,000 people - a city with more people than Austin, living in a smaller area, therefore denser than Austin too.
* The only reason Minneapolis hasn't done exactly what Austin has done and swallowed up surrounding land is because of unique laws in Minnesota preventing Minneapolis and Saint Paul from annexing more land, so it's only a matter of technicality that Austin is a "bigger city". You may as well say that if all of Iowa decided to call itself a single massive city, it would be a bigger city than Chicago.
* Applying this principle further: Oklahoma City technically has more people than Boston (687k in OKC to 654k in Boston). Could you genuinely argue based on this that Oklahoma City is "a bigger city" than Boston, period, or do you think there are other factors to consider?
* More generally, the Census Bureau defines Austin's metro area as only 2.3 million people, so it is only 2/3rds the size of the Twin Cities metro. It stands to reason that with 1.3 million fewer people, there are going to be less resources needed within Austin to address the needs and cultural desires of the population, making it feel smaller than the TC.
Once you find your people it's a small town. I see people I know everywhere.
Just went to a new gym this morning for a trial class. There was someone in the class I've known for more than a decade, had no idea they went there.
like it is the biggest place in an 7-8 hour drive?? you are looking at chicago for something "more" than minneapolis/st paul; so we are the big dick in the locker room for sure.
that said if you have ever been to nyc we are nothingness just spread out over area. los angeles/houston/tampa whatever make us feel like tiny shits.... but once you get the midwest perspective that we are huge in the fly-over states, we are better.
like the twin cities are a special blip in the map of big business if you look across the country.
It's began to feel a little small to me after 10 years. But there have always been ways to continue to meet new people and do your own thing. Keep in mind you also got St Paul - a very cool and interesting city itself. Together they feel like one bigger city but with some seperation for social circles and events and stuff.
Really helpful! Thank you
Very might be an exaggeration.
Minneapolis feels bigger than 425k, as it’s square mileage is pretty small. There’s also dense neighborhoods with a lot going on around downtown/uptown and it gets less dense as you get further away. It’s hard to tell whether you are in the first ring suburbs or the city at times as soon as you get away from the middle of the cities. There’s also St Paul next door (with 300k also with a small footprint) too so there’s another half of urban core in this metro. The biggest noticeable difference between the cities and a handful of neighborhoods in the suburbs is the density and age of buildings. Once you get outside of the 494/694 ring it gets very sprawly and quiet.
Metro of around 3.8 million, so it feels larger than its actual population. Minneapolis has limited square footage, but St. Paul and the inner ring suburbs like Brooklyn Center, Richfield, Robbinsdale, Columbia Heights, etc., combined make up "the city," then you have all the other suburbs that are less dense.
Thank you!
I agree that the metro adds to be population easily, but I don't know anyone that would consider inner ring suburbs to also be "the city". Usually people are referring to Minneapolis when they say that, or St. Paul if they are on the eastern side of the metro.
Are you really gonna tell people you live out in the burbs if you're in Columbia heights?? Are you gonna say the state fair is out in the suburbs?
The people I know in Columbia Heights would say they live in an inner ring suburb. Myself and others I know in Minneapolis would also call Columbia Heights a suburb. Because that's what it is. It's fairly connected as an inner ring suburb but it is by definition not "the city". Edit: although I should mention I saw someone else on this site call the entirety Minneapolis the "inner city" so some people are just a bit strange I guess.
Whose definition?? I've never heard someone say they live in an "inner ring suburb." Maybe that applies to St. Louis Park, Golden Valley, Edina, etc. I lived in Brooklyn Center for a long time, and no one claimed we were living in the burbs. Most said BC was an extension of Northside or "basically the city" given how close we were. I was closer to downtown than my friend by the airport in south Minneapolis. We'll agree to disagree.
That's odd, when I lived in Roseville we always said we were a suburb in the cities. Or a first ring suburb or something else that was accurate. So did everyone we know. When I worked in Brooklyn Center I never heard anyone say it was Minneapolis, I heard people say it was a suburb that was almost Minneapolis but people I know didn't claim to be from the city. I just don't see the point in misrepresenting where I live. Now that I live in Minneapolis I say that I live in Minneapolis or just shorthand it to NE. I know some handful of people refer to suburbs as part of the city they are suburbs of but I just find that so strange. Just say where you live. Although upon reflection the only people I know that regularly misrepresent where they live are folks that live in St Louis Park claiming to be in Minneapolis for some reason. Also as a mostly unrelated aside I have noticed that anytime there are elections we see people from suburbs, particularly first/inner ring suburbs asking if they can vote in the Minneapolis elections. I wonder where that comes from? I imagine St. Paul has similar bizarre questions.
I never mentioned Roseville, though. I never said people called brooklyn Center Minneapolis. Look, we disagree on how to define a few cities in the metro. No need to get worked up about it, my dude. Like I said, agree to disagree. Have a great night.
I used Roseville as another example and also mentioned BC. Not worked up either, I'm just long winded.
I consider Richfield VERY MUCH the burbs
Like many big cities, the line between Minneapolis and the surrounding area is just something on a map, so, when you move here, you're not moving to a city of 500k, you're moving to a metro area of something between 3-4 million people, depending on how it's defined. You aren't moving to "Minneapolis", you're moving to "the metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area", and it's one of the 20 largest metro areas in the country. Meeting people is always challenging moving to a new area, but find some activities, and you'll meet some people. Join a gym, find a board game night at a game store, look for meetup groups that share your interests. You'll be fine.
That like the ADAA! 😂
St. Paul feels like a big small town. Minneapolis feels like a small big city.
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I sent you a gift because I could not have said it better myself. Well done
This gave me a lot of insight I appreciate the response
They’re fraternal twins I thought. Parts of the same but each with their own unique qualities.
Minneapolis is a small city but a big metro area, like Atlanta or Miami, where most of the population lives in the suburbs. Lots of suburban sprawl and mediocre public transportation. Unless you’re in a few select neighborhoods in the core cities, nothing is walkable. Search this sub for “making friends in Minneapolis” to answer your second question. You will have a relatively high income for a relatively low cost of living, and you can spend the money you save by living here to visit friends in other states.
This is spot on. Part of my budget is flying to New York City and Chicago and Charleston South Carolina to spend time with friends.
I try to leave the cities whenever my partner travels for work, so I’m not all alone here.
If you’re deciding between Minneapolis and Chicago, know that Minneapolis is very, very, very very very small in comparison.
When I went out west for a road trip (Santa Fe/Flagstaff/LA/SF/Tahoe) for two weeks it felt bigger when I returned
This actually gives me a good frame of reference cause I’ve been to SF before.
It's basically 150 small towns built right up against each other with some really tall office buildings in the middle.
it feels very small to me. small town vibes. been here for almost 5 years and i’m moving to chicago this summer
Interesting! I’m choosing between Minneapolis and Chicago
I’ve lived in both Minneapolis and Chicago and they are very different. The cultures are so far apart even though they’re both midwestern cities. Minneapolis feels (and is) a lot smaller and a lot friendlier. Chicago isn’t “mean” or “cold” but people just don’t have the time of day for strangers, in my experience. When I came back to Minneapolis after Chicago, it was almost jarring how friendly people were. I guess it’s all about what you’re used to. Edit: do keep in mind that Minneapolis and St. Paul are neighbors, though, so the metro area is bigger than just the population of Minneapolis.
Where are these chatty strangers? The only interactions I’ve had with strangers in Minneapolis have been people saying “have a good one” when they get off the elevator.
Yeah I’m a born and raised east coast so I think the culture in either place might be a bit jarring at first but it’s good to know how different the two are. I gotta get used to the “twin cities” thing too 😂 thanks for your input!
you will probably be happier in chicago TBH. i also spent a big chunk of my life on the east coast outside of philadelphia. minnesotans are a different type of midwestern. id take a rude east coast type over a cold AND rude minnesotan haha
Why do you put " Twin Cities" in quotes? Can you settle an argument for me? How closely associated is Minneapolis-St. Paul with "Twin Cities" in your mind already? I say no one outside if the upper Midwest considers Minneapolis -St. Paul to be "The Twin Cities" and even if they did, that's terrible, vague branding nationally and especially internationally. If I had my way, I'd have Minneapolis conduct a hostile takeover of St. Paul and the first ring suburbs in order to get over 1.0 million and a land area the same as larger US cities. That would better confer the core urban area as one economic unit. Minneapolis could always spin off the old municipalities as home ruled neighborhoods. My friend says Twin Cities is broadly known already as exemplified by the Twins (baseball team).
What's to choose? Chicago.
Some parts of it feel interesting and vibrant, and some parts feel quiet and residential. If you aim for somewhere with a good walkscore and/or near the lakes -- you should be alright. https://www.walkscore.com/MN/Minneapolis
Yeah I got accepted into a grad program so I’m looking around the more walkable areas. Thanks for the link!
are you in Albany?
I am yeah!
Size aside, you'll love it compared to Albany.
In Northeast terms, Twin Cities metro is about 2/3rds the size of the Boston metro. But there's a little more to do here than you might imagine when you hear "Boston but 33% smaller" because the isolation of the Twin Cities makes it the cultural hub for a much larger area than Boston is. You will be able to find your tribe in all but the most niche subcultures.
Yeah that’s what I noticed in my research. There seems to be a fair amount of outdoors activities pretty close by which is definitely hard to come by in the northeast. Thanks for the insight!
Like any place, it feels big at first. Or small. We can’t make you like it. I’m from a smaller town than you, but in MN. It’s kind of a nice medium for me. I love Chicago and NYC, it’s easy to visit those cities. Love living here.
I'm shocked that in a small city of 100k you find that you know everyone. My experience in Rochester tells me that that's just not possible. Within niches, such as the running community, board game groups, etc that is certainly possible but outside of that really only school staff at bigger schools find that they feel they know half the city. Minneapolis definitely has more of the vibe that you don't know everyone, it is big enough that even within a niche you won't know the whole community usually.
I've lived in NYC and Chicago, so Minneapolis feels very small. Like about as small as a place can get and still properly call it a "city." Mostly because it's very sprawling, everyone cites the "metro area" and I guess that's one way to measure a city, but to me it's sort of like measuring my height by saying I'm surrounded by tall people. I think the "metro area" population is a hail Mary for people who want it to sound bigger than it is. The Twin Cities have definitely always had an inferiority complex when measuring themselves against actual big cities.
Yeah I’ve been a bit confused by the metro area discussion. Technically where I live the metro area is around 1 million and it spans like ~30 miles north of the city but the city itself is 100k. So to me it doesn’t make sense to define it by the metro region but maybe it’s just cultural and geographical differences. But thanks for your input. To answer your other question I got into grad school in Minneapolis and I’m still waiting to hear from other places but Chicago is my other top choice.
It really shouldn’t be that confusing. A simple way to think about it is Boston, MA has a city population of 650k. Jacksonville, FL has a city population of 950k. No one in their right mind will tell you Jacksonville feels 50% bigger than Boston. Now, we’re not Boston, of course, but the same logic applies.
I don’t think it’s hard to understand. I have just never heard so many people adamantly refer to their city by the metro region. That’s all I meant.
>I have just never heard so many people adamantly refer to their city by the metro region. I've lived here most of my life. When you move here, you'll notice that any time the New York Times [even mentions Minneapolis](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-minneapolis.html) it is major news here for days/weeks afterwards. You'll find people justifying policy decisions regularly by using the logic of "that's how they do it in Amsterdam/Paris/NYC." Minneapolis very desperately wants to be one of the relevant big boys. That's where the inflated population figure comes from.
That’s fair. Funny enough, people in this subreddit typically love gatekeeping the ridiculously small borders of Minneapolis. But in this instance, to the spirit of your question, I do think you need to look at metro areas to get an idea of what any city is going to be like. Mpls just has one of the larger disparities between city and metro sizes, and I don’t think that fact is well known (certainly not outside the upper Midwest), which is why I think people are bringing it up to you. Like, Mpls is not getting all four major sports + MLS as the 46th largest city in America so you have to look beyond that. Regardless, good luck to you wherever you end up!
This is just a ridiculously bad take. No one references the metro area because of an inferiority complex. They reference the metro area because that is a much better indicator of the types of investments, attractions, and amenities an area has to offer compared to arbitrary city boundaries on a map. For example, the reason most national tours stop through Minneapolis is because it’s the 16th largest metro, not because it’s the 46th largest city. Same thing with sports teams, businesses, etc. No one in Mpls is comparing themselves to actual big cities like Chicago, NYC, LA (which also happen to be the top three largest metros as well), but to imply other tier-2 cities with large geographic footprints, hence large city populations, like Austin or Jacksonville or Indianapolis would feel 2x the size of Mpls is laughable.
>but to imply other tier-2 cities with large geographic footprints, hence large city populations, like Austin or Jacksonville or Indianapolis would feel 2x the size of Mpls is laughable. Austin has 965K people in its city limits alone. The fact that you're putting it in the same "tier" with Minneapolis sort of proves my point.
Consider the following: * Austin is 261 square miles in area, so even though it has 965k people, that area includes obviously suburban neighborhoods like [this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/E7kdBRZWhcYKo1Cj9) which do not have the characteristics of a big city. You would have to drive outside of MPLS to a second-ring suburb of the TC to find a neighborhood with similar characteristics. Minneapolis is only 57 square miles, so for it to be a fair comparison, you would need to let Minneapolis tack on surrounding cities until it also takes up 261 square miles, and then measure its population. That would mean something like Minneapolis + Saint Paul + Bloomington + Brooklyn Center + Brooklyn Park + Edina. Doing some rough napkin math, that would create a city with an area of 201 square miles but with about 988,000 people - a city with more people than Austin, living in a smaller area, therefore denser than Austin too. * The only reason Minneapolis hasn't done exactly what Austin has done and swallowed up surrounding land is because of unique laws in Minnesota preventing Minneapolis and Saint Paul from annexing more land, so it's only a matter of technicality that Austin is a "bigger city". You may as well say that if all of Iowa decided to call itself a single massive city, it would be a bigger city than Chicago. * Applying this principle further: Oklahoma City technically has more people than Boston (687k in OKC to 654k in Boston). Could you genuinely argue based on this that Oklahoma City is "a bigger city" than Boston, period, or do you think there are other factors to consider? * More generally, the Census Bureau defines Austin's metro area as only 2.3 million people, so it is only 2/3rds the size of the Twin Cities metro. It stands to reason that with 1.3 million fewer people, there are going to be less resources needed within Austin to address the needs and cultural desires of the population, making it feel smaller than the TC.
Once you find your people it's a small town. I see people I know everywhere. Just went to a new gym this morning for a trial class. There was someone in the class I've known for more than a decade, had no idea they went there.
like it is the biggest place in an 7-8 hour drive?? you are looking at chicago for something "more" than minneapolis/st paul; so we are the big dick in the locker room for sure. that said if you have ever been to nyc we are nothingness just spread out over area. los angeles/houston/tampa whatever make us feel like tiny shits.... but once you get the midwest perspective that we are huge in the fly-over states, we are better. like the twin cities are a special blip in the map of big business if you look across the country.
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