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Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

The cities in the U.S. where you can walk around are pretty much completely unaffordable to all but the extremely wealthy. My wife and I wanted to move to Boston but couldn't find a house in a decent (walking) neighborhood for under 500k. Of course this would be cheap compared to say San Francisco. Chicago might come the closest to being somewhat affordable in the walkable parts, but I haven't checked recently.

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Come visit uptown Minneapolis some time. It is a vibrant place with thrift stores, co-ops, and delicious restaurants with fresh food and cheap happy hours. You can rent a studio/1BR for as low as $600. Houses can be had for as low as 100k.

I currently rent a 1br with a huge deck and skyline view of Downtown for $900. I can walk to the co-op and coffee shops, don't need a car for anything except getting to my silly suburban programming job in the winter.

In the walkable parts of the city? I'm surprised, when I last visited Minneapolis I stayed at a 1br condo that cost (at least) 400k and was maybe 400 sqft.

Yes, the walkable part. I am guessing you probably were in a condo downtown by the north loop/st. anthony main. There are some pockets where condos go for ridiculous prices, but google "The Wedge Co-op" on google maps and street view your way around the neighborhood. I literally would sell my car if I didn't have a winter commute to the suburbs.

> Houses can be had for as low as 100k.

Can they?

I'm looking at Redfin right now, and they claim the average home price in Uptown, Minneapolis, MN right now is $600k.

There's a few cheap 1 bedrooms apartments, but anything else is way in the realm of "completely unaffordable to all but the extremely wealthy"

I see lots of cheap housing in Minneapolis. But it's all suburban in nature. (Either actually suburban, or 'technically-inside-the-city' single-family homes that are effectively suburban.

Seems to be somewhat true. https://www.redfin.com/city/10943/MN/Minneapolis/filter/prop...

The area around the new co-op over by 38th st and 5th ave - yes houses can be had for 100k.

That's hardly Uptown by any stretch of the word and the crime rate in the area is much higher than you're letting on (certainly compared to your average suburb.) As someone very familiar with real estate market in the TC metro, any home in Minneapolis that's below 150k is either in a high crime area, extremely lacking compared to other houses nearby (probably has no garage, no basement, backs up to train or highway), structurally deficient, or all of the above.

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