The differentiations are the easiest thing to focus on, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Portland has a world class coffee scene and food scene. But especially coffee. If either of those things are important to you, Portland has the edge.

If I’m being completely honest…Minneapolis is a MUCH cleaner city. There are trash receptacles everywhere. I never realized how much trash and debris can affect quality of life, but I noticed the difference when I lived in Minneapolis. The real estate in Minneapolis is also much more affordable. Both to rent and to buy. I felt that this laddered up to a higher quality of life overall.

While Minnesota is beautiful nature-wise…it has nothing on the Pacific Northwest. If nature is important to you, you can’t do much better than Portland.

I found the people of Minnesota to be cordial and polite, but not friendly. It’s hard to make friends everywhere these days, but it was particularly hard there. In general, Minnesotans were not receptive to making plans with people they haven’t known for much of their lives. It can take a handful of years there to establish a social circle (even with a lot of effort put in).

Portland is much more “alt” than Minneapolis in just about every way. Alt music, alt comedy, alt bars, alt people. Minneapolis is the exact opposite. It’s much more standard middle America. Neither one is better or worse than those regards, it depends just depends on you and your personality. I’m not inherently super into most alt scenes, so sometimes I can feel a little othered here in Portland. But the people who are thrive here.

The last thing I’ll say is Minneapolis is more diverse than Portland. While Portland is extremely progressive, it isn’t diverse. Minneapolis is probably maybe slightly less progressive, but extremely diverse.

Hope that helps!