USA Guide
The Great Lakes
St Paul
Commonly known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis (a hybrid Sioux/Greek word meaning "water city") and St Paul are competitive yet complementary. Fraternally rather than identically twinned, they may be even better places to live than they are to visit, thanks to their cleanliness, cultural activity, social awareness, and relatively low crime rates. Life for a majority of Twin City residents seems so vibrantly wholesome that the most significant threat would appear to be their own creeping complacency.
Only a twenty-minute expressway ride separates the respective downtowns, but each has its own character, style, and strengths. St Paul, the state capital – originally called Pig's Eye, after a scurrilous French-Canadian fur trader who sold whisky at a Mississippi River landing in the 1840s – is the staid, slightly older sibling, careful to preserve its buildings and traditions. The compact but stately downtown is built, like Rome, on seven hills: the Capitol and the Cathedral occupy one each, both august monuments that keep the city mindful of its responsibilities.
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