These 12 Minnesota Cities Are Now Some of Best Places To Live

Here in Minnesota, we're known for our 10,000 Lakes, but as it turns out our fair state is also home to a dozen delightful cities which have just been called some of the best places to live.

When it comes to a high quality of life, Minnesotans like to think that our state ranks pretty highly, right? Well, this new survey appears to confirm that belief and has just included 12 different Minnesota cities on a new list of the Best Places to Live in the Midwest.

This new survey was compiled by the number crunchers over at Consumer Affairs, the customer review and consumer news platform. Consumer Affairs noted that for this survey, they defined the Midwest region as including the following states:

• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• South Dakota
• Wisconsin

To compile their results, Consumer Affairs said they analyzed the region's 100 largest cities using five key factors: safety, affordability, economy, education and quality of life. And when you crunch all the numbers and examine all the data, 12 Minnesota cities just made their list for 2025.

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So which cities are they? Well, shout-out to the good citizens of Plymouth, Minnesota, who made their city the highest-ranked city in the Bold North to make the list, and the only Minnesota city to rank in the top 25, coming in at #7 on the list. Plymouth was ranked 6th in education in the survey, the highest of any Minnesota city.

While Plymouth took the highest spot in the survey, the North Star State was also well-represented on the rest of the Consumer Affairs Best Places to Live in the Midwest list, as well. Check out where these other Minnesota cities were ranked this year:

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Minnesota Cities on Consumer Affairs 2025 'Best Places to Live in the Midwest' list:

#26 - Lakeville
#30 - Woodbury
#37 - Rochester
#46 - Maple Grove
#52 - Blaine
#64 - Bloomington
#67 - Duluth
#69 - Brooklyn Park
#73 - St. Cloud
#83 - St. Paul
#96 - Minneapolis

In case you're curious, Consumer Affairs noted that *the* best overall place to live in the Midwest here in 2025 was Carmel, Indiana, a suburb located just north of Indianapolis. Naperville and Arlington Heights, Illinois, two Chicago suburbs, along with Appleton, Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee-area suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin rounded out the top five.

And while our quality of education overall here in Minnesota was noted as being above average, just what are the *best* public schools in the Bold North? Keep scrolling to check out the list!

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