“America’s Safest Cities”: Minneapolis, MN

Our beloved Minneapolis metropolitan area tops the Forbes.com list for the safest cities in the U.S. Minneapolis ranked in the top 10 in low crime rate, workplace fatalities, traffic-related deaths, and natural disaster risk categories.

The natural disaster risk was measure using in part The 2008 US City Rankings from SustainLane: People-Powered Sustainability Guide. They covered the greening of the 50 most-populous cities, which Minneapolis was 7th overall. Below is how Minneapolis ranked on all the criteria, including City communiting, metro transit, local food/agriculture, and green economy. Minneapolis, quoted the "midwestern jewel", is top ranked on local food and agriculture, communications, and city innovation.

Furthermore, Minneapolis is experiencing huge reductions in violent crimes due to proactive policing targeting the most violent criminals. Go Minneapolis! Check out the rest of Forbe's Safest Cities.

-Annie H.

“America’s Safest Cities”: Minneapolis, MN

Forbes 2008 Billionaire List

Today I have not stopped thinking about the released list of Forbes 2008 Billionaires. Hearing about the list of people in the world that have all this money just boggles my mind!! It initially shocked me that Bill Gates reign of number one billionaire has ceased and has dropped down on the list to number three. Ahead of him two new men. Number one billionaire is his friend and sometimes partner Warren Buffett worth an estimated $62 billion dollars! Gates is only worth a measly $58 billion, psh what happened to him!
To me the most shocking on the list is not the top leaders of the list because they have worked their adult life towards those dollars and it’s based upon companies, stocks, investments and what not… all things that hurt my brain to comprehend. What I sit in disbelief about is Mark Zuckerberg. The 23 year old creator of Facebook, who has an estimated worth of $1.7 billion. Somehow Mark has more money than I think four generations of my children after me will ever possess in accumulation, for creating a social online network that, if anything, has cost me nothing but hours of nothingness entertainment. I sit on facebook for hours upon hours doing nothing truly productive, and even so addicted to the point I have my Blackberry set up on alerts so I know when I receive notifications.
I am a recent newbie to the age of 23 and I feel the only thing I have accomplished is two diplomas, one from high school, one from college, two maxed out credit cards, phone bills and who even knows what other bills sitting high on my desk as I eat ramen noodles about once a day because that is all I can afford. Yet, Mark Zuckerberg can blow his nose in dollar bills if he so desired. One word: UNFAIR.
I seem to have my best ideas while I dream, so hopefully by the time I turn 24, I’ll have a billionaire idea of creating something that expands as quickly as google, monster.com, facebook and myspace has for their creators. I don’t need a billion dollars even, just a few million would do! I won’t be greedy!

Forbes 2008 Billionaire List