To be fair to Al, much of Minneapolis was a mess when he lived here. Downtown, campus, and the north side were absolute wastelands and several other neighborhoods in south, northeast, and Uptown were almost as bad. Their is a reason Minneapolis has undertaken numerous "beautification" projects throughout the city over the past decade. Now, rather then entire sections of the city being unsafe and crime ridden, it's much smaller pockets of a block or two and as an added bonus the city actually looks nicer too. It's no Portland or Toronto, but it's far better then it was. That all being said the northside is still a mess. It would be nice if the city actually cared about cleaning it up.