Cedar - Isles - Dean

Cedar - Isles - Dean — commonly abbreviated CIDNA, after the Cedar - Isles - Dean Neighborhood Association — is a small residential neighborhood in Southwest Minneapolis, occupying the corridor between Cedar Lake to the north and Lake of the Isles to the east. It is bounded roughly by Cedar Lake to the north, Lake of the Isles to the east, West Lake Street to the south, and France Avenue and the St. Louis Park line to the west. About 3,800 people lived here at the 2020 Census.

What distinguishes CIDNA from its neighbors is its ratio of green space to residential area. A remarkable percentage of the neighborhood's geography is park, lake, trail, or wetland. The Kenilworth Trail runs through its center. Dean Parkway connects Cedar Lake to Lake of the Isles along a tree-lined boulevard. Cedar Lake Park provides habitat and hiking. The result is a neighborhood that feels more like a nature preserve with houses than a city neighborhood with parks. There is no commercial district beyond the shops along West Lake Street at the southern edge. What there is, in abundance, is landscape.

The land between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles was part of the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people long before the corridor between the lakes became a railroad right-of-way.

European-American development of the area came in stages. The Minneapolis Park Board designated the land around Lake of the Isles a park in 1886, when it was still a shallow lake and marsh, and dredged it into its present shape over the following decades. Cedar Lake came into the park system more slowly — the board bought a strip of its west shore for a parkway in 1905 but did not own the whole shoreline until 1959, when it bought the north shore from the railroad — and it retained a wilder character that persists today. Dean Parkway, named for Joseph Dean, an early settler whose family gave most of its land, was laid out to link Lake of the Isles with Bde Maka Ska, and a connecting road to Cedar Lake joined the parkway system in 1929, establishing the geographic spine of the neighborhood.

The railroad corridor that now carries the Kenilworth Trail was originally part of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, later absorbed into the Chicago & North Western system. Freight trains ran through the corridor for decades, and the rail right-of-way shaped the neighborhood's development by creating a linear barrier that separated Cedar Lake from Lake of the Isles. Hennepin County's rail authority bought the corridor in 1984 to preserve it for future rail use, freight trains have run there under a county agreement since 1998, and the Kenilworth Trail built alongside the tracks became one of the most popular biking and walking routes in the city.

Residential construction in CIDNA came later than in neighboring Kenwood and East Isles: by Hennepin County property records, about two-thirds of its houses were built between the 1920s and the 1950s, many for affluent families drawn to the lakes and the park system. The housing stock reflects the architectural tastes of those decades, and the neighborhood's character is defined less by the homes themselves than by the extraordinary natural setting that surrounds them.

Living in CIDNA feels like living inside a park system. The trails are not something you drive to — they are your commute, your morning run, your evening walk, your kid's bike route to school. Cedar Lake is visible through the trees from half the streets in the neighborhood. Lake of the Isles gleams from the other half. The soundscape is more birdsong than traffic. In autumn, when the maples and oaks along the Kenilworth corridor turn, the neighborhood becomes almost unreasonably beautiful — a corridor of gold and red that lasts for two weeks and draws cyclists from across the city.

The social character is private, established, and quiet. Away from Lake Street, CIDNA has no commercial gathering place — no coffee shop, no restaurant, no corner store. Community connections form through the neighborhood association (CIDNA is one of the more active neighborhood organizations in Minneapolis), through school networks, and through the informal interactions that happen on the trails. The Kenilworth Trail is, in a sense, CIDNA's Main Street: the place where neighbors encounter each other, exchange greetings, and maintain the casual familiarity that substitutes for a commercial center.

The demographic profile is affluent, white, and highly educated — consistent with the broader lakeside Southwest Minneapolis pattern. Household incomes are well above the city median. Professional careers are disproportionately represented. The political orientation is progressive, with strong environmentalist leanings that are unsurprising given the neighborhood's relationship to its landscape. CIDNA residents tend to be deeply invested in park system governance, trail maintenance, and environmental policy — the issues that directly affect their daily experience of the neighborhood.

CIDNA's commercial life is confined to West Lake Street along its southern edge, where the Greenway Lakes Commons shopping center sits; the rest of the neighborhood has no restaurants, no cafes, no shops of any kind. Most dining, shopping, and commercial activity happens in the surrounding neighborhoods, all of which are easily accessible by bike or short drive.

Outdoor recreation is not an amenity in CIDNA — it is the neighborhood. The ratio of parkland, lake, and trail to residential area is the highest of any neighborhood in Minneapolis, and the quality and connectivity of the outdoor spaces are exceptional by any national standard.

Nearby Minneapolis Public Schools include Kenwood Elementary School (K–5), on Penn Avenue in Kenwood. Assignments depend on the address, so check the district's school finder for a specific house.

Anwatin Middle School (6–8) is across Cedar Lake in Bryn Mawr. Southwest High School (9–12), on West 47th Street, is an International Baccalaureate World School, and its IB program draws students from across Southwest Minneapolis.

Private and independent school options include the Blake School, Breck School, and various Montessori and parochial programs accessible by car. The neighborhood's proximity to both Minneapolis and suburban school options gives families genuine choice, shaped by the financial resources that CIDNA households disproportionately possess.

Cedar - Isles - Dean is one of the more expensive neighborhoods in Minneapolis: its median sale price was $577,500 in 2025, up from $552,000 a year earlier, according to Minneapolis Area REALTORS, against $350,000 citywide. Inventory is limited — the neighborhood is small, the housing stock is mostly built out, and only 56 homes and condos sold in 2025 — but the market is not a fast one. Sales averaged 78 days on market in 2025, longer than the city's 55, and sellers got about 97 percent of their original list price.

CIDNA's Walk Score of 64 is among the lowest of the lakeside Southwest Minneapolis neighborhoods — a direct reflection of how little commercial activity there is within the neighborhood. For walking to errands, CIDNA is genuinely inconvenient. For walking and biking for recreation, it is one of the best neighborhoods in the country.

The Bike Score of 88 is much stronger. The Kenilworth Trail, the lake trails, and the connections to the broader Minneapolis bike network make cycling the dominant alternative to driving. Commuting to downtown by bike via the Kenilworth Trail takes approximately 20 minutes and is entirely car-free. Many CIDNA residents are committed cyclists who chose the neighborhood specifically for this infrastructure.

By car, downtown Minneapolis is 10–15 minutes via I-394 or Hennepin Avenue. The western suburbs are equally accessible via the same routes. MSP International Airport is approximately 20 minutes via Highway 62 or I-35W. Metro Transit bus service is available on Lake Street, at the neighborhood's southern edge, and on Hennepin Avenue to the east. The Southwest LRT stations just outside the neighborhood (West Lake Street, across Lake Street in West Maka Ska, and 21st Street, in Kenwood) will provide direct light rail service to downtown and the western suburbs — a transformative transit addition, once the line opens on June 12, 2027.

CIDNA's defining tension is between its extraordinary natural setting and the infrastructure decisions that threaten to alter it. The neighborhood is not in transition — it is in a prolonged negotiation over the terms of its own future.