I hear your points and as a former Northeasterner. I couldn't believe it myself until I experienced it.
1. Wind - once you leave the northeast, especially Boston, you notice the lack of constant wind. Getting knocked around by the wind and being consistently exposed to it is impactful on ability to deal with it. We generally have a slight breeze or still air.
2. Humidity/dampness - Boston and NYC are very damp in the winter relative to MN. The dampness causes that "gets into your bones cold", like when you stand outside you feel the cold just seeping in. We don't have any of that.
3. We have a lot of sunny days. Not like Hawaii or anything, but a lot of clear days. We also have a snowpack that forms in late November after a hard freeze and then you don't see the grass again until April. The snow reflects the sun and feels even brighter.
3. We do lots of outdoor stuff here - riding bikes with fat tires, sledding, cross-country skiing, ice skating, walks around the lakes, etc. - you learn how to properly bundle up and you are fine. As a counterpoint, I was in Miami for Thanksgiving and it was high 80's and humid and it was too hot to do anything outside.
A couple of weeks ago, my neighbor who is from Boston and I were commenting on the weather that week - grey, dreary, damp, sleet and heavy snow. It felt like Boston. I roll down my car window and he yells, "this weather sucks - just like Boston".
A dry sunny day here is amazing with our snow cover - it never melts, btw
Last weekend we went to an ice sculpture competition and then to an art exhibition that is held on a frozen lake in the city (all the lakes are frozen). It was about 18 degrees tops. The weekend before we went to an ice palace. We had a great time, bundle ourselves and the kids up and both events were packed. People get on with things.
And as I said above, the spring, fall and especially the summers here are absolutely amazing. So we suck it up in the winter and get payback in the warmer seasons. I live in the city and can walk to 3 lakes and biking trails and am also walking distance to whole foods, a bakery, etc. Add in the much lower cost of living and you can get why people deal with it.
A job recruiter once said, "you can't people to come to Minneapolis and you can't get them to leave either".
Daytime highs below 0 are completely unacceptable. I have already taken a ton of good walks this winter, like I do most winters. It starts becoming quite unpleasant when the "feels like" falls below 20 degrees. As an immediate example, right now it's 44 in Boston and 16 in Minneapolis. Even with sun and absolutely no wind, 16 is unpleasant walking weather (or sledding, skiing, essentially anything outdoors).
From December-February, it looks like the average temperature for Boston is about 14-15 degrees higher than Minneapolis. For those of us from Boston, how would you feel if we dropped the winter temps by that much? Is it really offset by a little less wind? Boston has some super windy streets for sure, but those are often specific wind tunnels and not exactly comprehensive. A drop in average temperature as severe as 14-15 degrees in winter is HARSH!
