by Paul Witte
Fargo, North Dakota. One of the smallest “Cities” in the United States when comparing it to the United States as a whole. But when just connecting it to other cities in its size it is one of the fastest and largest growing. After doing a bit of digging and realizing what exactly that entailed I was rather interested to see a full categorization of what defines a “small city” according to the US Census.
To have an effective small city the city in question needs to have all the essentials of a “normal city” as in hospitals, airports, school, and all other basic needs a city could ask for but there needs to be room for growth and expansion. Which Fargo and other great plains states have a lot of room to grow.
Now the question of why is Fargo growing so quickly in comparison to its equal counterparts? The answer is population. North Dakota, but mostly Fargo is incredibly friendly to immigrants coming into its city and state. Along with a major increase in STEM job opportunities, Fargo has over 50% occupancy with a BA or higher. In comparison to cities across America very few can come even close to that. It also helps that Fargo is host to its own university to help push an educated population. With a growing diverse population, educated residence within the growing energy and tech industry, and plenty of room to spread out makes a fantastic formula for extensive growth of any city.
Let me point out the facts as of now and the possible predictions for the future. When it comes to Fargo as of right now there are 120,762 people residing in the city of Fargo. It is the 229 right behind Ann Arbor, Michigan and after Columbia, Missouri. With a 14.14% growth rate from 2010 to 2016. When not counting outliers the average growth for outstanding cities is 13% which proves Fargo is up there in cities that are growing at an outstanding rate.
How is this going to affect anyone and everything? Well it can go two different ways, more growth will lead to more jobs, more money from taxes to the city to build and improve infrastructure, education, and the general wellbeing of residence lives. Or, it can be such a fast growth that Fargo cannot keep up and will have disastrous consequences of high cost of living, not enough room, and for everything to stagnate. Most likely the latter of the two choices just since none of those consequences are happening right now and Fargo has a high growth rate as it is.
When talking a prediction on what the size of Fargo will be in the future for example looking at the most recent US Census in 2010 and taking the average growth of the past six years then multiplying that by the population of Fargo to get the new average estimated amount of people for the US Census of 2020 will be around 150,000 if the growth rate stays the same or even increases. What is it that needs to happen now? If the Mayor of Fargo and all city officials plan for continuing growth of Fargo as a whole, then nothing can go wrong. Just be expecting to have some new neighbors within the next five years.
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