[NanoBison]

You know Midwesterner, for a being a person who says “I am not bad-mouthing Fargo”, you sure as hell don’t ever say anything good about it do you? You also make it sounds like all the ideas I propose should happen over night, including getting the city to 500,000 people. It's not going to happen over night, but it certainly won't take 150 years. We currently have (roughly) 2,000 people moving into the metro and/or being born in the metro every year.

Let’s say I start out with just the 185,000 for ONLY the MSA, and let’s keep a growth rate of something conservative, say 1.1%. It will only take 94 years to hit 500,000 and if you increase that growth rate to something a little more aggressive say 1.5% you hit it in 70 years. I’m thinking even more progressively though. I think we can sustain at least 2% growth every year. We’ll hit 500,000 in 53 years. I’ll be hitting the golden age of 80, which is how long I expect it to take. That’s how far ahead I’m thinking Midwesterner. I’m talking about setting the framework to catapult the FM area into the regional hub of a city on a national scale with those other larger cities. (and yes I realize, they will continue growing too, we’re not trying to play catch-up, we’re trying to establish the city as having a presence nationally, and that we will never be on a scale with the 1,000,000+ cities, unless the coasts get so damn crowded the only place left to build is the great plains….)

You also state how much more these cities have than we currently do, such as in terms of airlines flight connections, money, fortune 500 headquarters, etc... ddduuuuuhhhhh. I sure hope they do!!! The only way to achieve a level of accomplishment like that is through continued growth. What’s happening in downtown Fargo-Moorhead and all of the surrounding neighborhoods (with those dreamy large projects, the Brandt Development and Las Vegas developers shopping idea), including the West Acres area will only continue to build on that.

In terms of job growth for Bismarck and Grand Forks, I sure hope they continue to grow, because Grand Forks is currently losing population and most likely that trend won’t reverse unless something significantly happens. Bismarck, I see growing further and maintaining prominently it’s position as second largest city in the state. In terms of the people leaving college to go work for oil near Williston… Good for them, I haven’t heard of any yet. The oil out there is too little, too late. If you think it’s going to reverse Williston’s decline in population, think again. It’s merely a Band-Aid on a cut hemorrhaging profusely. In terms of job growth, can you post a link to that data, so we can see exactly what kind of jobs they are? If the 3% job growth is from call centers and customer service centers like Amazon.com or Sykes, or ING, they can keep those lower paying jobs. We have our fair share of those here too, but we also are working more on the high tech jobs and manufacturing jobs that pay quite a bit better.

You need to open your eyes a little bit wider Midwesterner, if you think that downtown and the city is going nowhere quickly. But then again, you already sound like an individual who is already conformed to their complacency of non-change.

Are you sure you wouldn't be happier living in Grand Forks?