Big cities lure away North Dakota youth

Alana Bergman grew up on a farm in Jud, N.D. (pop. 74), about 130 miles from here. She raked hay, rode horses, shot baskets by herself in the summer and read constantly during long, cold winters.

She loved it. Sort of.

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-02-23-north-dakota-cover_x.htm

Today, Bergman, 33, is a patent attorney in Minneapolis. She goes to the theater, has season tickets to the Minnesota Vikings and drives 10 minutes — not two hours — to the nearest shopping mall.

Bergman is one of four children, none of whom wants the family farm. "You can’t order a pizza. You can’t rent a video," she says. "Things that other people take for granted, you just can’t do when you live on a farm on the Plains."

Population declines in the Great Plains — a vast, flat grassland that covers 15% of the nation’s land in 11 states — are often blamed on a lack of jobs in an era of mechanized farming. But the story of North Dakota challenges the idea that economic troubles are the primary force driving young people from small towns that dot 500,000 square miles of plains in the Midwest — an area almost twice the size of Texas.

Interviews with young people and a review of Census and economic data reveal that lifestyle — the weather, the isolation, the landscape, the inability to find a date on Saturday night — may be the key culprit behind the depopulation of the Plains. It could explain why decades of effort to stem the loss have not succeeded.

Call it the lure of the multiplex. North Dakota’s young people say that what makes for a wonderful childhood can be an inhospitable environment for young adults.

North Dakota is the only state that lost population from 2000 to 2003. Young people are leaving for cities and suburbs elsewhere. Unlike migrants from many northern industrial cities, North Dakota’s youths are fleeing prosperity, not economic decline.

North Dakota has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate: 3.2% vs. 5.6% nationally. It created jobs throughout the recession and the so-called jobless recovery. Wages and personal income are rising faster than the national average, which means the new jobs pay more than the old ones.

The same is true throughout the Plains. South Dakota has the nation’s second-lowest unemployment rate. Yet Plains states have enjoyed little population growth overall and have lost population in small towns, despite employment and income growth superior to the rest of country.

North Dakota is an extreme example of the trend — the most robust economy and the greatest population loss.

It’s hard for young North Dakotans — a highly educated group — to have well-paying white-collar careers in a sparsely populated state (640,000 people) where 40 million of 43 million acres are farms or pasture.

Many North Dakotans say they will return when it’s time to start a family, but few actually do. "When I moved here (to Minneapolis), I always thought I’d end up back home," Bergman says. "But after five years in the city, I’m not sure I could go home again."

‘We want young people’

The population loss has been enormously frustrating for North Dakota. "We want young people to return," says Gov. John Hoeven, a Republican. "Our strength is North Dakota is a great place to raise a family."

The state has done everything right economically: create jobs, boost wages, educate its children, keep tax rates low. The state has even successfully developed high tech-businesses.

Microsoft bought homegrown Great Plains Software Inc. of Fargo for $1.1 billion in 2000 and is now the state’s third-biggest employer. Alien Technology plans to employ hundreds at a new plant in Fargo that will make tiny radio frequency identification tags used by the Defense Department and Wal-Mart to track shipments.

The state also has attracted call centers and service centers to process bills. U.S. Bancorp, the country’s eighth-biggest financial holding company, is the state’s second-largest employer.

Per capita income in North Dakota was 19% below the national average in 1997. Last year, it was just 9% below: $29,938 vs. $31,801 for the USA. In 2003, income in North Dakota grew 7.8%, three times the U.S. rate.

Still, the young leave.

Linda Butts, the state’s chief economic developer, has two children. A son, 27, is an electrical engineer in Denver. A college-educated daughter, 30, works three minimum-wage jobs in Portland, Ore. Oregon has the nation’s highest unemployment rate.

"I saw her last weekend and tried to recruit her to come home," Butts says. "We’ve got jobs! But she loves Oregon — the lifestyle, the culture, her friends." Her daughter works at a radio station, as a publicist for a new sports magazine and at a multimedia retail store.

"I can’t tell you how frustrating it’s been to watch our small towns decline," says Roger Johnson, state agriculture commissioner.

Johnson doesn’t expect any of his three children to return home to Turtle Lake, population 558. His daughter is studying computer programming the University of California at Berkeley. A son is studying mechanical engineering at Colorado State University. His younger son will attend college in the fall, probably in Minnesota.

"Everybody wants their children to go off and do the best they can, so I’m proud," Johnson says. "But we have to come up with reasons for young people to be here."

North Dakota farms have never been more productive. The state is the nation’s top producer of 11 crops, including spring wheat, barley and sunflowers. It even ranked first in honey production last year. With grain prices high, farm income is near record levels. Commercial-sized farms earned an average of about $65,000 in 2003, up from $40,000 in 2002.

But mechanization has reduced the need for human labor and led to bigger farms. Johnson farmed 2,000 acres full time and had a second job when he was elected in 1996. Today, he’d have to farm 3,000 acres or more to make the same money he did with 2,000.

Weary of cold

The weather — extreme cold, extreme heat and extreme wind — is one reason young people leave.

On Jan. 26, a 19-inch snowfall closed 70 miles of Interstate 29 between Fargo and Grand Forks. The next day, Fargo’s high temperature was -5 degrees, the low -31. And that wasn’t the coldest day of the year. Fargo, Bismarck, Minot and Grand Forks are the coldest cities in the country that have populations of 25,000 or more — colder than even Nome, Alaska.

Nicole Heiden, 18, a freshman at North Dakota State University who grew up on a farm, remembers weather so cold her hair froze and snapped off. Her neighbor, Karan Herman, 18, tops that: She says her nose hairs once froze off.

"I’m leaving," Heiden declares. "Maybe Minneapolis. Maybe New York. I want to be surrounded by neighbors, not trees."

Herman concurs: "If you’re not a sportsman, life in North Dakota is: watch TV, play on the Internet, sleep. It’s boring."

Still, these two pharmacy students love North Dakota. "I’ll probably be back when it’s time to raise a family," Heiden says.

You get used to the cold, North Dakotans say. Outdoor hockey, ice fishing and snowmobiling are popular winter pastimes. The University of North Dakota has one of the nation’s top-ranked college hockey teams.

But people who leave find they get used to warmer weather, too.

Bergman, the Minneapolis lawyer, recently visited her family on a zero-degree day. Bundled up inside a heated car, she watched North Dakotans walk into Wal-Mart with their unzipped coats and no hats or gloves. "I thought, ‘Have I been gone that long?’ By comparison, Minneapolis is downright balmy."

Small cities grow

Unlike rural areas, North Dakota’s two largest cities — Fargo and Bismarck — have grown.

Fargo has blossomed into a hip, college town enjoying the fruits of prosperity — a contrast to the desolation shown in the popular 1996 movie Fargo.

The downtown has new art galleries, upscale restaurants and bookstores. Fargo has a symphony, a restored theater for art films, four places to learn yoga and the Dead Rockstar tattoo parlor for the Goth crowd.

Outside of town, industrial parks are full of thriving small businesses. North Dakota State University is the economic engine in the middle of it all.

The Fargo metropolitan area had 177,064 residents in 2002, up 16% since 1990, according to the Census. Bismarck, the state capital, had a 15% population increase to 96,349 during the past 12 years.

But North Dakota cities have not been able to catch most of the young people leaving the state or even keep pace with similar college towns in the Midwest that have cities or mountains nearby. Lawrence, Kan., home of the University of Kansas, and Missoula, Mont., home of the University of Montana, have grown 25% since 1990.

Despite rapid wage growth in recent years, North Dakota’s legacy as a low-wage farm state still leaves it far behind in wages for many jobs.

North Dakota’s lower cost of living — 7% below the national average — is not enough to offset the low pay.

North Dakota’s agriculture-related jobs pay the national average, even a little above, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Low-end jobs, such as fast food work, pay about the national average. Blue-collar jobs — machine operators, welders — pay about 10% less.

But professional jobs pay 20% to 50% less than elsewhere. Computer programmers, for example, make $20,500 less than the $63,690 national average.

The low pay in professional jobs has led to the brain drain. In the past, generations advanced gradually, from farm to factory to front office. Not today, especially in North Dakota.

The state is an education powerhouse. North Dakota has the nation’s highest high school graduation rate (89%). It sends a greater portion of high school students to college (69%) than any other state. And state government spends more per resident on college education ($689) than any other state.

But the emphasis on higher education — part of a strategy to compete economically — has backfired in a way. The state is producing economic thoroughbreds: educated young people with the farmers’ work ethic. North Dakota has plenty of jobs, just not the jobs college-educated young people want. And the state has not been able to attract large numbers of newcomers, foreign or domestic, to compete for the jobs it does have.

"Every state has young people who leave, but they also have young people moving in," says Johnson, the agriculture commissioner. "That’s not true for North Dakota. We’re the last undiscovered great place to live."

The best and the brightest who stay in North Dakota accept a financial sacrifice.

Top graduates from the University of North Dakota law school can earn $90,000 in their first year at Minneapolis law firms but only $45,000 — tops — at a North Dakota firm, says Mark Brickson, head of job placement at the law school.

Mitch Armstrong, son of an oilman and kindergarten teacher in Dickinson, N.D. (pop. 15,679), was a top law school graduate in 2003 and editor of the university’s law review. He decided to stay. This year, he’s clerking at the North Dakota Supreme Court. Then, he’ll start at a Bismarck law firm at half the pay he could have earned outside the state.

"I like to hunt and fish," he says. "I’m married and have a 9-month-old baby. For me, a balanced life is a happy life."

But Armstrong is a rarity among his hometown friends. "I can think of one who stayed," he says. "The others, let’s see — South Carolina, Europe, Minnesota, Iowa, Alaska, Arizona, California."

Contributing: Paul Overberg