The Forum - November 10, 2006

F-M may be key for jobs, growth

By Dave Olson

 

he U.S. population is expected to grow by 100 million people in the next four decades, all of whom will need a place to live.

A new study suggests cities like Fargo will be a natural choice if communities capitalize on their advantages.

Bottom line is, you've got a hundred million more people who have to go somewhere, said Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow with the New America Foundation, which has issued a report that sees the nations heartland playing a potentially major role in the country's economic future.

Speaking at a news conference at North Dakota State University Thursday, Kotkin said metropolitan areas on the East and West coasts cannot absorb the expected population boom.

Instead, Kotkin expects a migration to the center of the country, where factors like attractive housing prices will lure many people, as long as there are jobs for them.

There's a whole generation of upwardly mobile people who have no opportunity to buy a house. That's a huge driver that is really going to change where the labor market is going to go, Kotkin said.

When it comes to jobs, states like North Dakota have a huge untapped potential for developing renewable sources of energy, as well as manufacturing and technology, said Delore Zimmerman of CEO Praxis, a growth strategy company.

Kotkin and Zimmerman teamed up to produce the New America Foundation report and its Heartland Development Strategy.

One thing the strategy calls for is the creation of a special bank that would focus $10 billion worth of lending on trade and technology infrastructure  things like more broadband communication capacity and alternative energy development.

Good things are happening in North Dakota and elsewhere in the Midwest, but more infrastructure would make things take off, Zimmerman said, adding the report is aimed at elected and non-elected government officials, urban planners and the real estate community.

David Martin, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Fargo Moorhead, said the report will be valuable to policy makers and others in presenting the region as an attractive place for employers and employees.

I call it the magnet effect, he said. As we get more people, we attract more people.

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