Grand Forks Economy

[geaux_sioux]

So you’re saying a town with mayor Brown at the helm sputtered in the face of unbelievable growth across the state? The people that pull the string in GF don’t want it to get too big. They want to be able to easily control things. There’s a reason GF has been so unfriendly to new businesses for so long.

[1972]

you know, there is alot of things i do love about GF...the race track is one of the most entertaining and exciting places to take in a race in the country( just look up world of outlaw highlights from last year), the REA is the best place in the country to take in a college hockey game...period, the river offers world class fishing, living here isnt too far to get to the big city, but is far enough away that alot of the big city crap dosent happen here.  now, that being said, the winters here can be the most brutal and unbearable at times, and that is a major down vote for alot of people.  including me, as i get older and less tolernt of the cold/snow

[SIOUXFAN97]

46 minutes ago, geaux_sioux said:

So you’re saying a town with mayor Brown at the helm sputtered in the face of unbelievable growth across the state? The people that pull the string in GF don’t want it to get too big. They want to be able to easily control things. There’s a reason GF has been so unfriendly to new businesses for so long.

wonder if the owners of hornbachers knew what they were getting into...

[gfhockey]

1 hour ago, geaux_sioux said:

So you’re saying a town with mayor Brown at the helm sputtered in the face of unbelievable growth across the state? The people that pull the string in GF don’t want it to get too big. They want to be able to easily control things. There’s a reason GF has been so unfriendly to new businesses for so long.

Amen

[gfhockey]

18 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

wonder if the owners of hornbachers knew what they were getting into...

Pretty easy to run them outta town 

[The Sicatoka]

Hornbacher's is now owned by Coborn's. Coborn’s operates 53 supermarkets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois and Wisconsin under the Coborn’s, Cash Wise Foods, Marketplace Foods and Save-A-Lot banners. 

You're telling me Hugo's ran them out of town? 

I'd say WalMart and SuperTarget did the deed. 

[JohnboyND7]

1 hour ago, geaux_sioux said:

So you’re saying a town with mayor Brown at the helm sputtered in the face of unbelievable growth across the state? The people that pull the string in GF don’t want it to get too big. They want to be able to easily control things. There’s a reason GF has been so unfriendly to new businesses for so long.

Idk...big growth in Fargo, and oil country or oil adjacent country. Its not like Jamestown, Valley City, and Wahpeton, Devils Lake, and those communities are exactly booming.

[geaux_sioux]

2 hours ago, JohnboyND7 said:

Idk...big growth in Fargo, and oil country or oil adjacent country. Its not like Jamestown, Valley City, and Wahpeton, Devils Lake, and those communities are exactly booming.

For those five to even be considered as contemporaries is laughable.

[NoiseInsideMyHead]

One could deduce that GF has been greatly hampered by the post-Cold War transition at the AFB.  Nukes -> Tankers -> Drones(?)...no inside info here, but from the outside the scaling down of the base's mission has not been kind to the local economy.  If they closed it altogether, would it even be felt at this point?

During that same period, GF has endured cuts and austerity at UND, and more recently, a weak Canadian dollar.

Recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, seems that everything keeps coming up aces for Fargo.

[Nodak78]

12 minutes ago, NoiseInsideMyHead said:

One could deduce that GF has been greatly hampered by the post-Cold War transition at the AFB.  Nukes -> Tankers -> Drones(?)...no inside info here, but from the outside the scaling down of the base's mission has not been kind to the local economy.  If they closed it altogether, would it even be felt at this point?

During that same period, GF has endured cuts and austerity at UND, and more recently, a weak Canadian dollar.

Recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, seems that everything keeps coming up aces for Fargo.

Yes all challenges and no solutions.  The drones are part of solutions.  GF has had bad policy for growth since at least the 1970's.  It was gravy train, UND and GFAB until it was not.  The old guard so protective, no competition is best.  At least a mayor not part of old guard, maybe or maybe to late.

[forksandspoons]

I think the UAS park is bringing a lot of good paying jobs to forks. Anybody know the most recent numbers? Leaders need to keep pushing that as that is the city’s advantage with UND and the AFB. The city also needs a Digikey like business to come to town. Tons of good paying jobs and growth. Why not make a national news splash by offering some sort of crazy incentives to get attention from some of those businesses out there looking to save on taxes, etc.? 

[JohnboyND7]

2 hours ago, geaux_sioux said:

For those five to even be considered as contemporaries is laughable.

The point isn't to compare Grand Forks to those communities. 

The point is Grand Forks offers basically nothing to anyone beyond what they already do.

The west had an oil boom. They got to enjoy that. Grand Forks doesn't have that.

Fargo has been growing like a pretty consistent weed (adjusted for ND of course) for the last hundred years. Being at a crossroads designated by the US government sure helped.

Grand Forks is where it is because they got a relatively major university and an Air Force Base. Look when Grand Forks growth stunted... right around the time they shipped my family out of there and started downsizing the base. 

This isn't even shitting on GF...if it were up to me they'd have given UND the land grant and we'd all be best of friends. Enjoy the town much more than Fargo. I hope they fix many of the problems this thread is basically devoted to complaining about and identifying.

But don't try to make Grand Forks something it's not. Just like Jamestown will never be Grand Forks, Grand Forks is never gonna be Fargo. Each of these "levels" of communities is unique and brings good and bad. 

[geaux_sioux]

8 hours ago, JohnboyND7 said:

The point isn't to compare Grand Forks to those communities. 

The point is Grand Forks offers basically nothing to anyone beyond what they already do.

The west had an oil boom. They got to enjoy that. Grand Forks doesn't have that.

Fargo has been growing like a pretty consistent weed (adjusted for ND of course) for the last hundred years. Being at a crossroads designated by the US government sure helped.

Grand Forks is where it is because they got a relatively major university and an Air Force Base. Look when Grand Forks growth stunted... right around the time they shipped my family out of there and started downsizing the base. 

This isn't even shitting on GF...if it were up to me they'd have given UND the land grant and we'd all be best of friends. Enjoy the town much more than Fargo. I hope they fix many of the problems this thread is basically devoted to complaining about and identifying.

But don't try to make Grand Forks something it's not. Just like Jamestown will never be Grand Forks, Grand Forks is never gonna be Fargo. Each of these "levels" of communities is unique and brings good and bad. 

Look at the growth charts for both. Post flood Fargo took off and left GF in the dust. They swing for the fences at every pitch. They’re bound to hit a ton of home runs. Meanwhile we haven’t even chosen a bat and will likely try and bunt once we do.

[jdub27]

4 hours ago, geaux_sioux said:

Look at the growth charts for both. Post flood Fargo took off and left GF in the dust. They swing for the fences at every pitch. They’re bound to hit a ton of home runs. Meanwhile we haven’t even chosen a bat and will likely try and bunt once we do.

I mean, comparing what each city had to deal with as an aftermath of the flood isn't really apple to apples.

[NoiseInsideMyHead]

28 minutes ago, jdub27 said:

I mean, comparing what each city had to deal with as an aftermath of the flood isn't really apple to apples.

Is it sacrilege to suggest that GF's survival of the flood was a Pyrrhic victory...that in celebrating the short-term recovery (itself a worthy achievement, and a tremendous source of civic and national pride), a mortal wound was ignored or overlooked?

[SIOUXFAN97]

Hugo's lifts their mask mandate for CUSTOMERS but...

just talked to a young lady cashier at Hugo's...she says non-vaccinated employees have to wear a mask /vaccinated don't have to

the girl i was talking to was almost crying bc of medical issues she can't get the vaccine and doesn't want to quit

she said half of the employees are vaccinated

question...Does Hugo's mean forever or until herd immunity kicks in? if it's a forever thing i and alot of other people will probably never shop at Hugo's again

[OgieOgilthorpe]

15 hours ago, geaux_sioux said:

Look at the growth charts for both. Post flood Fargo took off and left GF in the dust. They swing for the fences at every pitch. They’re bound to hit a ton of home runs. Meanwhile we haven’t even chosen a bat and will likely try and bunt once we do.

Exactly!  if you look back 20-30 years the 2 towns were extremely comparable in size. The flood was a big hit of course, but overall the poor long term leadership played the biggest role by far in Gf falling so far behind. 
 

The “Closer to the cities” or “civilization”comment is mostly dumb to me. Canadians love to come to the US, even when the FX is unfavorable. There is a metro area of almost a million people (larger than all of ND) just across the border that used to flock to gf in giant armies. Now (pre-covid) they bypass gf for Fargo because everythings out of business in Gf. 

[OgieOgilthorpe]

On 5/12/2021 at 12:33 PM, JohnboyND7 said:

I think some of it is some statewide effort to have more entertainment Medora and Fargo.  But yeah i think it's pretty hokey. 

Not sure its entirely fair to compare Grand Forks to other areas. The western energy boom is self explanatory like you mentioned. 

Fargo is just best equipped to grow in the east.  Two interstates,  an hour closer to civilization. Many more college kids available to be retained. I'm thinking that has started to snowball quite a bit.  

Not sure how Grand Forks can experience anything similar. Geography will steer people south. Hopefully they can snag some good jobs related to the base and tech or whatever. Big fan of the town up there. If I landed a great job opportunity up there I'd jump at it. 

Many more college kids available to be retained? I don’t think that’s the issue. GF/EGF has roughly 20k college kids each year...I think that’s plenty. It’s not the number of kids to retain, it’s the number of opportunities available to retain them. Grand forks is slacking for long term salary career type options. 

[Hammersmith]

17 minutes ago, OgieOgilthorpe said:

Exactly!  if you look back 20-30 years the 2 towns were extremely comparable in size. The flood was a big hit of course, but overall the poor long term leadership played a huge and horrible role in Gf falling so far behind when the 2 were very comparable. The two universities have always been very comparable in size and still are. 
 

The Closer to large cities or “civilization”comment is dumb to me. Canadians love to come to the US, even when the FX is unfavorable. There is a metro of almost a million people (larger than all of ND) just across the border that used to flock to gf in giant armies. Now (pre-covid) they bypass gf for Fargo because everythings out of business in Gf. 

Ehh, more like 50 years. Can't really compare GF and Fargo; you need to compare Greater GF and the FM metro.

Year - GreaterGF/FMMetro/FM bigger than GGF percent
1960 - 84,859/106,027/+25%
1970 - 95,537/120,238/+26%
1980 - 100,944/137,574/+36%
1990 - 103,181/153,296/+49%
2000 - 97,487/174,367/+79%
2010 - 98,461/208,777/+112%
2018 - 102,299/245,471/+140%

[OgieOgilthorpe]

7 hours ago, Hammersmith said:

Ehh, more like 50 years. Can't really compare GF and Fargo; you need to compare Greater GF and the FM metro.

Year - GreaterGF/FMMetro/FM bigger than GGF percent
1960 - 84,859/106,027/+25%
1970 - 95,537/120,238/+26%
1980 - 100,944/137,574/+36%
1990 - 103,181/153,296/+49%
2000 - 97,487/174,367/+79%
2010 - 98,461/208,777/+112%
2018 - 102,299/245,471/+140%

I can agree MSA population does definitely give you a clearer understanding. 
 

GF MSA is essentially the same as 40 years ago and Fargo MSA has essentially doubled. WOW 

[Old Fella]

The leaders in Fargo (Walaker) have been progresive.

Leaders have been and continue to be very conseervative.

[Old Fella]

Just now, Old Fella said:

The leaders in Fargo (Walaker) have been progresive.

Leaders have been and continue to be very conseervative.

 

[Old Fella]

Edit:

Leaders in Grand Forks have been and continue to be very conservative.

[Big Lubowski]

8 hours ago, Hammersmith said:

Ehh, more like 50 years. Can't really compare GF and Fargo; you need to compare Greater GF and the FM metro.

Year - GreaterGF/FMMetro/FM bigger than GGF percent
1960 - 84,859/106,027/+25%
1970 - 95,537/120,238/+26%
1980 - 100,944/137,574/+36%
1990 - 103,181/153,296/+49%
2000 - 97,487/174,367/+79%
2010 - 98,461/208,777/+112%
2018 - 102,299/245,471/+140%

Do you have the same numbers for the Bismarck/Mandan metro? It would be interesting to see if those more closely followed Fargo or GF? I’m betting the former...

[Cratter]

GF gained the most people in the state during the pandemic.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-citylab-how-americans-moved/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twitter-thread&utm_content=citylab