BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY, DEC. 28, 2105) — What are the defining factors that decide on the economic health or illness of a city?

“We look at wages and employment,” says Charles Murray, of the American Institute for Economic Research. For Pittsfield, thus the story remains told — and old. In the city, wages hover at the minimum wage level. Employment is high. Counting underemployment, it scrapes bottom.

Murray says the strongest cities and economies have multiple primary industries such as families, transportation, and manufacturing. The weakest, he says, have “an over-dependence” on one primary industry or over-rely on “consumptive industries such as tourism, construction, large local governments, [and the ]service and retail trades.”

Tourism. Check.

Construction. Check.

Bloated local government. Check.

Service industry. Check.

Retail. Check.

Murray describes the sad state of Pittsfield with the exactness of a true-sided mirror.

A Tale of Two Cities

The skyline of Fargo, N.D.

In 2004, Murray compared the economies of two comparable cities: Pittsfield and Fargo, N.D. That year, in a list of 366 metropolitan economies, the two cities ranked #100 and #95, respectively. According to Murray, 11 years later, the difference between the two cities had dramatically diverged. By focusing on primary industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, and finance, Fargo rebounded, finding not only health but prosperity. On the other hand, Pittsfield took a flyer on “consumptive industries” — tourism, retail, and the arts. Sound familiar? It does to those who have read, viewed, of listened to THE PLANET’s analyses and criticisms in print, on radio and TV, and online.

Blight in Pittsfield, Mass.

Murray also says the city’s aging population plays a huge part in the Pittsfield economy. In 2009, he says, cashed in more than $400 million in Social Security checks. The problem, of course, is that seniors eventually age out of the economy altogether. When they go, their SS security checks and spending stops.

Now THE PLANET does not suggest Fargo’s story could have been Pittsfield’s in the specifics, but we do maintain that if the Shire City had made more intelligent, altruistic decisions on its economy instead of playing it safe with the low-hanging opportunities and failing to think and play big, the city could have enjoyed a — dare we say it? — renaissance.

No Joke, But What a Punchline!

With that, we present this article from Forbes.com, published on April 11, 2014. We have made slight edits. The story ran with the headline:

No Joke: It Couldn’t Get Much Better In Fargo

By JOEL KOTKIN

Fargo, a metro area with over 200,000 people, and the state of North Dakota have been enjoying a sustained boom for a decade. This resurgence — in demographics, economics and real estate — follows decades of relative decline and an almost sullen sense of isolation that drove many people out of the state.

In a state where the unofficial motto seems to be “it could be worse” — not a bad notion given the often miserable weather — things couldn’t be much better. North Dakota leads the nation in virtually every indicator of prosperity: the lowest unemployment rate, and the highest rates of net in-migration, income growth and job creation. Last year North Dakota wages rose a remarkable 8.9%, twice as much as Utah and Texas, which shared honors for second place, and many times the 1% rise experienced nationwide.

The once dreary predictions of demographic decline — epitomized by the proposal two New Jersey academics to turn the area into a “Buffalo Commons” — have been reversed. North Dakota now lures many college graduates from out of state and keeps more of its own as well. Today more than half of North Dakotans aged 25-44 have post-secondary degrees, among the highest percentages in the nation, and well above the roughly 40% number for the rest of the country.

Many will ascribe the state’s rise primarily to the energy boom. To be sure the fastest growth in North Dakota and other Plains states has been in the areas closest to the oil and gas finds. But over the past decade, the population of the Plains has expanded by 14%, well above the national average and far faster than the Midwest, the Northeast or California.

This Plains resurgence is taking place even in areas far from energy development. Fargo, for example, is six hours hard driving from Williston, the center of the Bakken range. Yet despite this the area’s population has been growing, up 20% in the last decade, twice the national average. Since 2010, over 8,000 more people have come to the Fargo metro area, which extends to the Minnesota city of Moorhead, than have left. In fact, the small cities of the Dakotas have been growing faster than the nation for well more than a decade, before the recent energy boom took off.

The growth in Fargo has come not so much from energy, but an expanding industrial and technology sector. STEM employment is up nearly 40% since 2001, compared to 3% nationally. It also leads all other U.S. metro areas in the growth in the number of mid-skilled jobs, providing good wages to people with two-year or certificate degrees. Between 2009 and 2011, mid-skilled employment grew 5%, roughly 10 times the national average. No surprise then that the population with BAs in Fargo has grown 50% in the last decade, well above the 40% rate for the rest of the country.

Yet perhaps nothing illustrates the dramatic changes in Fargo better than its downtown area. Twenty years ago, when I first visited the city, downtown was torpid on a good day. Storefronts were old, funky and often empty. The local hotels ranged between acceptable to sorry.

But in the past decade downtown Fargo has seen a crush of new investment; property values have more than doubled since 2000. Mid-range apartment complexes are sprouting up, all pitching themselves to millennial professionals who value a more pedestrian-oriented environment. The founder of Great Plains Software, now Microsoft MSFT +0.00% Business Systems, Doug Burgum, has proposed to build a 23-story office tower downtown. Not surprisingly, it would be the tallest building in the state.

Some are rightfully skeptical about some of these ambitious plans given the low cost of development on the periphery and the region’s basically non-urban mindset. But the feel has certainly changed, with several high-end restaurants, huge numbers of bars (befitting the German and Scandinavian roots of the area’s population), offering a rising number of local brews. There’s even a boutique hotel, the Donaldson, founded by Burgum’s ex-wife Karen, decorated with Plains art, and run by a friendly, highly professional staff.

The people even look different than a decade or two ago. The bars and restaurants now host a more attractive group of young professionals and meandering divorcees.

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 The true pessimists in Pittsfield have been its “leaders” — politicians, Big Shots, and Suits failed to make “fargo” happen in Western Massachusetts.

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“Aurora, rising from her couch beside / The famed Tithonus, bought in the light of day / To men and to immortals.” — William Cullen Bryant, translation, opening to The Fifth Book of Homer’s Odyssey.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.