There’s Nothing Like A Little Image Problem To Bring Out The Fighting Spirit In North Dakotans

Ryan Cunningham — 2008-01-14T01:22:01+00:00

Absolutely nothing like it, and it’s a shame, because when you’re going to battle the truth, you need more than fighting spirit on your side.
The truth I’m referring to is the National Geographic article entitled, “The Emptied Prairie”, the subject of the Fargo Forum’s cover story in Sunday’s edition.
After reading theSunday edition, I accessed the article on the National Geographic website to have a read for myself. While the article contained a lot of fluff over towns that may have had a poor chance of surviving, the point of the article was remarkably accurate.
That point is that North Dakota’s wealth is statistical at best, our growth is limited to a scant few places, and there is no end in sight.
The only part the article missed on was the why. Traditionally, the weather could have been accused of being the main culprit of our state’s rural decline. But now, our own state’s ineptitude is driving our population away from our heritage.
Years and years of denying the value of our rural population and over-valuing an urban lifestyle in a rural state have finally been made an example of in a national publication.
As long as our lawmakers continue to balk at shifting growth into rural communities, as long as our state government refuses to support local schools and a terrific university system, and as long as growth in Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot are good enough, more and more articles like “The Emptied Prairie” will continue to surface.
And the ire the Forum spoke of from residents is actually just as much fluff as the article was. Did you notice where the letters The Forum published on page A10 came from? Minot, Grand Forks, Seattle, and Vancouver, Washington. If the Forum really wants to find out whether there is truth in “The Emptied Prairie”, it will have to leave the mecca of the urbanized Dakota and go investigate a prairie that is very easily, very correctly described as emptying.
And, you may want to hurry. The emptying is rapid and accelerating.

Say Anything: Reader Blogs

There’s Nothing Like A Little Image Problem To Bring Out The Fighting Spirit In North Dakotans