North Dakota's oil rush lures Chicago-area residents

i'd rather visit south dakota than alabama, so there's that. how's that? ; )

 

Communities which are based on oil usually are "boom or bust" economies. If the price of oil goes down - as it did in the mid-1980s - the well-paying jobs are cut back. In the early 1980s, people went to Texas and there were a lot of jobs available. People were selling copies of Texas Sunday papers in Detroit. There were jobs abailable, but when the oil prices dropped in the 1980s, the jobs went and suddenly Texas wasn't such a great place.

The international demand for oil will probably keep prices high for a little longer than in the 1980s, but energy prices are never certain. Increasing cars getting an additional five miles per gallon would have dramatic impacts on energy prices.

 

This is odd, but I'm curious. I've never been to Alabama either. Nor have I been to: Mississippi, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, Rhode Island or Missouri. How 'bouts you?

 

Unfortunately, China's incredible, exponential explosion of car ownership is going to keep gas prices high, high, high until we figure out an alternative. The slight decline in U.S. gas use is completely obliterated by the Chinese spike.

 

That may be true, although a friend who visited China said they were working on high-speed rail lines.

 

vermont, maine, delaware, RI and i'v lived in missouri.

 

mississippi is another i never will bother to visit.

 

Because so many Chinese want a car to travel across the country.

 

One of at least two "how many states have you been to" threads since I've been here:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/58818/

I think the second one was more recent.

As far as this article goes, I think it's one that many, many newspapers across the country could do. There are so many out-of-town license tags in ND it might as well be Disney.

Female kickers, first baby of the year, citizen moving to ND to make a fortune. Applicable everywhere.

 

I read once that North Dakota is the least visited state in the continental US.

 

This is such a great read of testimony from a Pennsy suit ... masterful lawyering.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/111821139/Krancer-Letter

 

It's a jump ball between Buzz Bissinger and James A. Michener for declaring which one described this condition better.