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North Dakota, USA | I wish I had an answer. My hometown is very fortunate to be situated between Fargo and Grand Forks, right along the interstate. We have had new businesses open in the past few years and existing ones expand. But the fact still is, we have over half our population working 20 miles away in GF. If you took our proximity to Grand Forks and the interstate out of the picture, things would look bleak.
When I travel I like to take back roads and see the state. I have made the comment to people, if we were 25 miles farther west, we would be in tough shape.
We have lost our "main street" businesses. We had a hardware store and a grocery store but they couldn't compete. When people are driving to the bigger city every day to work, they will shop there too. We also have quite a few commute to our town to work. It is hard for a small town to have the correct (qualified but not over qualified) work force for all different jobs. If it did happen, it would be purely by chance. You say your population is getting older. I think you would have a hard time keeping a business going if you NEED to draw in a younger, skilled work force. You will have turnover as people find they don't like the commute from the bigger city or if they move to town, some will ultimately leave due to lack of services (distance to things they consider necessities). Either that, or the salary has to be high enough to justify the inconvenience.
I was on the board of our local elevator/oil company for many years and we looking into building a c-store (decided against it). Shortly after, our oil department did readjust the lobby area and has a limited c-store now that does well. If you look at doing something in this area, be very careful. When we looked at it, it would have cost $500K+ to build the store that would have been required to get our parent cooperative to allow us to use the brand name. How many bottles of soda do you need to sell everyday just to pay interest on that? There were several built in other towns and most are now owned and operated by the people that bought the store at the bankruptcy sale for 10 cents on a dollar. I would guess they still do not make a fortune, but can at least run in the black without the interest and high cost building to pay for.
We have had an influx of young people move here in the last 15 years or so. But even with that, our school enrollment seems to decline by a few students a year on average. Our school had combined two neighboring communities in the 1960's and 3 years ago we formed a high school sports co-op with our bigger neighbor because our numbers had gotten to the point of not being able to field a team. It was not so much a lack of kids, but lack of participation by the kids we have.
I hope you find an answer.
Eric in ND
Edited by Eric in ND 1/30/2015 14:15
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Small town ND
