Monday, July 28, 2014

Welcome to Williston, North Dakota: America's new gold rush city

Anyone who happened to pass along the northern slope of the Missouri river valley on US Route 2 in 2008, at the start of the global economic recession, would have seen a small city, suffering from the same malaise that was afflicting every other ranching-and-farming community scattered about the immense expanse of the US great plains. Young people were leaving Williston, North Dakota. The remaining residents were aging and dying off. No new industries wanted to move to an obscure corner of what was already one of the most obscure US states, plagued by a midcontinental climate where the average January night dips down to -18C and the normal July highs are 29C. If you'd stopped to ask her then, lifelong resident Rena Greaves would have said she dreamed of leaving. “It was so quiet, so boring,” she said. The constant rumble of Ford F-350 pickups and 18-wheelers means there is very rarely any quiet any more. “I’m not used to the noise. I have a lot of mixed feelings,” said Greaves. “There are new restaurants and places to shop. There are new people from all over and a lot of them are nice. “But I don’t go out any more. I don’t do anything. You can’t walk into a bar. It’s so overcrowded and you don’t know anyone.” Today's Williston is unrecognisable to its former self. Thanks to the shale-oil boom, what was once an isolated city in the emptiest corner of the continent is now the fastest-growing small centre in North America. It has the highest average wages in the US and the worst housing shortage. It is the most expensive place in the US in which to rent new housing. And it is wracked with cultural conflict between about 12,000 long-time Williston residents and at least 21,000 newcomers who’ve arrived over the past five-odd years...more

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