I want to live in South Dakota. (Sioux Falls, Rapid City: houses, contractors)

[Jammie]

Oh Black Hills State is my fave college. The scenery there is just breathtaking. It's nestled in it's little valley and Spearfish Canyon is the perfect place for beauty and serenity. But to answer your question~I don't think your friend will have a problem at all. He will definitely be in the minority since our state is mainly white with the second race being the Sioux Indians. I personally have not seen any prejudices towards people of different races here.

[southdakotajobs]

We would love to have you in South Dakota! Have you found a job? I just moved back to South Dakota after college and having gotten married and children and decided that SD is the best place in the world to raise my children.
We live in Huron which is located in the central eastern part of the state. We deffinitely have all 4 seasons! For more information you can go to my site mod cut and to our community's Chamber of Commerce website at www.huronsd.com. I hope you decide to move here!

[Highplainsdweller]

Hi everyone
I'm a 16 year old Colorado farm boy. I live in the northeastern corner of the state, north of a town called Fort Morgan, a burg of 11,000 along I-76 about halfway between Denver and Nebraska. And I can say that I have had it up to HERE (gestures towards the sky) with Colorado. I've had it with the metrocentric and ski-tourismcentric attitude, the lack of jobs, the insane, non stop urban explosion, the outrageous cost of living and the hateful, cold attitude of the people. The schools in the eastern part of the state suck as well. We are having significant gang problems and I can only see it getting worse. Crime and drug use around here are considerably above the national average. Morgan County, the county I reside and go to school in, has the highest methamphetamine use as well as highest teen pregnancy rate per capita of any county in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming, including Denver and Omaha. And the county only has a population of 28,000 people, about half of which are no habla englis,welfare and school system mooching, ***** stirring Mexicans, thanks to the fact Morgan County is home to a mass of light industrial, unskilled labor factories, including a tomato plant, an ice plant, an Excel beef plant, a Leprino cheese plant, a Wal-Mart, and the last Great Western Sugar factory operating in the state of Colorado. And I tell you, this town stinks. Literally. Year round, if you have a southeast or east wind, the smell of boiled beef blood inundates the town from the factory location in the southeast corner of town. If the wind is from the north or northwest from September to March, which is beet processing season, you get the gut clenching, nausea inducing smell of rotting beet pulp from the waste lime pits just north of town by the interstate. I'm not kidding. I despise living here. The High Plains of Colorado are dying as the urban growth forges out onto the plains and the ever increasing need for water causes cities like Aurora and Centennial to buy out the South Platte water rights for those new subdivisions and malls, in the process drying up the irrigated farmers, who account for more than 85% of Colorado farmers. And on top of that the last few years the drought has devastated agriculture in general, but especially dryland farmers like my dad. We've accumulated over $70,000 in debt the last 6 years. That was the final straw for me. I'm done with Colorado. It's too bad, because the mountain scenery is unparalled in this part of the continent and the plains have scenic rolling hills, chalk bluffs, and scattered deep canyons to break up the general monotony of the prairie, but the incessant growth, air pollution along the Front Range, increasingly unfriendly attitude of the residents in general and extremely outrageous cost of living/housing costs completely ruin it as a place to live for me, at least.
As soon as I am done with college, I plan on moving to the Rapid City area. I think of the Black Hills as being just as scenic and pretty as the Colorado foothills, minus the insane prices of housing and cost of living and the snobbish, filthy rich east west coast transplants with their snobbish demeanor lesser locals have coined as 'Aspentude'. The eastern part of South Dakota is somewhat similar to where I'm living now, it's just a lot flatter, has much more rainfall and much better soil, and has much more severe weather in the summer and severe winters than Colorado does.
We visited South Dakota 4 years ago in the summer of '02 and I just fell in love with it. I love the breathtaking scenery first and foremost, the warmth of the people, the small town feel in all the cities big and small, the amazingly low cost of living and reasonable real estate prices. What kind of a market do you think there would be for a professional photographer in the Black Hills region? Or do you think I would be better suited to put down roots in Sioux City, since it's a more artsy town? Think I could make some decent money doing landscape shots for postcards and prints that both the tourists and residents would gobble up by the armful? I'd like to know. Because that's basically my plan in a nutshell. I hope to be moving there in the summer of 2010. But even if I get sidelined by a job for a few years after college, I'll still be moving to South Dakota either before or right after I start a family. So what do you SD natives think? Do you believe there would be a decent market for a Colorado transplant professional photographer in South Dakota or not? Any info you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark F.

[Jammie]

Highplains, one thing I've got to say about the area you live in is that you've definitely got a good education system OR you're just extremely intelligent and focused for a 16 year old gentleman.

If you love the Black Hills, that's where you need to start out. (Personally, I love it, too. It's got so much more beauty then East River where I live) Spearfish has Black Hills State, just in case you're thinking about going to college out of state. The price is quite reasonable, but I really don't know how to compare it to Colo. colleges since I know nothing about them. For a choice of living West River~you may be interested in Rapid City. You can do a search on it by starting with the detailed profile of Rapid City, SD. You'll be able to see a lot of the smaller towns in the area and hopefully find what you're looking for. We'll be out that way the end of this week and I can't wait to be there. We're going to Deadwood's Kool Summer Nights and we have friends coming all the way from NJ to see the Hills area.

As I said, I'd suggest you start with West River since it appears that's what you like most. If you then need to look East River, I'm hoping you meant Sioux Falls, SD. We do have North Sioux City, SD, but Sioux Falls would be the city with culture. It's a growing city, but still very much under control with a lot of improvements and they're always moving forward.

I wish I could answer your question about if you could make it financially as a photographer here. I just really don't know, but I wish you luck. If you'd like to read some of the SD newspapers, the Sioux Falls paper is called the Argus Leader and the Rapid paper is called the Rapid City Journal. There's also a Black Hills newspaper and I just posted it a few days ago, but can't remember the rest of the name of it.

Anymore questions, just ask.

[benjaminjanderson]

I am a resident of South Dakota and have been for 13 years I have somthing to add. Although SD has a little bit of good scenary mainly in the Black Hills. People in most SD towns are very exclusive and you would likely never become part of the community. I lived in one particular town for 6 years never really had more that one friend. The politics are also horrible. You might instead want to just take a visit to SD.

[jwbrkr21]

i dont know what you are talking about not having any traffic jams in sioux falls. as long as you dont plan on driving at 8am noon or 5 pm or anytime on the weekends i suppose you wont see any. or i suppose when it rains or it snows.....i lived in LA for 4 years and i see the same thing in sioux falls as i saw there, of course on a little smaller scale.

there is also construction 364 days out of the year on MOST of the major roads

[66.stng]

My Mom and I are thinking about relocating to South Dakota. We'll probably take a vacation there sometime next year. We've lived in San Diego, CA for about 35 years, we're tired of the crime, horrendous traffic (sometimes it takes 2+ hours to drive 12 miles), pollution, cost (its really expensive to live here) and the overpopulation.

We've looked up info about Deadwood and the surrounding areas and it sounds like a great place to live...Someone posted about no traffic jams...Is this really true? We spend a lot of time sitting in traffic here, it's almost too good to believe

One question we had, was that we have a large satellite dish (cband) that we need to take with us...are there satellite installer/repair people in Rapid City? Do many residents have the larger dishes?

My Mom will be retired, but I have to work. It was posted that there aren't many jobs to be found...I do mainly office work, computer repair, and I've done delivery driving also. It wouldn't be beneath me to work retail either. I can probably go w/out a job for 6 months or so...

Sounds like the people are really friendly, much unlike living in a large city. Here our houses are 10-15 feet from our neighbors, it would be nice not to be able to hear my neighbor's phone ring.

My Mom and I have always lived in larger cities, so I'm sure the "culture shock" of a small town will take a few months to adjust to, and also the weather will be a big adjustment but from everything we've read, (other than the cold weather) it sounds like paradise.

[Jammie]

Hi 66, come on up and join us and bring your Mom along.

Yes, it's really true that we have no traffic jams here. Even our largest city, Sioux Falls has none. We've been there often and you don't sit in stopped traffic unless you're at a stop sign. The population of Sioux Falls is something like 135,000 people and there are a few thousand more that commute there to work. So, imagine a city in your area with about 150,000 people and it should give you an idea of what traffic is like in Sioux Falls.

You're making a good choice by wanting to live out in the Black Hills. It's beautiful and peaceful out there. I'm from East River so I can't really tell you anything about satellite companies out there. Jobs are a lot more scarce out there then they are over here. One of the reasons is that they hire a lot of seasonal employees, people who have campers and are semi-retired and move on in Oct. and return in May. They also employ a lot of foreign exchange students. Their philosophy is that they can't find people who'll do the work these people do. In reality, if they offered many of us a year round job and gave us access to medical insurance, those jobs would be snatched up right away even if the pay is super low. A lot of people want to live out there. They get a tremendous amount of snow, but a lot of it is in the Hills and not in the cities and they also have a lot of melting days out there. It's the banana belt of our state. And Deadwood, yes, we were just there for Deadwood's Kool Summer Nights. I don't think I'd really want to live there personally, but it is definitely a nice little town. Good luck to you and keep in touch with us.

[66.stng]

Originally Posted by Jammie

Hi 66, come on up and join us and bring your Mom along.

We figure that the cold will be the worst thing for us. We've been in San Diego for 35 years and it rarely gets below 60 in the winter and the summers are usually 75-85 degrees...So the low temps are going to be the biggest shock for us. My Mom lived in Cleveland until she was about 27 but she's acclimated to San Diego...

You're making a good choice by wanting to live out in the Black Hills. It's beautiful and peaceful out there. I'm from East River so I can't really tell you anything about satellite companies out there. Jobs are a lot more scarce out there then they are over here. One

I was checking out the Rapid City Journal, and there's as many jobs in my field listed as there is here in San Diego. The plus of it is that I don't need to be able to speak spanish in South Dakota just to get a job. I've been turned down for quite a few jobs because I'm not bilingual.

pay is super low. A lot of people want to live out there. They get a tremendous amount of snow, but a lot of it is in the Hills and not in the cities and they also have a lot of melting days out there. It's the banana belt of our state. And Deadwood, yes, we were just there for Deadwood's Kool Summer Nights. I don't think I'd really want to live there personally, but it is definitely a nice little town. Good luck to you and keep in touch with us.

Bananna belt?
When you've lived in a large city all your life, a small little town like Deadwood looks really peaceful and quiet. The idea of not having neighbors 10 feet from us, little traffic, and low crime sounds so heavenly. We just need to take a vacation out there to make sure it's really what we think/hope it is =D

I realize the pay is lower in Rapid City than San Diego, but the cost of living is 30% lower too. So it should balance out.

[Jammie]

Fantastic!! Let us know how you turn out. IMHO Deadwood isn't peaceful and quiet. It's quite a booming little town, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to what you're used to. It's interesting to know that there are as many jobs listed in Rapid as there are in San Diego. You may want to check out the Sioux Falls Argus Leader for a huge variety of jobs. Sioux Falls is in southeastern So. Dak. and it's our largest city, something like 135,00-140,000 But I'm with you and I'd check out the Hills area first. It's really pretty there.