With all the discussion surrounding migration these last many months I thought it time to revisit the issue with a specific look at North Dakota. There are many ways to evaluate this issue and I will not go through them all here in one post. These are things that need to be evaluated independently. The issue in this post is the thought that North Dakota has a problem attracting in people. As this first map reveals, that is not really the case.
There are three hot spots for international net migration, Case County, Grand Forks County, and Ward County. Note that most of the rest of the counties in the state are positive as well. This is important because it goes against the perception that the state is unable to attract in people at all.
The same pattern holds true for the yearly number as well, with the same hot spots. One of the interesting things from my perspective is the lack of any type of middle ground. The counties are either significant attractors, or they have very little and are just like everybody else.
This is just one side of the question though. This just the net flow internationally and does not include people who came to North Dakota from overseas and then went somewhere else in the United States. There is, in fact, a bit of difficulty in making that type of assessment. Note though the lesson from this post is that North Dakota has at least three counties with the ability to attract people from overseas to the net benefit of the state.
