North Dakota could be a good place to live.  I have lived in North Dakota for almost four years now.  I have had a lot of bad things to say about North Dakota, but I also know of some good, unique things about North Dakota, that nobody talks about.

I have lived in Florida, Virginia, Texas, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho.  In comparison, even to the sparsely populated states of Utah and Idaho, you can really, really be left alone in North Dakota.  Once you get on your own property in North Dakota, you are left alone like no other place I have been.  The place that I live on outside of Dickinson, is not even one acre, yet I have had less interference on this property than I have had on my rural five acres in Idaho.

Even if you are not on your own property, once you are driving around outside of the towns, whether it’s outside of Dickinson, or outside of Watford City, you are mostly on your own.  You are not being surveilled, watched, monitored, scrutinized, or spied on.  In Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Texas, it was hard to get away from people, you can go to remote rural areas, and there is somebody there.  In North Dakota, you can really get away from people.

There is not a lot of crime in North Dakota.  In the cities, like Dickinson, Williston, and Bismarck, there is a small amount of theft due to piece of shit people from out of state bringing in illegal drugs, which result in addicts committing thefts.  In the rural areas, there is very little theft.  The rural areas are sparsely populated, people live on large pieces of property, there just aren’t people creeping around on other people’s property trying to steal someones laptop computer or DVD player.

I very much like that North Dakota is sparsely populated, you can be left alone, you can get away from people.  In your own home, you can be free from interference, noise, theft, and other crime.  Living in North Dakota can be very stress-free because of the reasons that I just mentioned, but also because of the slow pace of life in the rural areas where there is not a lot going on.

Doing some reading yesterday, I read some research that a North Dakota journalist had conducted in order to write an article.  The journalist questioned and surveyed out of state workers that had come to North Dakota during this past Oil Boom.  About 80% of the workers stated that they did not plan on living in North Dakota permanently.  The journalist was surprised to learn that the workers said it was not that there was no shopping, lack of restaurants, lack of entertainment, lack of things to do, or that it was cold, the workers said that they did not know where they could afford to live.

North Dakota probably has the most amount of undeveloped land of any state, much of it barren prairie.  How could it be that the out of state workers did not think that they would ever be able to afford a place to live?  90% of you already know why, and yes, I am going to start talking about the greedy, immoral, property managers, property developers, and property investors again, though just briefly.

Everybody listen up!  Many of the out of state workers that came to work in North Dakota during this last Oil Boom would have stayed, would have brought their families to live here permanently, because of the peace and quiet of the wide open spaces, being able to raise a family without interference on their own land, without having to deal with the stress of traffic, fear of drugs, gangs, and crime.  However, left unchecked, the greedy property managers, property developers, and property investors quickly quadrupled the cost of rent and housing, making all the workers believe that they could never afford to live in North Dakota.

North Dakota would have been tremendously better off, if it would have not allowed the greedy people here to mistreat the workers, and cause them to leave.