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Originally Posted by Tony Almeida
Fargo does not waste an inch of space. Fargo is much more compact because it allows businesses to build right next to sidewalks (which makes it hard to expand streets, but that's for another time).
Cities with similar populations such as Sioux Falls are much more spread out. Next time your in such a city, time yourself how long it takes to get across town. In Fargo/Moorhead, you can pretty much get anywhere you need to within 20 minutes (give or take 5).
Fargo actually has a true downtown or at the very least it has that feel to it and its only going to heighten if and when the Kilbourne Group builds that proposed tower...just imagine what that downtown would be like if those goofballs back in the 50's, or whenever it may have been, had I-94 run through downtown...or if Fargo would have built their downtown around I-94, whoever is to blame, it sure wouldn't hurt to have that traffic running through those businesses.
One thing Fargo needs to do or stop doing is giving out so many permits for apartment buildings. We may be a college town but I know for a fact all those apartment units are not being filled at such a rate that we need a new building to go up every month and I don't think I'm exaggerating here. It just cheapens the look of Fargo and it doesn't show any sense of permanency. Since we are indeed on the subject of mirroring cities, maybe we are shooting for something bigger like a major city because in 20 years Fargo will look like the projects...
With all that said, I still vote for Fargo because like TallBob stated, it does feel more urban, nobody can top the Bison, and after all, it is home.
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Fargo and Sioux Falls are alike in the sense that they're the biggest cities in their respective states and they are both growing fast, but they are different as well. Sioux Falls has no large public university, whereas the FM area has two. This makes a big difference. I went to college in Iowa about an hour's drive southeast of Sioux Falls and this was the city we went to when we wanted to "go to the city." But Sioux Falls just isn't as lively as Fargo. They have a huge mall and a nice downtown, but it seemed to be a very suburban and corporate metropolitan area in comparison to Fargo. Fargo is also very suburban, but it doesn't have so much of a corporate culture which can be very confining, uncreative, and conformist. Sioux Fall's economy runs on back office banking and credit card servicing which isn't exactly very dynamic or interesting. I find Fargo to be more artistic, diverse, laid back, and liberal minded.