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Think driving through Sioux City is bad? Try stopping and actually spending a little time there. The city is so dull depression will likely set in soon after. It always does for me.
Sioux Falls stepped up to offer more in the lines of economic development.
Sioux City was a packing plant industrial town of old. It is dirty and smelly and generally dumpy. Sioux Falls also has packing plants and manufacturing but they really stepped up to adapt to services, ie destination for medical care, financial services and they did clean up the downtown down.
You hit the nail on the head here. I remember in my teen years (I was raised 13 miles from Sioux City on the farm) that a certain company attempted to build in Sioux City and the city fathers kept them out. New companies were discouraged during the 50s it is sad to say so they reaped what they sowed unfortunately. I still love going back home (I've lived in TN for 42 years plus) and Iowa will always touch my heart. Had so hoped that S City could pull out of the slump but appears growth has been very slow.
I spent my first 17 years in Sioux city, left in 1969. Driving through in the area near the packing plants did have that odor,( though much more pleasant-earthy than the South Philly type chemical plant odor), but is a small part of the town. I've lived in the Virgin Islands for 31 years and find the Sioux City area to be every bit as beautiful as here, an oasis of loess bluff hills, an island in the rolling prairie. Sioux Falls over-portrays scenes of the upper Big Sioux, but pales in comparison to the grandeuer and Huck Finn intrigue of the Missouri/Big Sioux/Floyd/Perry intersect with all it's intricacies of parks and valleys. I can easily see why my Grandparents migrated there from Sioux Falls. The economic ebbs and flows of municipalities in that area based on tax advantages etc, seem as shallow eddys of desparation and gaming with life. I'd like to see what the breakdown is on where that extra tax money in Iowa goes, if it buys a higher quality of life for the average family, or just goes down a sh---le as it seems to often. Drive through the town sometime, it's incredibly diverse and interesting. Parts of the town are dirty,old as any big old river town, but there's character in the old town and opportunity, and much of it is great. People move to some really god awful places for economic opportunity, not that Sioux Falls is awful like that, but ecomomic opportunity in a new place does not define a good place.
For me it's all way to cold anywhere up there, I'm acclimated to here, and the farther Northwest the worse it seems. Hope you got lots of good indoor pools .
T.
I agree what the other posters have said regarding SC versus SF. I'm no lover of Sioux City, but as the other poster said, I do find the bluffs and river scenic. I've been on up to Vermillion and found that quick trip to be very boring and not at all scenic. I do know what you mean about Sewer City though, I remember that sickening odor as you passed the Welcome to Sioux City sign. Great PR for the city with that smell up your nostrils. When ya start getting near there, its was a tradition to roll up the car windows.
My parents were from there, and my grandmothers both lived there, so I recall how it was long ago. I recall that big hole downtown that it took them years to fill. What a joke that was, I laughed every time I saw it. I haven't been through there in 10 years or so, but I doubt much has changed in a positive way. I suppose people will continue to move out of the city to new developments or across on the SD side. Is Central High still vacant? They had so many plans for it, I'd heard they were going to put condo's in there. It looked like a large abandoned prison to me. When I have gone back I find it sad, but that's because of personal stuff, like my dad being buried there. I can't hate the place because of the memories I have and thinking of the summers I spent there, the simple times as a kid, you probably all understand the feeling.
I do agree it has remained stagnant for many years now, and crime got to be a real problem. I hear its some better now that way, so they say. Some people do like it there, but I expect that's more because they have a good life there. With close family nearby, a good job, and a nice place to live, a kinda crummy place can look much better than it really is.
The mindset of the two cities is different, which can explain why Sioux Falls has outpaced Sioux City in the past 30 years. Sioux Falls is a business-friendly city and has a very active business community and coalition of business interests and Sioux City is controlled more by the labor unions and old money.
Sioux City has potential but needs more progressive leadership to realize its potential. It can stand to benefit along with Sioux Falls if the two cities partner together in economic development efforts and broader regional efforts. They can even partner up with Omaha and some of the other smaller regional cities.
Sioux Falls is a good city but tends to exude a generic suburban feel in most of it. If it further develops its downtown and locates its proposed events center downtown, it will add some vibe and character to the city. Sioux Falls is and will need to work to further diversify its economy to continue its economic growth. The city's current mayor is proactive and is pushing and challenging the futher diversification of the economy. The mayor is fiscally conservative and likes efficiency, but has a vision for the city and wants it to succeed.
It is possible but the culture in Sioux City and Sioux Falls are different and that may be a challenge. If the refinery by Elk Point comes to fruition, there may need to be cooperative efforts between Sioux Falls and Sioux City to attact and nurture the startup of industries that can feed off of the refinery, thus developing more and better paying jobs and additional economic activity.
South Dakota relaxed its usury laws and therefore attracted Citibank's credit card operations in the 1980s. After that the city took off as other financial service companies came to South Dakota. South Dakota also has no corporate income tax which lured other companies. I personally think it is a low road to economic development, and Sioux Falls is benefiting from all of the sh*t that the major banks play - like gouging people on credit card interest, fees, and a whole host of stuff that before the 1980s was illegal in the United States and is still illegal in most of the developed world.
Interestingly enough, Gateway Computers started in Sioux City, which to me is real economic development instead of what the banks in South Dakota do. Gateway then moved its headquarters and operations to Dakota Dunes in South Dakota to escape the taxes in Iowa. However, Gateway has now moved its corporate offices to California where most of the other computer and software companies are based. Most large companies want to be where all of the other large companies are for networking, communications, and skilled workforce issues.
I went to college near Sioux City and didn't think it was that bad. It has meat-packing plants, yes, but if you eat meat, then meat-packing plants have to be somewhere, don't they? Meat-packing had been the dominant industry in town, but that can only go so far. Gateway Computers left, and the city really cannot compete with Sioux Falls's lower taxes and regulations and larger Omaha (more human capital, workforce) so it gets stuck. Iowa's growth corridor is Des Moines, Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids which is far from Sioux City. So that doesn't help either.
I don't like that Sioux Falls seems to be a city built from lax usury laws, but I'm glad to see it growing and thriving. Both Sioux Falls and Omaha also have interstates crossing east west, Sioux City does not and getting due west is a bit of a pain because of the terrain/topography.
But yeah, it's important to have progressive leadership. Brookings had an issue with that but seems to have done well the last 5 years. Now we just need some good stores to come in here like Kohls, Target, and some others that have graced every other town it's size and smaller I've been to (Marshall, MN, Watertown, Mitchell, Yankton, etc)
You guys do have a chinese place though.. very important! It's basic but gets the job done when I visit. Though I haven't found a better chinese buffet then the one in pipestone, mn, so I'm looking forward to highway 34's repaving being done this fall so I can take that route again! I know they wanted to widen 34 to 4 lanes from madison to the interstate too. I personally don't think it's needed though compared to some projects that do need it. But it would help put Madison 'on the map' more. Like Pipestone, it struggles a bit being so far from the interstate. But it has a nice state park and lake, so it's not going anywhere.
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Sioux Falls vs Sioux City
