Sioux City???

1. The biggest difference I have noticed between SC residents and SF residents is their attitudes. I find that SC people are more ‘laid back’ while SF people tend to be more ‘uptight’. We are more concerned with ‘how things look’ instead how ‘things are really functioning on the inside’.

2. Back when I had a J-O-B I was dtailed there for several months. Found the same to be true. Just good, down to earth people. Not that Sioux Falls isn’t.

   Just sayin…when you stop to think about WHAT built this town into a city larger than Sioux City…well the pieces all start to come together.

   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/view/

   http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/25/pm_sioux_falls_i/

3. I often tell people, there are two kinds of people in the majority in SF; Rich republicans and those that aspire to be rich republicans. Us liberals and working class Joes don’t exist in the eyes of city leaders. I just hope they show up to the polls on April 13.

4. Hey, where’d you find the wage data? Send me the link! Great post!

5. And just in case anyone trots out the “cost of living” arrgument, South Dakota’s cost of living in Q3 2009 was only 2.5% lower than Iowa’s. The wage gaps you cite are bigger than that.

6. Cost of living is actually high in SF when compared to other cities in the region. When I travel to Omaha for concerts, etc, I have often noticed that restaurant prices are not any different then SF, and often the food is better and the service is better.

7. You are missing one thing:

   Sioux City Stinks. Not the people/city govenment/whatever, the place just smells bad. As bad or worse than the feed lots/stock yards used to smell in Sioux Falls. Like downwind of a corporate hog farm bad on some days.

   Some people just can’t/won’t deal with that. Cost of living/money aside, that is a quality of life issue. Oh – and for the people who say you’ll get used to the smell, perhaps if it was an constant stink yes, but it isn’t.

8. Actually, there’s a lot missing from this discussion. Let’s make a few more comparisions via City-Data.com

   Median Income:
   SC = $41,266 SF = $53,250

   Median house/condo value:
   SC = $41,266 SF = $147,800

   Median rent

   SC = $596 SF = $648

   Residents in/below Poverty level:
   SC = 17% SF = 8.5%

   Residents with college degree:
   SC = 19% SF = 27%

   Unemployment:
   SC = 5.6% SF = 5.1%

   Cost of living index (USA = 100)
   SC = 76.9 SF = 80.7

   Crime rate index (USA = 320)

   SC = 282 SF = 247

   The amazing thing about the Crime index is it was at 602 in 1999 and has been coming down steadily since 2002. The first year it dropped below the National average was 2007. Sioux Falls has steadily been between 292 & 222 during the same time frame.

   Which I think has a lot to do with the following stat:

   Population change since 2000:

   SC = -2.6% SF = +25%

   Sioux City proper has seen a brain/income/tax base drain since the Dunes came to be, sure. But that in itself would tell you that people voted with their feet because of Sioux City’s and Iowa’s issues that thankfully we don’t have.

9. Anytime someone compares Sioux Falls and Sioux City and tries to show how Sioux City comes out ahead I can only think of one thing… they have never lived in Sioux City.

   There is a vast difference, and having lived down there for several years I can tell you that even many residents from Sioux City would agree.

   I’m not saying Sioux City is a horrible place, but when it comes to the general cleanliness of the city, the crime rate, and the average incomes (not just cherry picked positions) – Sioux City would love to be in the position we are here in Sioux Falls.

   Ask people who have lived in both cities for more than two years each (and those who don’t have loyalty to either city due to family or place of birth etc) and I’d bet at least 80% would agree that Sioux Falls is a ‘better’ place to live.

10. I agree, that SF is ‘nicer’ but SC is more fun.

11. Depends upon how you define fun. Is it more fun because of 4th street and the fact you can walk from bar to bar without having to drive across town?

    Is it fun because of the Riverboat?

    Is it fun because they have three times as many strip clubs as we do?

    Is it fund because of events like Saturday in the Park (which is fun, but I’d say Jazzfest easily has it beat)?

    Is it fun because of their river development and walking / biking trails or their public park system (which is actually quite good)?

    I suppose it just comes down to what you like. The “fun” argument could be made either way depending upon your personal interests.

12. I like the way Iowans intentionally mis-spell their store names. Kum & Go, etc. Wished people did it more often here.

13. I’ve seen Kum & Gos in SD.

14. Property taxes in Sioux Falls are outrageous.

15. With all due respect Sy, I must question your source. City-Data.com operates a lot like Wikipedia. Most any entity can enter data to push whatever agenda they like. Places like city chamber of commerces contribute. Does that make the numbers set in stone? Not hardly. That’s why city-data.com has this disclaimer at the very bottom of it’s page.

    City-data.com does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of any information on this site. Use at your own risk.

    You or I can contribute whatever data we may want to push. All it takes is a fancy title, some cooked numbers, and hitting the submit button.

    http://www.city-data.com/sendfact.php?w=Sioux-Falls-South-Dakota.html&n=Sioux%20Falls

    Cory. Love your website. Read it most everyday. You and l3wis are a breath of fresh air after you’ve been to sites like the argus forum. Here Sy…read what Cory has to say. Makes perfect sense to me.

    http://madvilletimes.blogspot.com/2010/01/where-can-you-earn-more-sioux-falls-or.html

    And Cory. Here is a link I like to use when talking about MEDIAN income in Sioux Falls.

    http://www.state.sd.us/applications/ld54lmicinfo/WAGES/OWLISTPUBA.asp?Saytitle=South%20Dakota%20Occupational%20Wage%20Estimates%20%20&SayArea=Sioux%20Falls%20MSA

    Just click on the “Sioux Falls” window at the top along with “All Occupations”. Then in the first column click on the “workers” button twice. That is where the real story of Sioux Falls wages come to light. These numbers, from the most workers in a work field to the least, are testament to what is really going on in Sioux Falls. For instance, does ANYONE really believe that 13,715 office and administrative support specialists should be making LESS than $12.81 an hour? The list goes on and on. So again…let’s talk median income Sy, and use the Department of Labor as a guide, not some Wiki wannabe.

16. I compared by salary to that of someone doing the same thing, same exerpience level of someone in Sioux City. The difference was over $15K. Tto those who say that “well, they have an income tax and the cost of living here is less” are full of it. How many degreed young people are coming back to SD, not many unless they are Drs. or lawyers. The solution to this problem starts at the top in Pierre when they stop selling this state as an alternative to a 3rd world county.

17. Great comparisons Cory. I guess my crack response to Ruth about SC was more about entertainment then anything, but seeing the wage comparisons was interesting.

18. Pol43,

    “So again…let’s talk median income Sy, and use the Department of Labor as a guide, not some Wiki wannabe.”

    By that same token, Poly, you can’t really take their numbers as gospel either. These are ESTIMATES done via the State Dept. of Labor. They send out surveys, but there’s nothing that requires anyone to fill them out, let alone be honest or accurate about the answers.

    Go back and click on the workers tab, they list each occupation by # of workers. Do you really think the City has no Brickmasons/Blockmasons, Motorcycle Mechanics, Avionics Technicians, Veterinary Technologists/Technicians, and Landscape Architects? Well the SD DOL doesn’t show any, nor do they want to venture a guess. Even when they do guess, how much thought do they put into it? Do you think we only have 20 Tax Preparers or 10 Surveyors or 10
    Maintenance Workers Machinery?

    As for City-Data, yes anyone can contribute, but by the same token anyone can cross check. The numbers I’ve seen there line up with other sources. Here’s what the BLS says the two’s unemployment rates are as of Nov. ’09, for example:

    SF = 4.9%
    SC = 5.8%

    http://www.bls.gov/web/laummtrk.htm

    City Data, Oct ’09

    SF = 5.1%
    SC = 5.6%

    I realize you are on a crusade, but let’s be real for a second. Sioux Falls, by any measure, has a better and more dynamic Economy than Sioux City, as well as nearly every other mid-sized metro in the Nation. We aren’t perfect, sure…but let’s not pretend that we are in some type of Feifdom controlled by TD Sanford and a handful of others.

19. Helga:

    “Property taxes in Sioux Falls are outrageous.”

    By your standards, maybe. But to people who actually study things like this they are actually pretty reasonable:

    “Sioux Falls is ranked No. 5 among the nation’s least-costly, mid-sized metropolitan areas to do business, according to KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm. Of 14 U.S. locations with populations between 100,000 and 500,000, Sioux Falls ranked fifth for lowest overall costs to do business. Sioux Falls, with a cost index of 97.4 (about 3 percent below the U.S. national average), was helped by the second lowest property tax rates among cities in its category.”

    http://www.siouxfalls.com/accolades.cfm

    Here’s what we pay here in SFSD:

    Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2008: $2,251 (1.5%)
    Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2008: $1,826 (1.4%)

    Let’s see how we compare to the Mecca that is Sioux City:

    Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2008: $1,582 (1.6%)
    Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2008: $1,351 (1.5%)

    http://www.city-data.com/city/Sioux-City-Iowa.html#ixzz0cnPm3rQe

20. Go back and click on the workers tab, they list each occupation by # of workers. Do you really think the City has no Brickmasons/Blockmasons, Motorcycle Mechanics, Avionics Technicians, Veterinary Technologists/Technicians, and Landscape Architects?
    ~Sy

    There are 431 different jobs listed thru the SD DOL. 19 have an asterick by them. That asterick does not mean those job descriptions have zero workers. It means this.

    Not available due to disclosure concerns or reliability issues.

    The DOL listed 412 jobs without that asterick. Including all the jobs by credit card predator employers like First Premier, Citi, Wells Fargo.

    Brick/Block/StoneMasons are one of those 19 of 431 jobs with an asterick. Why? I have no idea. Maybe someone here who reads SouthDacola has some insight?

    I still have a lot of friends who have jobs in the Construction Occupational workgroup in Sioux Falls. There are 24 different construction skills shown. They all make less than their counterparts in Sioux City. I illustrated just a few in my first post to this topic. WHY do you suppose that is Sy?

21. I’m sure there are some positions that do in fact pay better in Sioux City just as there are positions that pay better in Sioux Falls… it just depends upon how you want to cherry pick the numbers and what you choose to focus on.

    However you do need to keep in mind Iowa residents have to pay state income tax, and that amount more than makes up for the slight increase SD residents pay in real estate taxes.

    Besides, Sioux City numbers are probably skewed because they can’t count the incomes of their illegal worker population (which is probably 10 times what it is in Sioux Falls). And yes I’m serious… I’ve lived there and read the newspapers and watched local news programs that had stories almost every week where an illegal was arrested after being involved in an auto accident and they found not only did they have no insurance, but they couldn’t speak English. Spanish speaking police officers are paid more in Sioux City for a reason… because they are needed.

    That being said, you would have to pay me at least $15k a year more in Sioux City just to get me to live there.

22. Sioux City is close to Omaha and the state highway cutoff makes Minneapolis not that much further. Sioux City specs are misleading because upper/middle income types discovered ‘The Dunes’ tax shelter. North Sioux City SD is not in Sioux City numbers.

    If a major mall were located at I-90 Exit 1 (MN/SD line, no sales tax), Brandon would boom like North Sioux City. Brandon is uncorrupted, progressive, and receptive. Sioux Falls ignored eastward development (ie. new casino resort, light manufacturing). We needed visionaries. We got greedy self service politicians and public servants. They’ve set themselves up from kickbacks and lucrative retirements.

23. Thanks, Poly43! I love SD Department of Labor website — probably the richest ,most reliable data resource we can get our hands on online. CityData.com isn’t bad, and we can trace a lot of that data to other sources to check, but why not just go right to the source? Keep crunching those numbers!

24. Sioux Falls ranked fifth for lowest overall costs to do business.
    ~Sy

    Well I suppose that is a correct statement when you consider 33,777 of our local workforce make LESS than $10.63 an hour.

25. However you do need to keep in mind Iowa residents have to pay STATE INCOME TAX
    ~cos

    UHHHHHHH….the much feared state income tax boogeyman. Kinda makes you wanna build a bomb shelter and start hoarding ammo. Are you suggesting the 13,715 office and administrative support specialists making LESS than $12.81 an hour are financially better off than someone in Sioux City making 15 or 16 dollars an hour?

26. No. Because if you do the fuzzy math you will realize that sales taxes are actually a bigger burden on the working poor then a state income tax.

27. The solution to this problem starts at the top in Pierre when they stop selling this state as an alternative to a 3rd world county.

    DING DING DING! We have a winner!

    Instead of actually making an investment in our young people by properly funding and emphasising education, our lawmakers would rather bring in call centers that will pay college graduates $12/hr to work alongside high school dropouts with criminal records. If you’re a really good phone monkey, you can be promoted to cubicle overlord at a whopping $15/hr within five years.
    Or, you can move to another state not far away and make, on average, about $15k more (numbers come from my own experience and that of friends).

    Our politicians can bring in thousands of these jobs by selling our state as a cheap place to do business, and still get credit for job growth that they can use to seek higher office. Meanwhile, those of our young folks who get their degrees get the hell out of here because they’re overqualified for those McJobs.

    What I want to see from some bright candidate is a committment to higher education (beyond the Ag. college at SDSU) and a committment to bringing in jobs that will keep our brightest people here. That means corporate HQs, start-ups, and high-tech/green jobs.

    However you do need to keep in mind Iowa residents have to pay STATE INCOME TAX

    It’s really not too big a deal if you’re making significantly more money.
    Some friends of mine who recently moved to a small town just over the MN border said their tax burdon actually went down after the move. Go figure. I doubt Iowa is any worse.

28. Poly: Are you suggesting the 13,715 office and administrative support specialists making LESS than $12.81 an hour are financially better off than someone in Sioux City making 15 or 16 dollars an hour?

    I don’t recall writing that nor suggesting it. However if you think there is some magical formula that shows residents of Sioux City are paid more for the same jobs consistently (rather than a handful of positions) then I’d say you are naive.

    The differences between the two cities in terms of wages are most likely negligible, and I can even go a step further and speak of my own experience as well as that of family members and friends who have lived (and worked) in both cities. I have never heard of a single one which claimed to be paid a higher wage in Sioux City…so either this wage differential simply is blown out of proportion or it doesn’t exist.

    GoD: It’s really not too big a deal if you’re making significantly more money.

    I would guess nobody would disagree with that. I’d gladly pay a state income tax if it meant making 15% or 20% more a year – but in my experience the wage differential for Sioux Falls and Sioux City isn’t anywhere near that much, and surely not enough to make me want to move back there.

    There are a likely some jobs that do pay significantly more in Sioux City (although I can’t think of any off the top of my head) but I’m as equally certain the opposite is true as well. In the past decade or so it seems Sioux City has focused upon more of a blue collar workforce whereas Sioux Falls has transitioned to white collar. Not that there is anything wrong with either, but it makes direct comparisons between the two cities that much more difficult.

29. Great post, its interesting to look at the differences. As a lifelong resident of Sioux City, I have moved away, traveled internationally, and then made the choice to move back to Sioux City to start my career. Sioux City and the surrounding area does have good paying jobs, whether they are better or worse than Sioux Falls depends on what company you work for and the industry you are employed. Since parts of our community are located in three states, we see the benefits and downfalls each state(IA,NE,SD)has to offer. I made a conscious decision to move to Sioux City and although its not perfect, have honestly enjoyed living here.

30. Credit card call center jobs are probably “white-collar”, but the pay is fairly comparable to construction work or light manufacturing (unless you’re part of the UAW).

31. http://www.argusleader.com/article/20100119/UPDATES/100119043

    I guess SC isn’t such a great place to live anymore?

32. Depends….for those 1,500 people I imagine it isn’t great, but will this remove the lingering smell from Sioux City once and for all? If so, I’d say the remaining citizens might actually see a benefit over the long term.

    The economy in their area is sure to take a substantial hit for the next couple of years though, and unemployment is obviously doing to be impacted. If you know anything about supply and demand you will soon realize the labor market will tighten, and employers will soon realize they don’t need to increase wages to keep or hire employees.

33. We used to live outside of S.C. before moving to S.F. The motto the people used about S.C was this, “Sioux City…Armpit of the Nation!” Or people would call S.C. “Sewer City”

    I would question your salary data. One huge thing you need to look at is the cost of living in S.C vs. S.F. Iowa has incme tax, South Dakota doesn’t. And real estate taxes are much jhigher in S.C. than in S.F.

    S. F. is a much nicer and cleaner city than S.C.It runs circles around S.C. Sorry but a terrible comparison. it should be S.C. compared to Waterloo, IA. S.F. is compared today with Lincoln, Fargo, Omaha, Des Moines.

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