Fargo, state of North Dakota, media darlings

Kotkin upheld Fargo as an exemplar of heartland boomtowns in a Newsweek feature last July.

“A decade ago, this same street was just another unremarkable central district in a Midwestern down,” he wrote, describing a night on teeming Broadway. “That has all changed.” He sang similar praises for the state in a Wall Street Journal piece in March.