Why does montana have a low population

Originally Posted by almondding. Originally Posted by FirebirdCamaro Because they have very harsh winters, especially Wyoming and Montana, and they don't have diversified economies, Wyoming's sole economic drivers are oil and mining, and Montana and Idaho are primarily agricultural.

So lack of job opportunities and harsh winters, it's a no brainer why they are sparse. There is a lot more to desirability than just good summers, beautiful scenery, and lots of nature to build a foundation for a major metro area.

You need access to a lot of water, you need a robust electrical grid, and you have to have means for people to earn a living significantly over poverty wages to attract the talent, recreation, COL, and QOL. So it really turns into a chicken or egg scenario. Denver had a major foothold in all of these items years ago and has simply carried that momentum forward. Colorado has also done an excellent job of marketing its self over the last 50 years as well.

Hard to define. Why is Kanye West popular? That is a mystery to me as well. IMO, a lot of it comes down to perception. People perceive CO as desirable so they want to move there, so it grows, and the growth becomes robust and self sustaining.

This perception is created over decades of small things, like John Denver tv specials in the '70s, Monday Night Football showing mountain vistas from games in the '80s, the tech boom of the '90s, etc. Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho have not had this type of exposure, but it is changing. Vintage houses in Bozeman, Montana can cost as much as the suburbs of Denver. Boise has ditched the polyester image and is gaining growth momentum as more Californians flee high COL.

History and Geography mostly. The early expansion in the US, up until or so, was filling in the land east of the Mississippi that was the original area of the country. The newly purchased Louisiana Territory, other than New Orleans and its surroundings, was relatively unpopulated. By around , some of the area immediately west of the Mississippi and in the lower Missouri valley started to be settled. Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnestota, etc. These areas had fertile soils and enough rainfall to make agriculture fairly profitable and easy, especially in the Southern part, where cotton plantations were able to expand.

The area to the west of this, including Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, the Dakotas, etc. By the 's's reports were coming from the disputed Oregon country that the land there was much more fertile than these areas.

Westward-bound settlers therefore skipped over this territory and headed to Oregon, especially after the treaty with Britain that settled the boundary question in the area. Also, this was around the time when word of the gold strike in California started to come out. The area of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas essentially became just an area to pass through on the way to Oregon and California. Later, there were silver and gold finds in some of the areas that were skipped over, such as Nevada and Colorado.

Utah is a special case as it was primarily settled by Mormons who were persecuted and driven out of states farther east. Places like Arizona and New Mexico always were a bit more settled because of the longer growing season, but their development also lagged due to poor rainfall.

Later, once irrigation systems were in place and air conditioning systems were developed, these areas started to grow to what they are now.

The area you asked about, and I'd throw in the Dakotas as well, suffered from a lack of both agricultural opportunities and from the lack of gold or silver finds. These were essentially forgotten areas of the country.

Only ranching and herding were really suitable as economic activities in these areas. Historically, there just was not much to attract settlers to the area. Not coincidentally, BTW, these areas were the last areas of the country where Native Americans lived free, and not on reservations.

It wasn't until the late 19th to early 20th centuries when this area started to be settled and developed. Idaho's been discovered. Boise has been growing rather quickly since the 80's and the city and metropolitan area and Idaho have exceeded the national growth rate in recent years. Boise was recently ranked 1 in the nation for construction job growth and it does not seem to be ending anytime soon.

Here is a link: Boise area tops in America for construction jobs growth Just Good News Boise is similar to other isolated cities like Salt Lake and Denver in that the tech scene is growing, Hewlett Packard has a large campus in west Boise, Micron has a campus in east Boise and downtown is turning into a cluster of tech companies. A micro area has an urban core of at least 10, residents but less than 50, Montana has three metro core areas: Billings, Missoula and Great Falls.

And it has four micro core areas: Kalispell, Bozeman, Helena and Butte. In figure These counties account for most of the commuting zones and trade areas of the larger centers. Other less populated and more isolated counties are shown in the light-tan color. The seven regional center counties accounted for most of this growth, with their combined populations swelling by more than 12, residents in both years.

Outlying counties near these regional centers also had significant growth, including an increase of almost 6, residents in and There was very little growth in the more rural areas of the state signified by the 24 counties in the tan color. The nationwide economic recession formally began in December , and its impacts intensified in and The 24 isolated and more rural counties together had losses.

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