• Jaymes O’Pheron is an entrepreneur who has lived all over the world.
• He and his wife moved from Washington state to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.
• O’Pheron said the Midwest locale is his favorite because of its strong community.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jaymes O’Pheron, a 34-year-old entrepreneur who moved from Aberdeen, Washington, to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.

The Fargo-Moorhead area, home to about 261,000 people, has seen a significant population uptick in recent years and is expected to reach almost 340,000 people by 2045, a 35% growth rate, according to the Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corp.

My family is a bit odd. I’m the oldest of eight and grew up in a very sheltered, religiously-minded family. I spent most of my childhood in Washington state, outside Vancouver and across the river from Portland. When I was 17, my dad got a job in Texas, so we moved South.

After that, we deliberately decided as a family to leave America. We picked Ireland because, at the time, it was the last English-speaking nation that did not allow abortion. We wanted to support that.

I absolutely loved Ireland. The weather, the people, the history, the language, the food, the music, the pace of life, the cities, the way it’s designed — it’s very communal.

After four years in Ireland, though, some personal issues led me to move back to Washington in 2012. I met my wife in Aberdeen, and we got married in 2018.

But we knew we weren’t going to stick around Washington forever. We had been experiencing some health issues that we eventually traced back to mold allergies. We realized we were biologically incompatible with mold and how damp and moldy the Northwest is. We couldn’t live there.

We wanted to find a permanent home, so we started researching potential places to move in 2019.

We tried to be intentional about where we ended up. We narrowed it down to a few places with favorable economic and regulatory aspects and a positive culture.

Then, we visited Fargo, and we knew this was the place. We officially moved in May 2021.

Fargo is very friendly to startups

I’m a serial entrepreneur. I can’t stop starting things, both nonprofit and for-profit. Right now, I’m primarily focusing on my nonprofit, which is focused on empowering people to be change-makers in their communities.

I’m also a freelance coach for career performance, communication, networking, and burnout prevention.

The community support here in Fargo is incredible. That was hugely important as I was trying to build up my coaching business. I needed a larger metro center to network, but I also needed a regulatory environment conducive to small business startups.

Fargo is a great place for small business startups, a huge part of which is due to the community. The people recognize that we need to support one another. Being an entrepreneur is emotionally difficult and risky. Having people around you cheering you on and having your back is incredibly valuable.

That community support is unique from all the other places I’ve lived. You can walk out onto the street and make friends with anyone.

We are definitely putting down roots here. We want our great-grandchildren to live here, so we started looking for a place to buy.

We found a beautiful home. I’m on the HOA board. There are a lot of benefits and assistance in North Dakota for people who are first-time home buyers.

In Washington, I was living in a studio apartment. We paid about the same rate here in Fargo for our two-bedroom apartment, which was twice the square footage, just outside downtown.

It’s one of the best places in the country as far as the ratio between low cost of living and high-paying jobs goes. The quality of living is high. There are a lot of job opportunities here.

Fargo is my favorite place I’ve lived

I just love Fargo. It’s my favorite of all the places I’ve lived because I have all my favorite people here. I have better friends here than I’ve had in my entire life. My favorite part is the community.

When we first drove to Fargo, it felt like we were driving home. There’s something about the scale of the city that is very approachable. It is a downtown area with robust activity, but it also has that small-town feel. It feels very safe and welcoming.

We had new friends from church help us move into an apartment immediately. We had met the pastor when we first got to Fargo, and he put out a call to the parish, and they all showed up to help us.

Because it’s a college town, there’s a lot of youthful energy and idealism. It’s also on the border of Minnesota, a blue state. So, Fargo is a true purple city. There’s a lot of diversity of thought and opinions. People actually have conversations, which is cool.

The one thing we were anticipating having to adjust to was the weather. We made sure we did all the preparation. We changed our car battery and got the right kinds of tires.

We had a really hard winter our first year there. But it was fun. I shoveled snow from our patio into the bathtub and took an ice bath. The cold weather actually leads to the quality of the community here. People help one another because we’re all in it together.

Fargo is growing quickly. One of the issues we’re dealing with is where to put all the people. We don’t want to create sky-high prices or spread out too far so people can’t commute. The city is trying to strike that balance of small-town heart and big-town body that we love so much.

As a burnout coach, I know that the silver bullet is community. We need to be able to connect with people around us authentically. Loneliness is killing us. So, it’s a luxury to have people here at Fargo whom I can rely on.

I think others who value community should look at Fargo. It’s an amazing place to be.