• South Dakota's population is changing, and as a result, so is housing in South Dakota. The shift in population from younger to older, and from rural to urban, was the focus of School of Mines professor Sid Goss' presentation at the 2012 South Dakota Housing and Development Association conference in Pierre this November. 
• Goss, a professor of sociology at the S.D. School of Mines, explained that while South Dakota's population is growing, more than 70 percent of that growth is happening in Sioux Falls and surrounding communities. In most of the state's counties, including the Dakotafire region, the population is dropping, due to both outmigration and an aging population with a high death rate.  More than half of the state's population now lives in six of the state's 66 counties, and those counties are where the housing market still remains strong. 
• "The biggest percentage increase, of course, was Lincoln County, which grew by 86 percent," Goss said. "That is the fourth-fastest growing county in the United States of America."
• In contrast, far fewer homes are being built or sold in rural parts of the state, which is clearly caused by the region's population changes. Rural counties in South Dakota have been losing population steadily since the 1930s, and the number of farms has been decreasing along with it. South Dakota's aging population, which has given the state the distinction of having the highest percentage of persons over

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