AHC: Prosperous Pine Ridge Reservation

Yes, by all modern measures the place is a Third World Country.

(Yes, I am also well aware that there are primarily White and Black areas that are nearly as impoverished, so please keep that argument out of here)

My question is if there is any post 1900 POD which would leave the area of OTL's Oglala Lakota, Jackson, & Bennett counties in South Dakota all somewhere above the median per capita income ($22,900 in 2009-2013 OTL dollars) for U. S. County equivalents. If you can plausibly get the place to DC Suburb levels that is obviously a bonus, but wrecking the rest of the country does not count.
 
Dispensing with some sardonic comments; A education program that better fit the residents cultural norms & local needs would be a step forward. But it would still need to bring the people to competitive levels with other regions. The effort of the early 20th Century and since have had 'mixed' results. Along with that would be a industrial development program that fit the conditions on site. Long term investment with outside capital would be required since the resident population had zero. I can see any 20th Century form of agriculture providing a path.

Some sort of effective counter to alcoholism would be needed. A religious based counter? Perhaps a new religion that can provide a effective base for dealing with all the traps of the surrounding culture/s
 
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A member of the Lakota Sioux becomes an engineer in the early '50. In the late '60s, he or she returns to Pine Ridge and opens a small manufacturing facility building electric parts for autos such as solenoids. Other small scale manufacturing follows.

And then during the IBM, Compaq, Dell, Apple, etc, revolution in the 1980s, this small manufacturing community of a dozen or so firms is in good position to build parts of disc drives and so forth.

This is a good upward trajectory without insisting on an absolute home run.
 
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The richest Indian Tribe in the US, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, are about 400 hundred miles away from Pine Ridge

Each tribal member gets around $1M a year, from the very profitable Casino SW of the Twin Cities

So one way is that Pine Ridge gets profitable gambling, due to butterflies making Rapid City a large growing metropolitan area, and the Tribe gets a decent gambling Casino going.
It's as well managed as the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux or Ho-Chunk ones are, so each Tribe member gets a decent pile of money each year
 
. . . one way is that Pine Ridge gets profitable gambling, . . .
I agree that the best way to make money through gambling is by owning the casino! :p

Now, what I was talking about before with engineering firms and small-scale manufacturing, the baseline is that most new businesses fail. It's just that entrepreneurship is a hard path to hoe.

http://m.tribune242.com/news/2013/j...mbat-70-small-business-fail/?templates=mobile

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) yesterday said its Small Business Mentorship Programme aimed to save jobs and improve “the chance of success” for entrepreneurs in a sector that has a 70 per cent ‘failure rate’. . .
Often, it's undercapitalization, and/or fixed expenses eating you alive before you really get rolling with sales. And sales are hard for new firms.

I'm glad seeing a media outlet in a developing country being upfront with how difficult and risky entrepreneurship is.
 
This would be a big change, but lets say that Gold isnt found until Later in the Black Hills. It has pretty scenery, but other than that its just a bunch of land. Maybe if the Lakota's hang on to it they can use the tourism in the region to become at least fairly successful. Also, if they have Casinos things might be okay. Especially if South Dakota basically wants to keep its vice on the west side of the Missouri.
 
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