The fastest-growing small city in the U.S. is Williston, N.D., a
longtime railroad outpost 540 miles from the nearest major U.S.
sports franchise that has been transformed by the state's oil
boom, according to new Census Bureau data.  From April 2010 to
July 2011, the population in and around Williston grew far
faster than in any other micropolitan area—population centers
with at least one urban cluster of between 10,000 and 50,000
people—swelling by 8.8% to 24,374 residents, according to census
estimates.  Dickinson, N.D., and Minot, N.D., also placed in the
top eight fastest-growing micropolitan areas. The fastest-
growing major metropolitan area was around Kennewick in southern
Washington state, where the population grew 4.3% to 264,000.
The census figures underline the feverish pace of the North
Dakota oil boom, which has attracted hundreds of oil rigs to the
state's northwestern corner and thousands of workers to man
them. Since new drilling technologies gave oil companies access
to up to 4.3 billion bar