Codington County, SD has 1.8× more handyman and remodeling contractors with employees per resident than the national average.
Codington County, SD already has 21 residential remodelers and handyman contractors with employees — 7.3 per 10,000 residents, against 4.0 nationally. That's 1.8× more than average, so this category is well covered here (US Census, County Business Patterns 2023).
- In Codington County
- 21
- Per 10k residents
- 7.3
- National rate
- 4.0
- Ratio
- 1.8× more than average
Population 28,952. Ranked 17 of 21 South Dakota counties with enough handyman & remodeling data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Source: US Census County Business Patterns ↗Codington County, SD had 21 residential remodelers and handyman contractors with employees in 2017 and 21 in 2023 — little changed. Nationally the count grew 33% over the same years.
What this doesn't tell you: Census counts how many exist each year, not how many opened or closed. A count that barely moves can still hide plenty of churn underneath it. It also can't see solo operators without employees, in any year.
Series runs 2017–2023. Earlier vintages exist but are not comparable: Census changed which small counties it publishes after 2016, so including them would show counties losing an industry that never left.
Census code 236118 covers residential remodelers — contractors who repair, alter and add on to existing homes, from full kitchen remodels down to small repair work.
The blind spot: This code is weighted toward full remodeling contractors taking on projects worth tens of thousands of dollars. That is a different business from small-job handyman work, and a county full of remodelers can still have nobody who will show up to hang a door.
County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees. A solo operator with no payroll — the most likely competitor for most of these businesses — is invisible to it, in every county, including this one.
There are more of these per resident here than in the country at large. That is a genuine argument against starting one in Codington County without something specific that the 21already operating do not have. It is not fatal — a crowded category can still have a bad-service niche — but “there is room” is not the argument available to you here, and any tool that tells you otherwise is guessing.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 21 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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