A county seat town and/or a college town are. usually pretty nice places to live. Places like Gilbert and Story City are pretty nice but a lot of the focus is on the larger town where people go to work.
Worst city in Iowa?
- Thread starter Cfinnerty16
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Council Bluffs for sure, It's a whole lot of stuff Omaha doesn't want.
Maybe-left many years ago when CF was about the same size as East side of Waterloo. With all the empty buildings downtown, Crossroads a ghost town, jobs disappearing, population falling off, airport in shambles, lack of development in numerous areas of town, it's really showing that neglect. I'm glad to see they have started to invest in the schools (new high school coming, West Intermediate gone, Hoover area, etc) has been a nice boost.
Son of a *****
Ha. Sorry.
Didn’t realize you were Craig and jcyclonee was Jackson.
For what it is worth if you were 15 years older we could probably pass as fraternal twins. In other words, I stand by my assessment.
I went to high school in a town of less than a thousand people, graduated with 20 kids, and the town flooded every 4 years. I personally think it's the greatest town ever and if my wife ever leaves me or dies, I'll move back there because I have such great friends there. Most people would consider it the worst place on earth.
There are 500ish brand new homes south of 20 and they're building all the time and just starting on another 200ish homes around Orange Township. Downtown is re-invigorated and full of shops, businesses, bars and restaurants. Crossroads died like all malls died.
The new high school, which they're budgeting to be more expensive than Cedar Falls and Waukee Northwest, along with the school re-organization is a game changer for the city and surrounding areas.
Is the North end still rough in places? Sure but the city has also worked hard to get that end of town a new grocery store and community center and other projects planned and coming on line.
Would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 15 years ago but two consecutive good mayors and people willing to invest has really turned things around. Get back for a weekend and you won't even recognize it.
Guess who else liked Waterloo? John Wayne Gacy, I rest my case
But that’s the first thing I think of when I hear Waterloo
I don't get how CR is on the list for Iowa, unless there's a certain population threshold to meet. For smaller cities, Council Bluffs, Waterloo, Fort Dodge, Mason City, Marshaltown, Clinton, and Ottumwa are easily worse.
Honestly the only cities/metro areas I'd live in Iowa are DM, Ames, CR, IC, Dubuque, and the Quad Cities.
Honestly the only cities/metro areas I'd live in Iowa are DM, Ames, CR, IC, Dubuque, and the Quad Cities.
Both towns are nice because of their distance to Ames and the interstate. Put either one 40/50 miles to the West and they would be dying. My daughter told us the other day that the town of Gilbert grows to either two or three times its size when school is in session. There are few if any businesses there, but they building houses left and right for the people that work in Ames, but want to send their kids to a smaller district. Our daughter lives in North part of Ames, teaches in Gilbert, drive time is 7 minutes.
Growing up in southern Iowa, it's difficult to compare a town like Centerville and Ottumwa to an Ames or Iowa City, they are what they are. Both towns are struggling with losing businesses and people. If you are used to Ames, either one would be horrible, but if you are fine with 5 to 10 places to eat at, either is ok. Cheaper housing, smaller schools, easy to get around. I would choose Centerville over Ottumwa, but I could live in the Northern part of Ottumwa, it's not bad at all.
If you avoid the 5 block radius around the old Rath Packing buildings Waterloo isn't too bad. Way different town than it was when we moved there just before the '08 flood. Every town of a certain size has it's problems. It's not like every small town isn't full of meth heads and burnouts, they just tend not to shoot at each other normally.
Well, it has it's own riff-raff, but that riff-raff is cousins with half the town, so.
The name Dirty Dodge is kinda played out. Trying to make Fart Dodge a thing. I've been here 15+ years. I gladly took the job offered here vs the one offered in Creston. I kept looking for the nice part of town. Didn't find it in Osceola either.
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How do we not talk about Carter Lake? It's landlocked between a lake and an industrial park and will never grow, no downtown business district of its own, all the airport noise, and an area so undesirable that Omaha and CB both tried to force each other to claim it as their own. They are 99% on the outside of Iowa looking in.
When I first really spent time there (2007) it was a f*cking dump. It has so much more going on now, that combined with CF I view it as a mostly good place
Agree with you on Fat Hill Brewery! Mason City definitely shouldn't be considered the "worst" town in Iowa by any stretch of the imagination. I'd say that the nickname "Mason Sh***y" derives more from it historically being a God awful boring place to be for a town of 28k people. Over the last 15 years, however, they have worked tremendously hard to remedy this issue by investing in the downtown area. Now, 70's Mason, with the most strip clubs per capita in the US and Barry Alvarez winning a state championship...
Just got back from there. Loved the murals downtown. This one features Ada Hayden, the first woman to earn a PhD from Iowa State. In botany.
Omaha has east of 60th, Council Bluffs has west of the Loess Hills. I don't want to live in those areas, unless its close to the river. But not the twin cities neighborhood.
Cedar Falls is what I would consider a nice city. Especially with the new school. Also a lot of solid small towns with good school districts in the area. Parkersburg, Grundy Center, Denver, Dike-New Hartford to name a few all are nice towns for being small.
Other towns/cities that I spend some time in and enjoy for what they are: Clear Lake, Waverly (don’t care for the school district with some of their problems, but I like the town), Lansing, Decorah, Story City
