Worst city in Iowa?

[jdoggivjc]

I grew up in Davenport, knowing that it wasn't exactly the greatest city in Iowa, but also knowing it wasn't necessarily bad, as long as you stayed north of Locust St and/or east of Eastern Ave. Now I've lived away from Davenport for nearly 15 years, and my parents moved to NE Bettendorf nearly a decade ago now, so outside of visiting my wife's parents, who live in NW Davenport, I just don't have reason to go much places in Davenport anymore.

Except I visited my family over Easter as my wife was planning her brother's wedding... and holy hell Davenport has become a hell hole in the last decade. What was once Locust St is now Kimberly Rd, and even north of Kimberly it feels like my parents' old neighborhood and a few other neighborhoods are an island within what feels like a city in a third world nation. Honestly it reminds me much of Detroit... but at least Detroit is trying to clean up the city somewhat. Davenport, on the other hand, scared me ****less.

 

[Kinch]

Mount Zion. Eldon.

 

[jdoggivjc]

I have worked 38 years at Iowa businesses within 1 mile of the Mississippi. Bad towns : Keokuk, Ft Mad (6 yr), Burlington (8 yr), Muscatine (2 yr),Clinton. OK towns : Davenport (15 years) . Good towns : Bettendorf (1 year), Le Claire, Dubuque (6 years), Gutenberg, Bellevue.

Along the river Davenport probably still isn't that bad... but get into town a little bit and yikes.

 

[TheCampanile]

I saw Cedar Rapids pop up on Twitter today & I was surprised.
For my money Fort Dodge, Council Bluffs, Keokuk, Burlington are all worse.

What other cities would you pick? Discuss

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Brookings as the worst city in South Dakota? Laughable. Dallas in TX? Again a joke. This map is garbage.

 

[Kinch]

Fairfield has residents living in homes with dirt floors.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

They do have the best Bosnian restaurant in the state. Seriously, it very good.

Outside of that, Waterloo definitely has some work to do.

If you're talking about Mersim's, I've got some bad news...

 

[Kinch]

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.

It was very hard (maybe still) to recruit doctors to Ottumwa. One of the places they drive them past is the high school and many comment that it looks like a prison, so we’ll pass.

 

[Kinch]

Newton is on the downward spiral.

 

[Cfinnerty16]

Brookings as the worst city in South Dakota? Laughable. Dallas in TX? Again a joke. This map is garbage.

Agreed, but we are talking about worst cities in Iowa right now lol

 

[Kinch]

My in-laws don't like living in Grinnell...but it's because of so many "people from Chicago" moving into town

For a while, Grinnell has had some dumpy areas. Like time stoppped in the 1950s.

 

[Kinch]

It’s probably Hibbing. Some rough places in northern MN if you aren’t on a nice like

A guy on our floor came from Hibbing. Very good curler. Our floor won several intramural curling championships.

 

[TheCampanile]

Agreed, but we are talking about worst cities in Iowa right now lol

Fair. lol

 

[Kinch]

Pershing. Harvey.

 

[fcclone]

Has anyone mentioned Independence? **** that town.

Actually, I don’t have an issue with Independence other than a bad experience while hitch hiking to Dubuque from Cedar Falls. A son of a ***** picked me up in Waterloo and dropped me off outside Independence close to the Mental Health Institute. Right next to the sign that said ‘Don’t pick up hitchhikers’.

 

[Cycsk]

Can you even classify Gilbert as a town? It’s just houses and schools, an orthodontist and some dump where you can pay to cook your own steak.

I'm really surprised that more small businesses haven't popped up in Gilbert. Seems that there is a lot of money that could be made from soccer moms and ISU FB coaches.

 

[AuH2O]

I'm really surprised that more small businesses haven't popped up in Gilbert. Seems that there is a lot of money that could be made from soccer moms and ISU FB coaches.

A little surprised too. Hell, a place for HS kids to grab food would probably do well.

 

[NWICY]

Pella probably not big enough to qualify but their hatred of outsiders is of the charts.

If you're not Dutch you aren't much.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

I know, I’m kind of joking. But I find it to be basically a glorified housing development. And not even an interesting one at that. Just a bunch of ass ugly monuments to vinyl.

The schools are nice. But if I have to drive to do anything it’s hard for me to consider it a town.

We looked at a couple of houses in Gilbert, and the bolded reason was we did not purchase there. It was cheaper and less taxes, but I was not willing to live that far from a grocery store and places to eat.

 

[NWICY]

Speaking of nicknames for disliked cities in Iowa. This is what I’ve heard before.
Sewer City, Duh-puke, Dirty Dodge, Council-Tucky, Cedar Crapids, Keosuck, Muscastink, O-scumwa.
That’s all I’ve got lol

That's a pretty solid list I believe. The Dirty gets a lot of grief but other than a couple of areas,and families the Dirty is not all that bad. It has it's own art museum, a couple of breweries, a local community theater group, town band. Industry has bounced back with the new ag Industrial park west of town. There are some homeless people around but you don't really see them panhandling like in bigger cities.
On the down side there isn't even a really nice restaurant in town. There are several places that serve pretty good food, but nothing really good or nice.

 

[NWICY]

Last time I drove through Webster City... that place seemed to be on the downfall much like Fort Dodge. Kind of sad. I don't remember it being like that back when I interned at Electrolux. I knew the plant had closed but didn't realize they demolished the entire thing.

There have been some real economic failures in WC since Electrolux closed. Electric car company, Fish farm, and at least another but I can't remember it right now.