Le Mars living?

If, as you say, nothing is holding you to either location I'd find a third choice. There are hundreds and hundreds of better options in the USA for a young couple.
 
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Think bigger, you can live anywhere and now is the perfect time to try somewhere new before you are tied to a job or your kids school.
 
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LeMars is over 10K population now (2020 census), which makes it roughly even with Spencer and Storm Lake for the biggest towns in that area (other than Sioux City, of course).

Sioux City could check both the career box and the "close to family" box (if that's important).
 
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LeMars is over 10K population now (2020 census), which makes it roughly even with Spencer and Storm Lake for the biggest towns in that area (other than Sioux City, of course).

Sioux City could check both the career box and the "close to family" box (if that's important).
Didn't realize it was over 10k. 10k is small to pretty much everyone else in the country, but in Iowa it is nearly a metropolis.
 
Hey folks, girlfriend lives in Le Mars, I live in Omaha, eventually one of us is gonna have to move to the other. She’s just finishing college in December, I graduated in May, nothing is really keeping us in either place but I’m looking in to moving to Le Mars just in case. Anyone here live there ever or currently? One of my bigger concerns is moving to a small town and knowing no one other than my girlfriends family and friends. Also, how hard is it going to be for me to pursue a white collar career in a small town? I feel like I have a lot of assumptions about living in a smaller area that are very skewed by living my entire life in Omaha.

Over 50% of the hires in the last 18 months for my company have been fully remote employees. In 2021 and onward.. Where you live matters less and less as it pertains to your career in "white collar work"

If you are homebodies.. I'd live in a smaller town. If you are more social, pick Sioux City, Council Bluffs or Omaha
 
I don’t know much about LeMars but ice cream, that’s good enough for me. Close to Sioux City for jobs.

Used to love going to Omaha but there seems to be some decline there.
 
Over 50% of the hires in the last 18 months for my company have been fully remote employees. In 2021 and onward.. Where you live matters less and less as it pertains to your career in "white collar work"

If you are homebodies.. I'd live in a smaller town. If you are more social, pick Sioux City, Council Bluffs or Omaha

If you’re a home body wouldn’t you want like a nice big new suburbs house? I wouldn’t want some old small town house.
 
I don’t know much about LeMars but ice cream, that’s good enough for me. Close to Sioux City for jobs.

Used to love going to Omaha but there seems to be some decline there.

Des Moines blows Omaha out of the water imo. Des Moines could be a nice middle ground for the OP actually.
 
I grew up 10 miles from there. There are white collar jobs there, but it's not going to be an office building type of white collar job. You may be looking at a white collar job in a blue collar industry depending on your degree. Like others have said, the drive to Sioux City is pretty quick and not that dissimilar from a suburb-to-downtown drive in a larger city. (Pro tip - watch the cops in Morrill...buncha jerks)

If you've never lived in a smaller town than Omaha, you're going to like certain aspects and hate others. You might like the slower pace, but you'll miss the variety of things to do that you're used to. And, if you're like every other couple ever, when there's an argument, that feeling will be magnified.

There are days I miss the small town feel, but it's more for short-term nostalgia than anything sustained. I'd never go back there myself, but it's mostly because I needed to get the hell out of there.

It would be a great place to raise kids up until a certain age, but there are opportunities here in KC that my daughter experienced that I desperately wish I had growing up. There are pros and cons, just like everything else in life.

It's always going to come down to what suits you and your girlfriend. There's a charm in small town Iowa life. Otherwise, this site wouldn't be as awesome as it is!
 
As someone who lived in Storm Lake, I would recommend not living in Le Mars. I couldn't wait to get out of there after a year. That size town just flat out sucks at that age unless you only care about drinking, fishing, and hunting.

Ummm not sure it's fair to compare LeMars to Storm Lake. SL is a dump.
 
You could live in Sioux City. It's only 20-25 minutes from LeMars. Or live in LeMars and commute to Sioux City.

People like to rip on Sioux City, but I lived there from 2012-2017 and enjoyed my time there.
This. Lived there 2013-2018 and no complaints from me. Enjoyed our time there, met plenty of great people. Moved closer to our hometowns when we had our first kid.
 
I don’t know much about LeMars but ice cream, that’s good enough for me. Close to Sioux City for jobs.

Used to love going to Omaha but there seems to be some decline there.

We stopped at the Blue Bunny place this summer when driving by. It is a fun place, not enough to make a guy relocate, but very nice.

I thought Le Mars seemed like an alright place. Like any small Iowa town, there's some sketchy parts and some nice parts.

You could do a lot worse in Iowa. And in other states, as far as that's concerned.