You need to go and have a good think about your life.
Le Mars living?
- Thread starter CheapClone1202
- Start date
You need to go and have a good think about your life.
I lived in two county seat towns in southern Iowa until I was four, far from the big city, and my memories of each are idyllic. Both were small. We had a big yard and porch, and rabbits, and played outside, and knew our neighbors. People were friendly. It was safe. An older couple was like grandparents to us kids. I remember watching Sunday football at a the house of a friend of my Dad’s. We fished and camped at parks just outside of each. It was actually somewhat like Mayberry, which was on television at the time. A year before I started school, we moved to a farm near the towns where my parents grew up, which is where I graduated from high school.
I’ll write a little about the smaller towns outside of Council Bluffs.
Some of the smaller schools not far outside the city tend to punch above their weight relative to the past, compared to larger schools, which aren’t as close. The closer you are, the more opportunities. Not only are at least a few new people moving in from outside these towns but many have lived there for generations. People don’t necessarily have to leave for as good or better career opportunities.
It has probably been 25 years, but when Iowa first started publishing 8th grade math and reading scores, Treynor’s were the highest in the state. Neighboring towns weren’t, say, second or third, but not that far behind them. Relative to neighboring towns, Treynor is closer to the city, and was growing faster with more new housing stock, with a smaller percentage of kids on reduced-price school lunch.
You get further away, say, just for example, Shenandoah or Clarinda, and I think there are probably fewer school age children than in the past, as a percentage of their population.
That is not to say any of these are bad places to live, but reflect certain demographic changes that go way back. The smaller towns near Council Bluffs not only offer better career opportunities in a general sense given their proximity to the city, and greater sports and extracurricular participation, but better opportunities to specialize in a particular sport or activity if you wanted to. It is an easy commute from any of these smaller towns, but the closer you are, obviously, the quicker. There could even be opportunities in local law enforcement.
Moving in to one of these towns, since a large part of the population is likely to have lived there for generations, it can take awhile to get acclimated. But people are mostly friendly, and you can control how much you want to get involved.
Within Pottawattamie County, Underwood and Treynor are growing faster and have a higher percentage of people that commute. Historically, the towns that are further away have more local small businesses. I could be mistaken, but I think I read within the past year, likely in the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, of a proposed new housing development in Neola, large relative to the size of that town. Avoca and Oakland are bigger towns but not as close to Omaha-Council Bluffs.
If you were to work in Omaha, obviously you might prefer to live in Nebraska instead.
If you didn’t want to live right in Le Mars, you might prefer a neighboring town.
I’ll write a little about the smaller towns outside of Council Bluffs.
Some of the smaller schools not far outside the city tend to punch above their weight relative to the past, compared to larger schools, which aren’t as close. The closer you are, the more opportunities. Not only are at least a few new people moving in from outside these towns but many have lived there for generations. People don’t necessarily have to leave for as good or better career opportunities.
It has probably been 25 years, but when Iowa first started publishing 8th grade math and reading scores, Treynor’s were the highest in the state. Neighboring towns weren’t, say, second or third, but not that far behind them. Relative to neighboring towns, Treynor is closer to the city, and was growing faster with more new housing stock, with a smaller percentage of kids on reduced-price school lunch.
You get further away, say, just for example, Shenandoah or Clarinda, and I think there are probably fewer school age children than in the past, as a percentage of their population.
That is not to say any of these are bad places to live, but reflect certain demographic changes that go way back. The smaller towns near Council Bluffs not only offer better career opportunities in a general sense given their proximity to the city, and greater sports and extracurricular participation, but better opportunities to specialize in a particular sport or activity if you wanted to. It is an easy commute from any of these smaller towns, but the closer you are, obviously, the quicker. There could even be opportunities in local law enforcement.
Moving in to one of these towns, since a large part of the population is likely to have lived there for generations, it can take awhile to get acclimated. But people are mostly friendly, and you can control how much you want to get involved.
Within Pottawattamie County, Underwood and Treynor are growing faster and have a higher percentage of people that commute. Historically, the towns that are further away have more local small businesses. I could be mistaken, but I think I read within the past year, likely in the Council Bluffs Nonpareil, of a proposed new housing development in Neola, large relative to the size of that town. Avoca and Oakland are bigger towns but not as close to Omaha-Council Bluffs.
If you were to work in Omaha, obviously you might prefer to live in Nebraska instead.
If you didn’t want to live right in Le Mars, you might prefer a neighboring town.
Not sure I agree. If you are down to searching for specific types of chip dips, it sure seems like you have the big problems solved already.
Best scenery by a mile. Driftless area is way better landscape than the e rest of the state. As far as big towns in IA Dubuque is one of the better ones.
I can't speak for him, but it's far and away the most scenic part of Iowa. I realize that scenery is subjective, but when you factor what most people think of when they think of "scenic", Iowa's portion of the Driftless Area is heads and shoulders beyond anything else in the state. There's more publicly owned land and a plethora of outdoor recreation like canoeing/kayaking, bicycling, and hiking.
The COL is low, and there aren't many social problems. Most of the small towns are still well maintained and still have most of the every day services you look for. In many parts of southern Iowa, you see a lot more visible evidence of rural decline than you do in northeast Iowa.
It's a little different culturally than the rest of Iowa, too. It's essentially a western enclave of Wisconsin.
Thats fair, NW Iowa is boring and flat as a pancake. Southern Iowa has good scenery, but it starts getting weird down there.
Too many Packers and Hawks in that area for most civilized people
Not really and it’s pretty redneck there as well. I’d probably live in LaCrosse than Dubuque. I don’t consider DBQ to be part of the driftless region at all
Once you get out of Dubuque into the more rural part of the Driftless Area, there are actually quite a few Clone fans, and the Hawk fans are much less obnoxious than they are closer to Iowa City.
There are a ton of Packer fans though. Like I was saying, anything east of Highway 63 and north of Highway 3 is basically Wisconsin.
Now wait a minute. The highest point in Iowa is up by Sibley. It's a whopping 1670 fe...
yeah, never mind
Wisconsin is pretty redneck. I'm not saying NEIA isn't redneck. It's just more woodsy, and less like South Dakota than points west.
Dubuque is absolutely part of the Driftless Area whether you consider it that or not. There's a pretty firmly established boundary based on watersheds. In Iowa, anything east and north of the Wapsipinicon watershed is considered part of the Driftless. That includes the Upper Iowa, Turkey, and Maquoketa watersheds, as well as the smaller streams that dump straight into the Mississippi.
La Crosse is also an awesome town. One of my favorite places, period.
Dual enrollment classes do not factor into the Iowa State GPA that I am aware of. They do count the credits. I believe it is similar to AP in that regard. A bunch of guys in one of my son’s Calc II classes had taken the AP version but retook it at ISU thinking in would be an easy grade. My boys all just moved on from the classes they got credit in to save money and graduate earlier. They all took ISU math and sciences courses online in high school, as they were all grade accelerated in math and ran out of math classes they could take otherwise. I do not believe their grades for the ISU dual enrollment was included in GPA at ISU. It was counted in high school GPA as weighted course.
The one that did not attend ISU went to a university that did not even accept the credits for AP or dual enrollment.
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On the other hand, people never steal stuff in "the city."
Bashing those who make different choices or have different opinions has become the main pastime of our society and this site. I suppose in some way in makes people feel better about their own choices without considering different circumstances that others encounter.
Wisconsin is pretty redneck. I'm not saying NEIA isn't redneck. It's just more woodsy, and less like South Dakota than points west.
Dubuque is absolutely part of the Driftless Area whether you consider it that or not. There's a pretty firmly established boundary based on watersheds. In Iowa, anything east and north of the Wapsipinicon watershed is considered part of the Driftless. That includes the Upper Iowa, Turkey, and Maquoketa watersheds, as well as the smaller streams that dump straight into the Mississippi.
La Crosse is also an awesome town. One of my favorite places, period.
This map is a little off. You get 20 miles west of Dubuque and it's not very driftless.
yes, that's a pretty inclusive boundary based on watershed that includes some areas along it's western border that sure seem like they were flattened by a glacier.
But nevertheless Dubuque is absolutely in the driftless region.
The western and eastern stretches are still pretty flat, but this is basically the universally accepted boundary. I live here and you see this on shirts, hats, bumper stickers, posters, etc all over the place.
The Paleozoic Plateau is the sharper line where you transition from plains to rugged, forested hills almost instantly.
Maybe flattened by the prior glacier, instead of the most recent one, the Des Moines lobe of Wisconsin glacier, which was about 12,000 years ago.
