Ames High changing conferneces

[AuH2O]

Conference affiliation has nothing to do with football districts

I think that's important to remember when we talk about not being competitive with the Des Moines suburbs.

Football is really the big glaring one, which conferences don't matter. Though at the time they left the CIML there were a few other sports that were really struggling to compete too, but I just follow them as much. Baseball and boys basketball were fine in the CIML. At the time they jumped as well, schools like Roosevelt and North had good girls basketball programs, but have now fallen off a cliff.

So when they formed the Alliance conference it seemed like it was going to be better than it was, but those DM schools got ravaged by open enrollment.

 

[3TrueFans]

Gonna be tougher in football this upcoming season. Sounds like Ames is losing a key player.

Well they were 1-8 last year, so the good news is the bottom isn't too far away.

 

[STLISU]

The city annexing land doesn’t change school district boundaries, though.

Correct. City of Ames has and continues to annex land to the north and west. City annexation doesn’t change school district boundaries. Gilbert Schools is essentially becoming the City of Ames’s second school district.

 

[drmwevr08]

Correct. City of Ames has and continues to annex land to the north and west. City annexation doesn’t change school district boundaries. Gilbert Schools is essentially becoming the City of Ames’s second school district.

This confused people when the Waukee district started growing by leaps. The districts were created before any of the towns were out there so when everyone grew west, they jumped into Waukee (Dallas County) and the district hit that growth well before the city.

 

[AuH2O]

This confused people when the Waukee district started growing by leaps. The districts were created before any of the towns were out there so when everyone grew west, they jumped into Waukee (Dallas County) and the district hit that growth well before the city.

Similar thing is happening with North Polk. I never thought it made sense that NP HS is not in Polk City, but in dumpy little Alleman, but it makes more sense when a lot of the school growth is from development on the NE corner of Ankeny that's in the NP district.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Similar thing is happening with North Polk. I never thought it made sense that NP HS is not in Polk City, but in dumpy little Alleman, but it makes more sense when a lot of the school growth is from development on the NE corner of Ankeny that's in the NP district.

I was shocked by the growth of new houses in Polk City when we went down there last week for the first time in 4 or 5 years. None of the houses out North of town were there then, now there must be 50 and building more.

 

[AttackOfTheClones]

As a frequent fan and alum who has come over to Ames for a few decades now, it's sad to see Ames so stagnant over the years, while Grimes, Waukee, Ankeny, WDM, Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville-- exploded. The latter two in the eastern Corridor are unrecognizable vs 20 years ago. We spend some time in Coralville this month, and were extremely impressed. The Iowa River Landing area alone is great, as well as the Coralville strip and 1st Ave--once kind of run down for years. ~And I loathe the Hawkeyes.

Ames High aims high.

 

[AuH2O]

As a frequent fan and alum who has come over to Ames for a few decades now, it's sad to see Ames so stagnant over the years, while Grimes, Waukee, Ankeny, WDM, Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville-- exploded. The latter two in the eastern Corridor are unrecognizable vs 20 years ago. We spend some time in Coralville this month, and were extremely impressed. The Iowa River Landing area alone is great, as well as the Coralville strip and 1st Ave--once kind of run down for years. ~And I loathe the Hawkeyes.

Well, first for some context:
Iowa City, Coralville, North Lib 2000-2020 growth 37%
Ames 2000-2020 growth 32%

North Liberty has basically quadrupled in that time. Now the growth in Iowa City area expresses itself pretty differently and I think it's impressive, but let's be realistic. In 2000 Iowa City, North Liberty and Coralville had 85k people. And while CR/Marion are close, it wasn't great, and at the time had maybe 150-160k. So, hats off to the Iowa City region for growing and being very much a self sustaining area that doesn't really need CR. I'm sure there's plenty of people that go between the two for certain things, but for the most part you probably don't need to leave it to do/get about anything, and there are probably more entertainment options. But it's a whole different world thinking of IC vs. CR compared to Ames vs. the DM metro.

The growth in the IC region has been impressive, and I'd say it's pretty well done, and isn't just gross massive sprawl like I consider Grimes and Ankeny. And the IC area has absolutely grown to be University-focused, but not dominated by U of I like Ames is by ISU.

Not saying Ames' growth couldn't have been bigger or done in a way that would be more appealing, but its location from Des Moines is good and bad. On the good side, it likely will always provide some support for growth. But the negative is that it's 30 miles from Des Moines, which is now over 700k metro. It's too close to expect much, if any duplication of what happens to the adjacent burbs like Grimes, Waukee and Ankeny, but too far away to take part in that type of growth. Why try to develop 30 miles from Des Moines when there are still lots of wide open cornfields in the adjacent surrounding areas?

People saying Ames could've had Ankeny's or Waukee's growth seem to be missing the fact that suburbs 30 miles away aren't going to be massive growth areas when you've got other suburbs on multiple sides of a metro 0-10 miles away. It's just not happening.

I would like Ames to be more of a city that has a university rather than a university that has a town around it, but that's probably not going to happen due to the proximity and size of the DM metro.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

As a frequent fan and alum who has come over to Ames for a few decades now, it's sad to see Ames so stagnant over the years, while Grimes, Waukee, Ankeny, WDM, Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville-- exploded. The latter two in the eastern Corridor are unrecognizable vs 20 years ago. We spend some time in Coralville this month, and were extremely impressed. The Iowa River Landing area alone is great, as well as the Coralville strip and 1st Ave--once kind of run down for years. ~And I loathe the Hawkeyes.

Iowa City not only has a major university, much like Ames, but the hospital that not only has hundreds of well paying jobs but thousands of people coming every day to see the doctors over there, receive treatment or just visit patients in the hospital. Those people have to be fed, many stay over night, so you have plenty of hotels for them. As important as USDA is the country for its research here in Ames, they are not getting thousands of people, coming in daily from outside the area. It's just a totally different scale of operations.