Favorite mid-sized Iowa town (Des Moines, Iowa City: living, area, cities)

[SharpHawkeye]

I think the OP was looking for towns smaller than Iowa City, for the record.

On region, I don't know. Of course, I'm partial to south/southeast Iowa, which I think is underrated for it's beautiful rolling hills. On the other hand, north/northeast Iowa is very lovely with the bluffs and the woods.

Some mid-sized cities I've always liked are Pella, Grinnell and Fairfield. Some smaller places I like might be Adel, Bloomfield, Washington. I'd really like to make it up to far northeast Iowa (further than Dubuque) sometime.

[metro223]

Independence is a good one that I forgot, similar to Waverly ... but without a college.

[LPerkins33]

Originally Posted by SharpHawkeye

I think the OP was looking for towns smaller than Iowa City, for the record.

On region, I don't know. Of course, I'm partial to south/southeast Iowa, which I think is underrated for it's beautiful rolling hills. On the other hand, north/northeast Iowa is very lovely with the bluffs and the woods.

Some mid-sized cities I've always liked are Pella, Grinnell and Fairfield. Some smaller places I like might be Adel, Bloomfield, Washington. I'd really like to make it up to far northeast Iowa (further than Dubuque) sometime.

if that were the case, DSM, davenport, Dubuque etc would not have been listed.

[metro223]

This is confusing because the OP started it as smaller to mid-sized towns, then changed it to a regions poll, but the title is still calling for mid-sized towns. lol. It's just whatever I guess.

[dubuqueaskme]

yes, I originally wanted to make it a small town poll, but there were SO many options.
Sorry about the confusion. There would be like 100 options if they were towns, so I decided to make it a regions poll, and people usually like the cities in their favorite region...

LPerkins, Des Moines is a great place in Iowa. Ames is as well. You treat IC as if it is the only place worth living in the state of Iowa and about 99% of Iowans would disagree.

And, no, I did not want to make it about bigger cities.
I put the bigger cities by the region names so that all of you could know what city was in what region...

My personal favorite cities in Northeast Iowa are:

Bellevue, Manchester, Maquoketa, Independence, Elkader, Strawberry Point, Epworth, Farley, Dyersville, Postville, Decorah, and Cresco.

Each one of these cities has that "Mississippi River" culture, from the architecture to the people to the religion, and I am in love with that style.

[LPerkins33]

Originally Posted by dubuqueaskme

yes, I originally wanted to make it a small town poll, but there were SO many options.
Sorry about the confusion. There would be like 100 options if they were towns, so I decided to make it a regions poll, and people usually like the cities in their favorite region...

LPerkins, Des Moines is a great place in Iowa. Ames is as well. You treat IC as if it is the only place worth living in the state of Iowa and about 99% of Iowans would disagree.

And, no, I did not want to make it about bigger cities.
I put the bigger cities by the region names so that all of you could know what city was in what region...

My personal favorite cities in Northeast Iowa are:

Bellevue, Manchester, Maquoketa, Independence, Elkader, Strawberry Point, Epworth, Farley, Dyersville, Postville, Decorah, and Cresco.

Each one of these cities has that "Mississippi River" culture, from the architecture to the people to the religion, and I am in love with that style.

thats fine if people disagree, doesn't bother me one bit. And in my opinion Iowa City is the only place worth living. If people have a problem with that then thats their problem, in fact if people have a problem with that then they have bigger issues to deal with in their life.

And just to make things clear a mid sized city is generally defined by 100,000 people or less.

[Nameless]

Do all Iowans think of Oskaloosa as South Central? My dad is from there and we always thought of anything south of 80 and east of a Grinnell - Pella - Albia - Centerville line as southeast.

[dubuqueaskme]

Eh. Grinnell is borderline Central-East Central.

Pella is south central

Centerville, I can't even remember where that is.

[zz4guy]

I defintely vote NE Iowa. Very scenic!!

Most of central and SE iowa is flat/rolling hills compared to NE Iowa.

[nanjosbrand]

I am originally from NW Iowa. As much as I love it there, I absolutely love Ames and Des Moines. Wish I were there, but I ended up in SoDak somehow instead.