Relocating to Cedar Rapids from the south....Any advice would be helpful

[Pearlbob]

Awesome pictures!! I would hands down recommend IC over CR.

[sunny1951]

I could or would not recommend cedar rapids to live in. I have lived in cedar rapids for the last 15 years and really don't like it here. If you are not born and raised here you are not always accepted here and we don't feel like we were. I am originally born and raised in rural iowa but moved to nebraska from here back in the 80's-moved back here to help my mom but after 15 years I am ready to move back to nebraska where I feel more accepted and comfortable. By the way, Iowa city is a way cooler city to live in and the people will help you lots more there than any given time in cedar rapids.

[Pearlbob]

Any small town will give off the feeling of "not accepting people." When you have large cities that constantly have an influx of new people daily, EVERYONE is an "outsider." Same goes for college towns like Iowa City...everyone there is 'from' somewhere else. I've heard the thing about people not accepting outsiders from people in every state. That is definitely not something unique to Iowa

(and by 'small town' I literally mean something under 500,000)

[SharpHawkeye]

I would recommend Iowa City over CR, for all the reasons everyone has already given. It's simply a more active, progressive, accepting and laid-back community.

I do want to say something though. Don't be suckered by people who want to paint a whole state or community as "not accepting" or "hard to fit in". Whether or not one "fits in" in a community depends on so many factors; many of which revolve around the person involved and their personality and willingness to engage their surroundings. The community's "personality" is obviously a factor, but it is merely one out of a million unique factors.

Obviously two people can live in the same area and have wildly different experiences...for better or worse.

[Packrat]

Lets have a reality check folks. Human nature being what it is(primarily selfish)90% + of people in smaller places have their extended family all around and their friends for grade-school still live down the street.
Unless YOU have something they want/need like money,sex etc they have little motivation to be pals with YOU. Twas ever thus and will be so till the end of time.
If you want to be"accepted" you need to live somewhere with a LOT of "newcomers;-duh.

[WoodwardGirl]

Gosh, I don't remember ever going anywhere in the world that I didn't feel accepted. I wish someone would explain what they mean by this.

I have lived in Cedar Rapids since 2004 and I feel like I pretty much know everybody here, which is a hoot; instead of 6 degrees of separation, we have about 2. When my livestock got out (we live on a farm just outside of town), the neighbor who saw them thought to call the local hospital where she knew my father-in-law was in the cardiac ward following surgery because she is his rehab nurse. I love that.

Another thing that shocks me is people saying how there is nothing to do and "the malls are boring." I'm sorry... are there people somewhere in the world who actually depend on *malls* for their entertainment and to p*** away their free time? This baffles me. I think our malls are probably "boring" because most of us go there because we need a [thing] and we buy the [thing] and go home to our lives -- our nice, affordable houses with big yards in which we can garden and relax; places that are only a few minutes away from our diverse and often high-tech jobs.

I love to visit other places and see new things. I wish we had a few of those things here but, realistically, I know that they are so totally specific to my interests and hobbies that we wouldn't have enough interest here to support them -- that's why they are in places with millions of people. And if I chose to live in one of those places, I couldn't afford to have a few dozen acres of land to putter around on and a 3000 sf house in which I can entertain and pursue my passions, a house that is inconveniently a whole 20 minute commute from my job. So I choose to live here and visit those other things.

I can see that it would be really lonely to move to somewhere like Perry, Iowa, from somewhere like Boston... it is not because people are cliquish, it is because there are going to be darned few of them in your age bracket that aren't consumed with raising their own families. It's just a numbers thing. I was single when I moved to CR and was in my mid-thirties and it would have been darned hard to find people to socialize with and, yes, date if it had not been for professional organizations and work contacts and that was still a pretty shallow pool simply because CR is not that big. It would be impossible in Perry. If there are only 200 single 30-somethings in town, there are going to be a lot less of them that share your interests and want to hang out with you than if there are 200,000 of them. But if you want to be inside the loop and know everything there is to know about the politics of the town, trust me, nothing is easier, and it's pretty fun, really. Absorbing, anyway!

So people need to think about what is important in their lives... if it is going the newest mall every night to squeal about the latest fashions (or whatever this going to the mall is about... I certainly don't know!); if it is going to see the Celtics play a couple of times a week; if you're not happy unless you're in and amongst a million or so people everywhere you go, then you aren't going to be happy in Iowa.

And I really hope somebody will explain this mall- and entertainment venue-centric existence people have elsewhere, I mean, show a daily schedule of how one spends one's time, as I am just mystified.