Des Moines vs. Des Moines metro area

[johnnymidwest]

All of that is true for every city. The inner city is old and, and things get better as you move outward. But in my experiences, the city and the burbs here mix much more than other metros. And Des Moines isn't losing population. In fact, it's been growing, just not nearly at the rate of the suburbs. But, that too is common to most urban areas. Especially when the core city starts to become landlocked. Downtown Des Moines has really been booming though in recent years. And right now they are breaking ground on a 39 story apartment/condo and mixed-use development and a 33 story luxury apartment building.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by fezzador

Yep. Heck, DSM probably should have gone ahead and annexed the land just south of 80/35 years (i.e. Firestone plant) ago. No idea why it's been sitting unincorporated all this time.

Originally Posted by capitalcityguy

^ The problem with that area is that the city would inherit a lot of low value properties with aging infrastructure and have to start offering services to the area. It is not exactly a desirable location where you’re going to see a lot of new rooftops going up to add to the tax base.

As I hinted before, cities of the near future are going to become more dense, not less. Des Moines already has a lot of land ripe for infill projects. The trend of the post WWII development pattern of adding to the edges of cities is going to stop “naturally” as city budgets continue to get squeezed and they look for cost savings measures. Expanding their liability of having to maintain more and more infrastructure around the edges, will be the opposite route any city will want to take if it intends to stay solvent.

https://youtu.be/rzZH7GuLOMk

I missed this back then. One of the main reasons we moved from DSM east side to WDM was the failure of Northgate shopping mall. It failed because the city council caved to pressure from other businesses and malls. That was the straw for us.

[johnnymidwest]

The northeast side of des moines has nearly nothing for shopping. The large, former Eastgate shopping lot sits vacant and could easily house a Walmart Super Center and other retail establishments.

[Tek_Freek]

That area floods too much, which is one of the reasons it failed. When my mother was young (1910's and 20's) They used to take boats there and go through what was then a "swamp" full of wildlife and plants. The last yellow winged blackbird I ever saw was there when I worked at Earl May. Earl May was the northernmost store in the east side strip. Just north of the store it was still swamp. That was in the 1970's.