Dubuque (Pulaski, Sageville: crime rate, job market, elementary school) - Iowa (IA) - City-Data Forum

knoxfd · 07-18-2006, 10:39 PM

My wife, 2 year old daughter and I are planning on moving to the Dubuque are in August, 2007. I plan on attending Clarke college and my wife will be working full time. I currently live in a rural area of TN. I would like some information about the city and the school. I am interested in information about the housing market, job market (Accounting and finance), crime rate and overall opinion of the town and the people. I have been reading the local paper (Telegraph Herald) on-line but one can only obtain so much information from the newspaper. I would like the input and insight of the locals. I plan on residing just outside of Dubuque in one of the small, rural areas. Any information will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

knoxfd · 07-24-2006, 04:34 PM

Any information would be appreciated.

knoxfd · 07-30-2006, 08:30 PM

Go online to the Dubuque Chamber of Commerce. I think it's $5.00 but they will send you a relocation packet. Its fantastic. Even includes a DVD and they have a get to know you program twice a year and people in town that are like mentors. I plan on going out this fall and checking it out for myself as well. You'll love the packet I promise. Good Luck

Thank you for the information.

Tifosi24 · 07-31-2006, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knoxfd

My wife, 2 year old daughter and I are planning on moving to the Dubuque are in August, 2007. I plan on attending Clarke college and my wife will be working full time. I currently live in a rural area of TN. I would like some information about the city and the school. I am interested in information about the housing market, job market (Accounting and finance), crime rate and overall opinion of the town and the people. I have been reading the local paper (Telegraph Herald) on-line but one can only obtain so much information from the newspaper. I would like the input and insight of the locals. I plan on residing just outside of Dubuque in one of the small, rural areas. Any information will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

My fiancee lives in Dubuque, so I spend a good amount of time in the area. I really like the city, there is a lot to do in the summer as there tends to be a festival of some kind every weekend. As far as I can tell, the schools in the area are quality and produce good kids. There are a couple poorer performing schools in some downtown areas, but on the whole they are very good schools. From checking the paper, there have been a couple jobs in the accounting and finance, but overall the community is still more manufacturing and blue collar based. The city has been hiring quite a few white collar jobs, so you might want to keep an eye on them. The crime rate is low in the entire city except for the some parts on the northside of the old town. That is crime standards according to life long Dubuquers, as someone who goes to school in Milwaukee and lives on the fringes of downtown, their crime rate is non-existant. I might be biased, but the people in the area are very nice, but might be a little apprehensive to outsiders (not as bad in the past). From talking to older residents who came to the community 20-30 years ago, this attitude toward outsiders is not what it use to be, and in my opinion is not a concern. There are a lot of rural developments and small communities around Dubuque and they are for the most part very nice. I hope this is helpful.

chrisfromiowa · 08-07-2006, 11:49 PM

Dubuque seems to be a nice town...theres not hardly any crime...but i will warn you...there might still possibly be some KKK activity in the area...i just read how in the early 90's they tried to keep black people from moving to the area...idk how this affects you though

Tifosi24 · 08-08-2006, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisfromiowa

Dubuque seems to be a nice town...theres not hardly any crime...but i will warn you...there might still possibly be some KKK activity in the area...i just read how in the early 90's they tried to keep black people from moving to the area...idk how this affects you though

I am pretty sure the Klan isn't active in the Dubuque area. There is some apprehension to outsiders, but that is true of any smaller community in the upper Midwest. There has been a noticeable increase in diversity in the community since I first visited there over four years ago.

knoxfd · 08-09-2006, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tifosi24

I am pretty sure the Klan isn't active in the Dubuque area. There is some apprehension to outsiders, but that is true of any smaller community in the upper Midwest. There has been a noticeable increase in diversity in the community since I first visited there over four years ago.

I do not believe that I am apprehensive about moving to Iowa. I just want to know as much about an area as I possibly can before moving. The KKK post surprised me. I am from TN. The KKK originated in Pulaski, TN. Something to be proud of huh? That was a joke. I have never been to Pulaski but I know that the KKK are still active there. What a shame. Every person that I have communicated with from Iowa has been very nice and helpful. From all the information that I have gathered so far Iowa sounds like a good place to live. I would like more insight about Clarke College if anyone can help.

.mpr · 08-10-2006, 07:29 AM

Hi knoxfd,

I live in Dubuque and have all my life. I've never heard of KKK activity, and I know it is a common rumor around the country that Dubuque hosts much of it, yet I think we have very little if any at all.

Unfortunately, though, Dubuque IS a racist town (not in the local government, just in some of the citizens) - so if you are black you might experience some rude people or people that are frightened of you or something stupid like that.

If you live in Dubuque, John Deere probably has a job for you. They have a large plant here in Sageville (a north-dubuque suburb), which probably gives 5% or 9% of all of Dubuque a job.

Good luck!

r4dice86 · 08-18-2006, 04:52 PM

My family moved to Dubuque in 1990 when I was three, and I lived there until I left for college fall 2004. This is my second summer back, so I still consider myself a resident.

There was a brief spat of KKK activity in 1990/91 in response to a plan from the city to use tax incentives to draw minority families to the area. A Klan group not from Dubuque came and rallied, and a few local yokels decided to assist by burning a few crosses over that period of time. It put us on Sixty Minutes and got a lot of attention, so it's an event that has been remembered a lot longer than it needed to be. Dubuque is still statistically very white, but my sixth grade teacher was black, the elementary school that my mom works with downtown is 30-40% non-white, by this point the KKK thing is truly ancient history.

As for Clarke, my mom is a professor in the education dep't and I have a few close friends that go to school there. All the official stuff is on the www.clarke.edu website, but I'll try to give the community perspective. It's a smaller campus and student body than the other Catholic college, Loras, and is about the same size as the Presbetyrian-affiliated University of Dubuque. It does have some very respected programs; physical therapy and education are the best, and I think business and nursing are pretty good, too. The campus is small, it's basically the buildings along the road that it's located on and the land behind them on either side, (see map on website) the upside being that if you're on the side of the street with the main academic buildings you never have to go outside in the winter. Most of the campus was destroyed by fire in the 1980's, so you have a mix of old and new buildings all connected to each other. If you want info on something specific just post and I'll try to help.

R&TStan · 09-04-2006, 12:35 PM

As I was doing research today on my own relocation, I found this thread. My family, Husband and three children, are moving to Dubuque from NE Tennessee in the summer of 2007 as well. My husband will be attending seminary at the University of Dubuque. We have been doing research about the area, and I hope to gain a teaching position within a local school system. I found it interesting with the commonality of relocating from TN to IA for educational purposes, and thought it might be interesting to share our relocation angst and anticipation with one another. Maybe we can give one another tips. We have lived all across Tennessee but never out of state, and so we are kind of "green" with this.