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Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

desmoinesregister.com

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Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#41

Post by hermitdev »

sincerely wrote: post #25
anthonyleecook wrote: post #6

I would need my European/Asian food.....(especially great sushi and some Michelin caliber restaurants), easy beach access, good weather most of the year, and some tech meetups to go to. Probably not for me.

I just want a decent electronic music scene (anything with regular non-house non-edm events) but that alone means i have to stick to pretty big cities :(

I wouldn't be so sure about that. There was a decent sized EDM festival a couple of years ago in bum-fuck Lolo Hot Springs, Montana (Lolo Hot Springs is basically the last stop in MT on US Rte 12 headed towards Idaho - it's about 40-60 minutes from Lolo proper. It's only claims to fame are the hot springs and Lewis & Clark stopped there. I'm not even sure the population is in the triple digits). Hell, if I'd known about it before hand, I'd have used it as an excuse to visit my parents in Lolo. A couple of my favorite US based d'n'b DJs played that event. Alas, I didn't know about it until well after the fact.

Granted, you said decent scene, and I wouldn't necessarily qualify a single "large" event (for the region) a decent scene, but it doesn't mean there has to be nothing.

edit: Also, some of the regional small cities can attract a lot of shows. Boise, ID is particularly good at it, even with a pop < 250k. Boise also has a pretty decent tech drawing, but that's more on the hardware side, I think, Boise is Micron's headquarters. Boise is also a great city to live in. My parents were there for a while when I was in college. Quite a fun city for its size. Ethnic foods are somewhat limited, but you can get very good Mexican and Basque food there (loved the Basque food in particular).

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#42

Post by peterangular »

bb88 wrote: post #34
ourmandave wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Come to Iowa if you value your 2nd Admendment Rights. Currently they're in a race to surpass Florida as the most gun friendly state. Recently passed Stand Your Ground. https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170630/iowa-critical-self-... Adding the 2nd Amendment to the state constitution passed a subcommittee on Jan 26th. https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180126/iowa-right-to-keep-... Working on Courthouse Carry and S…

I can't tell if you're serious or not. lol.

Who knows - but they issue permits to blind people: https://www.snopes.com/iowa-guns-blind/

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#43

Post by niftich »

This isn't too surprising to someone who has a passing familiarity with the state: thriving college towns, friendly business climate, low cost of living, plentiful land, a strong focus on education and healthcare, smart infrastructure spending, and strong tradition of citizen involvement in government. It ranks highly on many metrics, and, perhaps more importantly, avoids low rankings on others.

This year, the rest of the top five are Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, and New Hampshire, all well-deserved; Iowa climbs to the top, while Minnesota and New Hampshire have been consistent top performers for many years.

It's enlightening to compare a list of states by inequality to this list [1]. It reveals that many high-demand locales are in fact quite unequal, while many of the states ranked highly in the article are more equal in terms of income disparity between the lowest and highest earners.

On income equality alone, a state like Iowa will be less attractive to someone tolerant of risk and confident in their ability to execute than some other states with wider gaps, but it will remain a good choice for someone seeking stability and a high quality of life.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/227249/greatest-gap-betw...

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#47

Post by ourmandave »

The current income tax tops at almost 9% but they're currently trying to pass a $1B+ tax cut and would cut the top rate to around 6%. It's currently bracketed so the bottom rate is 0.36%.

Generally the cost of living is cheap as hell for housing and property taxes.

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#48

Post by arreyder »

bb88 wrote: post #24
danielecook wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside - Iowa has an enormous annual bike ride called [Ragbrai]( https://ragbrai.com ). I’ve wanted to go for years. Those that I know that have done it loved it.

Yes, it's also in July and it's brutal if you ride during the afternoon. That's why everyone does all of their riding in the morning. Edited to add: There are biking trails, but the state of Iowa is not particularly bike friendly, because six months out of the year it's impossible to ride your bike. The bicyclists I knew that lived there did road and highway biking. There's no mountains, so mountain biking is out.

I live in Des Moines, many of us bike year round. The paved bike trails are well maintained in all seasons and there are many miles of them. Snow and ice in the metro areas are promptly removed, though this often takes a while in some of the more remote areas. We also ride single track and winter only trails on fatbikes made to handle the snow. It's fantastic. Also, we have mountain bike trails and we do have a lot of elevation change. The difference here is we have what's called rollers. Ends up being forced intervals and make for a great workout. As a trail steward, I maintain one of the local trails near Des Moines and here's a link to the page that coordinates our efforts and catalogs the trails in the central Iowa region. http://www.centraliowatrails.com/ Whiterock recently opened and is fantastic. ~30 miles of single track and double track with around 3000 ft of climbing for a full lap.

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#49

Post by PopePompous »

jonknee wrote: post #38
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how people don't realize that the flyover states also have big, metropolitan cities. When I moved to Kentucky a friend of mine honestly asked me if people wore shoes there.

Iowa has no big metropolitan cities. The largest is Des Moines and it's only a little larger than 200,000 people.

Des Moines + its suburbs has a population of 400,000 to 600,000 depending on just where you stop counting suburbs . It's a really nice town.

Re: Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says

#50

Post by isabito »

city41 wrote: post #5
danso wrote: post #2

Iowa is a great state. The college towns and Des Moines (the capital) are as fun and forward-thinking as any other state's college towns I've been to, and cost of living is hard to beat. Ironically, in the Related links for this article, there's a story titled, "Des Moines was just named the nation's unhappiest city for workers" [0]. When I was in Iowa, DM wasn't much fun despite being the biggest city in Iowa, but I…

I got my CS degree from the University of Iowa. Iowa City is a nice town. My parents have lived in Cedar Rapids for the past 20 years, so I've visited Iowa often. I wouldn't be opposed to moving there, but I also have no desire to make it a target destination. The tech landscape seems to largely be older, more conservative companies: Rockwell Collins, NCS Pearson, GoDaddy, John Deere, etc.

GoDaddy is a "conservative" company among the likes of John Deere and Rockwell Collins?
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