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I know, I know, it's hard to believe. I have to hand it to you people on here...seems to me that you all have a lot of pride in Des Moines for whatever reason. While I disagree that Des Moines is the great city I keep hearing it is, I think it's cool that all of you seem to not only like it so much, but that you're all quick to defend it. I mean, I can post one slightly negative comment and next thing a know I have a plethora of responses telling me how wrong I am about what I had said.
My question though is this...do you all really feel that Des Moines is indeed that great of a place, or is it just that you hate hearing people doggin' on your hometown or place that you currently live? I'm a bit curious on this. All arguments aside, Des Moines isn't THAT terrible of a place...I personally don't like it myself, and I would never choose to live there. I can understand why people might, however, but I fail to see why it's so damn great of a city that everyone seems to jump all over my case if I say one negative thing about it.
So does anyone care to enlighten me as to why exactly you all feel that Des Moines is such a great place? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as opposed to the arguments we all seem to get into about DSM. Although the arguments can be quite entertaining to me too!
One thought here is that Des Moines has suffered for years as a place with a poor reputation (if it had much of one at all) with not as much to offer in comparison to more established metro areas. With the resurgence of the city, the addition of better attractions and quality of life, the high growth rate and the transformation of the core that's underway has become a new sense of city pride that seems more evident among many, especially the younger 20+ crowd than was evident in the past. There's a generally upbeat vibe to the city that wasn't there as early as the 1990's.
As was pointed out in the other thread, Des Moines cannot be all things to all people, but my guess is that this type of metro would appeal more to people that are ready to become established with their careers and family life. In many ways, things are very much on the right track here and you can't deny that the place has come a long ways in a very short amount of time. I like living in a place that has a sense of growth and prosperity about it, a place that has that cliche big(ger) city atmosphere without the hassles, and where you can get involved and make a difference with relative ease.
A poster disagreed with me in the other thread, but the biggest thing that I think DSM needs to work on is establishing more of a sense of place, and letting you know that you're in Des Moines, Iowa. We're going to have to do that by man made improvements because the terrain sure isn't helping us out by giving us something unique to work with! Is it the most exciting place in the world and have the best climate? No, but you can still have one high quality of life in what I consider to be one well rounded place. Des Moines will never have the huge historic built environment, or cultural buzz of a mega metro, but what mid-sized metro does? If we can take a piece of what drives us to the bigger cities to live or visit and place it here (which I think we already have), you offer choices that appeal to most people.
Besides being tied to a community, what really drives you to live in a place? No place is perfect to all people on all levels and you can poke out the flaws in every community if you have to.
If you were writing from your patio deck enjoying the breezes of Monterey bay, I'd probably have a different post, but your backhanded compliment of DM comes from "world renowned" Coralville.
I think all the posts about what DM has to offer for its size pretty much sizes things up. Maybe you just like college towns, but with your "Hawkeyes this" "Hawkeyes that" mentality and hating everything within 50 miles of Ames, pretty much says it all. Sounds like you are dealing with "issues."
DM is basically a fast growing medium sized metro (non-college town) with a decent number of things to do given it is the state capitol, largest city, etc. If you don't like DM, then you basically don't like similar cities like Omaha, where we share a lot of similarities, except it is larger, better zoo, etc.
To "plead" DM's case to you is basically a waste of time.
If you were writing from your patio deck enjoying the breezes of Monterey bay, I'd probably have a different post, but your backhanded compliment of DM comes from "world renowned" Coralville.
I think all the posts about what DM has to offer for its size pretty much sizes things up. Maybe you just like college towns, but with your "Hawkeyes this" "Hawkeyes that" mentality and hating everything within 50 miles of Ames, pretty much says it all. Sounds like you are dealing with "issues."
DM is basically a fast growing medium sized metro (non-college town) with a decent number of things to do given it is the state capitol, largest city, etc. If you don't like DM, then you basically don't like similar cities like Omaha, where we share a lot of similarities, except it is larger, better zoo, etc.
To "plead" DM's case to you is basically a waste of time.
Wow I really seemed to have struck a nerve with you haven't I? For the record, my comment about hating everything within 50 miles of LAmes wasn't meant to be taken seriously...do you honestly think that it was? And I wouldn't say that I have a "Hawkeyes this", "Hawkeyes that" mentality at all...those comments were directed specifically at two groups of people, the first being Cyclone fans (those comments were in jest), the second group being those few people who were claiming that Des Moines has a lot of great sports teams to watch. I merely pointed out that I feel the Hawkeyes are more popular than any of those other teams mentioned, which is most likely true by the way.
I should also point out that I do like Omaha save the crime and the weather. Omaha has much more to do in my opinion than Des Moines does, it also has a NICE zoo, as opposed to Blank Park Zoo, as well as a very nice airport for it's size. I have frequently taken flights in and out of Eppley, even though it is a much longer drive for me because they have been cheaper than flights out of Des Moines. I also think that Eppley is more convenient to fly into or out of.
I also never asked anyone to "plead" Des Moines' case to me, I simply asked why everyone seems to think it is so damn great (which apparently many of you do). I wasn't trying to start an argument, nor was I attempting to make a "backhanded" compliment of Des Moines. I can certainly feel that Des Moines isn't a great city, but still appreciate and want to hear the opinions of people who disagree with me. Perhaps I'm a bit more open-minded than you gave me credit for. Or perhaps you just don't like me because I tend to disagree with you on many subjects. I should also point out that not only have I never mentioned that Coralville is "world renowned", I also don't plan on living here forever, as I tend to move on to somewhere else within the next couple of years. Is Des Moines on that list of potential places for me to live? Most likely not, however that doesn't mean that I'm uninterested in hearing about the pros of living in Des Moines either.
Just out of curiosity, what "much more things to do" are there in Omaha that Des Moines doesn't have besides the bigger, better zoo?
While I appreciate your previous post stating reasons why you feel that Des Moines is indeed a great city, my comment on Omaha was merely directed at the reply given by DSMguy. I don't really think that this is the thread to discuss the Des Moines v. Omaha topic. That has been discussed quite a bit in other threads and honestly it's not really something I care enough about to really get into discussing with you. I guess what I should have said is if given the choice, I would pick Omaha over Des Moines. And honestly the zoo itself is enough of a reason, as well as the airport. Both of those put Omaha way ahead in my humble opinion.
I currently don't live in Des Moines, but I have for 10 years. I now live in Winterset but go to Des Moines weekly, sometimes several times a week.
I don't know what you are looking for but lets look at this again. Des Moines has a minor league baseball team. It has hockey, it is now getting arena football again. It has a zoo, it has the Botanical Center, Living History Farms. There is the revitalization of downtown. A wonderful Farmers Market. A nice Science Center. Nice shopping and the new Jordan Creek area.
Recreation at Saylorville and the other smaller lakes around the area. Many bike trails through the city. Several nice aquatic areas in the metro. Good schools. Sleepy Hollow for winter activities. Ice Skating in Downtown in the winter. Wells Fargo arena for nice concerts and other activities. The State Fair Grounds that has activities year round.
There are wineries in the area. Those are the things I can think of right now but there is a lot to do in Des Moines. It is a nice area.
Des Moines is not a great, world class city. What it is, is a great mid sized city. You seem to think Des Moines should have the attractions of Chicago and the like...
Like another poster said, they are just tired of uninformed people blindly trash talking Des Moines. Especially when the city has improved by leaps and bound.
And like another poster said, dude you live in CORALVILLE!!!
I have lived all over the U.S. Boston, the midwest, the Bay Area (where there is a world renowned city), and all the hasles of living in those places aren't worth it.
So no, Des Moines will never be those places, but it also isn't crap either. For a city of 200,000 people, it's pretty good and you can't deny that.
Here's a good memory for you, from when I lived in a "Great" city.
My wife and I were on our way to a cool restaurant in this great city. We hopped on the highway, and sat in 6 lanes of traffic. We sat, and sat, and sat, and sat... Long story short we got off on the next exit and took side streets home. We didn't even make it to the restaurant.
That happened to us when we were going to Santa Cruz one weekend. And then another weekend when we were going to Monterey.
And right now when gas is the way it is. Guess what, in San Fran/San Jose gas is around $4.00 for regular.
These are just a couple hassles of living in a great place... Fun to visit, not too fun to have to deal with that 7 days a week.
For the record, here are my original posts that sparked everyone jumping all over me for "blindly trash talking" Des Moines. So why doesn't everyone try reading these posts and then decide if I was talking trash or merely trying to make a point. Nearly every subsequent post on Des Moines that I have made has been to defend my initial viewpoint, or to retaliate from the barrage of replies to my posts stating that I must be uninformed. And again, the point of THIS particular thread wasn't to argue about the "greatness" or lack thereof with respect to Des Moines. I was simply giving you who have been on my case since these 2 posts referenced below a bit of credit for defending your beloved city. Apparently, however, the arguments are going to follow me to this thread as well. For whatever reason it seems that because I haven't adopted the "Des Moines is the center of the universe" mentality that many of you seem to have, I'm going to be continually belittled and accused of being uniformed, as well as having my posts taken completely out of context. Frankly it's already beginning to get a bit tiresome. Why is it such an issue that I don't think Des Moines is the greatest place in the state of Iowa? Isn't the point of these forums so that people can express differing opinions? I asked for people to give me reasons why Des Moines is as great as many of you are saying, and only 2 people thus far have made a genuine effort to do that. The rest of you seem to only be interested in attacking my viewpoints expressed in other threads. In any case, here are my original posts on Des Moines that seemed to cause all of this ruckus in the first place:
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