**The Good, the Bad and The Ugly**

Des Moines has a river, an art museum, a symphony orchestra, an opera company, lots of insurance companies and a botanical garden with a geodesic dome. It has buildings by I.M. Pei, Renzo Piano as well as Eero Saarinen and his dad, Eliel.. It has a gay bar called the Blazing Saddle.

There is a lot of buzz about Des Moines, as a place for normal people with normal incomes to rent or buy normal homes and lead their lives.  Des Moines is one of those cities gentrifying its downtown. Great smells are spilling out, festivals are scheduled year-round and rehabbed lofts are fetching high prices. In recent years Des Moines has been named the best for young professionals (Forbes), families (Kiplinger), home renters (Time), businesses and careers (Forbes). It has the highest community pride in the nation, according to a Gallup poll last year, and in October topped a Bloomberg analysis of which cities in the United States were doing the best at attracting millennials to buy housing.

Des Moines is a major hub of the US insurance industry, plus there are significant financial services and publishing sectors. As such, the downtown landscape is still filled with office buildings rather than walkable retail. Historic preservation has caught on now but the city is catching up from the previous hollowing out.
It’s not big, just over 200,000 people. You need a car but you won’t have to drive for long. 

**The Best Thing About Des Moines?** 

From affordable, ample housing to easy-to-navigate interstates with little traffic, DSM is easy livin. Cool restaurants and boutique movie theaters and yoga studios — Des Moines has all those things, but you don’t have to spend 40 minutes stuck on an eight-lane freeway to get to them

**The Worst Thing About Des Moines?** 

Frigid winters, muggy summers and a small city holed up in between endless corn fields.

**How You Living?** 

Most people who live in Des Moines don’t actually live in Des Moines, but rather in one of the city’s suburbs: Altoona, Ankeny, Beaverdale, Bondurant, Carlisle, Clive, Grimes, Johnston, Norwalk, Pleasant Hill, Polk City, Urbandale, Waukee, West Des Moines or Windsor Heights.

Lots of cute neighborhoods aside from downtown like Waterbury, Beaverdale, Lower Beaver, Sherman Hill. The "cool" place to live if you're single and young has to be the East Village side of downtown, several options for apartments/townhomes/lofts there, but you will pay more than other areas. Today both young people and empty nesters are moving back to downtown and the adjacent East Village neighborhood, into conversions and new buildings.

West Des Moines is “the place” for young, successful professionals. It’s very safe & homogenous with little crime and good schools. Many of the older, historic neighborhoods like Waterbury or Waveland Heights outside Des Moines’ metro area are the most costly places to live. The least expensive neighborhoods are Fairground, King-Irving Park, Kirkwood Glen, Carpenter, and Cheatom Park. 

Downtown is a favorite area for singles and young professionals, as well as couples not quite ready to set up shop on a common suburb-style subdivision. Many of the homes are modern, plus there’s a healthy mix of apartments, condos, and traditional single-family homes. While rent is a bit higher in this area than Waterbury and other areas a bit further out, home prices on average are lower for those looking to own. This community is a popular place for families with young children. 
Just three miles from the heart of downtown, Ingersoll Park provides a more traditional, suburban-style living. Many of the homes are modeled after a turn of the century design, and while single-family units make up the majority of housing options, there are newer apartment complexes to rent. 
 
Greenwood is a popular place for affluent families with children. Most of the homes are cottage style with four to five bedrooms built in the 1800s.
 
Linden Heights is full of large modern and Craftsman style homes, many of which boast brick facades and big yards. 
 
Most of the houses in Westwood are Victorian-style homes and two- to three-story bungalows. There are also many rental options, including apartments inside older homes and recently built multi-unit buildings. A great thing about Westwood is the ability to find affordable rentals. The average rent prices in the neighborhood are lower than in the downtown area.
 
Salisbury Oaks feels historic, thanks to heavily wooded streets and quaint subdivisions. It’s a popular place for older residents.

**Why You Should Move Here Now?** 

Come for 80/35 music festival, stay for the massive farmer’s markets and an affordable Beaverdale Brick house. 


Des Moines

Field Of Dreams

**The Best Thing About Ames?** Bang for your Buck

People like to pick on Iowa. It can be seen as flat, and/or boring, and by the time they get to this point in the paragraph, they might have moved on to the next city. Ames, however, is so much more than that… particularly for the price tag. Iowa State University’s presence, coupled with the people and amenities that come along with it, inject an atmosphere into the city that is more compelling than most of the other college towns you probably know better than Ames. The University employs more than 15,000 people, creating a community that unlike some of those other towns, is truly committed to Cyclone culture. The city also has an amazing variety of good outdoor space and activities, with 37 parks, the most iconic being the university-run 17 acre Reiman Gardens, a handful of golf venues, and more than 50 miles of bike routes winding throughout town.

**The Worst Thing About Ames?** It’s Still Kinda Iowa

If you’re not a student or part of the university community, however, Ames can be kind of alienating, particularly if you’re older than the average student and single. There’s also not a lot to do if the college bar scene and the local parks don’t appeal to you. Our proximity to the larger city of Des Moines can mitigate some of this, but if you’re the type of person attracted to big city life, Ames will be a tough spot. It’s also very much Iowa in terms of diversity, or more accurately, lack of diversity, with the overwhelming majority of residents being white.


**How You Living?** Small Town Vibe

Ames is a safe, family friendly town with a lot of welcoming small businesses located along the main stretch. The neighborhood of Campustown, as you might be able to guess, is a neighborhood located right by ISU with a number of different housing options and different shopping and dining options as well. Most of the other hotspots in town are made up of relatively affordable single family homes that are always close to a park or golf course.


**Why You Should Move Here Now?** Heaven?

“‘Can I ask you something... Is this heaven?’ ‘It’s Iowa.’” This line from Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams encapsulates what your experience with Ames might be like. It’s a beautiful place with a great people and a wonderful college town atmosphere that will probably change your perspective on the state one way or another. 

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