More than 60 percent of Iowas live in the city, yet the state is commonly pictured as a land of farms, dotted with small, industrial cities. The shift from rural to urban is accelerating, “an economic transformation that is challenging its rural character — and, inevitably, its political order,” says the New York Times. Since 2003, the metropolitan population of Iowa grew by 13 percent while the rural population dropped by 4 percent.
“In jarring and telling tableaus, new housing subdivisions, with names like Stone Prairie and Walnut Creek Estates, are rising up in the Republican precincts west of Des Moines and downtown office buildings in the Democratic-leaning state capital are being remade into loft-style apartments,” says the Times. “…Iowa, eternally satirized for monochromatic, pitchfork simplicity in “American Gothic,” is a swing state grappling with changes that defy long-held assumptions. Its farmers are emerging as leaders in sustainable energy, its rural towns are becoming magnets for Latinos, and its cities laboratories for high-tech start-ups.”