here's a firsthand account of a trip to iowa city (today, just got back), a city that has changed incredibly in the forty or so years i've been gone.

to get where i was going, i had to travel well-known streets but go way over from the northeast side of town to the far southern edge, and the main road that got there was closed due to a bridge down. diverted into near-southside roads that used to be my walking haunts, i noticed that every single block had apartment buildings built up upon all its lots, so that the streets were now caverns and always surrounded by buidings at every side. the town didn't grow that much on its edges, but it seemed to add a few thousand people right in its middle as apartment buildings, and office and store buildings, seemed to now take up every inch. it was truly citified.

it's true that the places where i'd go and hang out, like alandoni's bookstore, were often in older houses or buildings which, though downtown, were doomed to destruction eventually anyway. one house i lived in, ancient, i was given a stipend upon my removal (or the person after me was) simply because they had eyes on tearing that one down right away; my ninety-some landlady was not going to be easy to move but it's possible they were just waiting for her to give up the fight and go to some home somewhere so they could tear it all down. these places and more were now modern-looking apartment complexes, so that every block was now full, and you got the distinct impression of being in a large city.

and did this help it? out in the neighborhoods, it seemed much more friendly, calm, radical. lots of houses with major deco or naturally overgrown. lots of people out walking their dogs and such; i looked at them wondering if i knew them. lots of bicycles making traffic a little lively.

i didn't answer my own question; i guess it's for those who live there to decide. maybe they like that city feeling, especially since so much of it was just carrying on as usual. i saw lots of people getting groceries or carrying on their usual life in a kind of glow of being in a libertine place that we just don't have here in galesburg. it reminded me that iowa city is a collecting place for the rebels as well as the bright people who don't fit into the more dull towns that dot the state, whereas galesburg, my present home, is more like the place they left. it made me miss the place as it was fun to live in a place like that.

it's no wonder that the college towns are gaining population whereas towns like galesburg are steadily losing it. a town that allows for diversity is going to get the diversity that the other towns can't handle, and people want to live in a place where they're allowed to be who they are. in iowa city's case it seems to have put these people in the center of town.

lots of hawkeye decor around too although i expect that from the town itself. we saw three young girls with caitlin's 22 jersey, three out of maybe only a dozen girls that i saw altogether. pretty good turnout.