Excellent points! Bike trails and the Iowa Great Lakes region are Iowa outdoor recreation successes. I would advocate for an additional “low hanging fruit”. Our rivers. If we invested in cleaner water, access points, and perhaps some amenities associated with Iowa towns, we could have a great system of, generally easy to paddle, rivers and streams that could be a great outdoor recreation resource. As things currently are many people are scared of our water and access can be difficult.
I like utilizing the success of RAGBRAI and the trails systems in Okoboji and Iowa as such great examples as an entry point and the fact that they are non-controversial Jim. I agree with you completely that our waterways, especially river corridors, are also recreational superpowers that just haven't been allowed to come back to life. But we will do it! Maybe not in my lifetime, but it will happen.
Couldn’t agree more Jim. Working on rivers is a harder sell because of ag adjacent ag land and ag tiling which under current law are allowed to pollute our rivers, streams, wetlands and lakes at will with little consequence. Trails often lead to these areas and the public can then witness the destruction of our waterways leading to more change.
This is a great start to revisioning Iowa, David. An aspect that needs to be included is growing food for a healthy Iowa. Recreation needs water and food to sustain all the outdoor activities you mention.
Iowans are worried about who will replace this generation of farmers. Over the past two decades there has been a dedicated number of people who have been growing healthy food and teaching others how to do grow. Land is too costly and it’s hard for people to understand that Iowa DOES NOT have to grow only corn and beans!
There are many people who want to grow on a smaller/local level but it is difficult when Iowa has no infrastructure to support them.
When talking about a new vision for Iowa - please remember that Iowa land has the richness that can grow healthy food for Iowans to eat.
Exactly. I do a lot of gravel riding here in Dickinson County. It’s the best! I wanted to go into this but my story was already getting too long. I will address this in another more detailed story coming up.
A few years ago on Iowa Press, I tuned in and saw Bill Stowe talking about water quality, nitrate pollution, and ag runoff. I didn’t recognize the other speaker but after listening to him, I figured he must be with the Farm Bureau or something similar. Turns out he was the head of the DNR. I knew then that we were lost.
Another great way to look at it. I've also covered this in my recent post about the "water trails" in Des Moines and Bill Stowe's heroic fight. This is Iowa trying to make money off of polluted rivers. How many will have to get sick (and be blamed for it) before we have clean water? https://postcardsfromtheheartland.substack.com/p/we-are-the-inchworm
Sometimes I think Iowa leadership doesn't know a good thing when it smacks them in the face. A number of years ago now, I spoke with a county supervisor (a Republican) who said that the bike trail through his county seat brought income in food sales and other amenities. However, his colleagues on the board would not provide even lip service to the events that drove this opportunity. How much can people just be sticks in the mud? Apparently to a high degree. Some of our state parks offer experiences that exist in few other states, but the same parks lack promotion and suffer from lack of maintenance. And some of those experiences have been compromised by poor designs (sedimentation in lakes, trails overgrown by invasive shrubs) and lack of enforcement of rules. I tend toward pessimism on this one. Economic diversity? No way.
A free market economy would actually support this economic diversity. I would venture a premise that the current MAGA GOP in Iowa/USA are not capitalist at all. They don't believe in a free market system of ideas. There are terms for political regimes who control the economy and limit competition and I believe it could be equated with National Socialism which favors certain industries (Big Oil, etc). I mean we have a state fuel don't we? Ethanol. Why not solar, wind, battery storage, farmers as energy entrepreneurs?
Why else would you denude Iowa of family farms and public lands in favor of just a very few ag products and force Iowa farmers to produce millions of hogs with undocumented workers for export to China? The leadership in Iowa is purposefully limiting the Iowa economy and manipulating prices by allowing industrial ag to mine our soils and pollute our waters. Privatize the profits, while socializing the costs onto the public while making the residents compete in the "free market" for the scraps.
Some predicted over a century ago that authoritarianism and its blindness was the final stage of capitalism. I don’t know how final this point is, but I do agree that free markets veer this way because of inherent protections for power and wealth - “conservatism” in some sense. MAGA is not surprising in most respects; it’s the abject failure of the imagination that once drove the free market and allowed markets to regulate from within (moral codes like the sin of avarice) or without (SEC, EPA, etc.).
Nice column. I know you are out West, but the Driftless area of Iowa is spectacularly beautiful and despite the growing number of CAFOs, still features great trout streams, kayaking and hiking and biking trails. Wisconsin promotes the hell out of their section of the Driftless but I feel like the average Iowan has no idea what it is or why it's unique and important.
It is another largely untapped tourism/recreation asset.
Great column. I too, feel the tipping point is here, in large part thanks to Chris Jones, as you say.
Excellent points! Bike trails and the Iowa Great Lakes region are Iowa outdoor recreation successes. I would advocate for an additional “low hanging fruit”. Our rivers. If we invested in cleaner water, access points, and perhaps some amenities associated with Iowa towns, we could have a great system of, generally easy to paddle, rivers and streams that could be a great outdoor recreation resource. As things currently are many people are scared of our water and access can be difficult.
I like utilizing the success of RAGBRAI and the trails systems in Okoboji and Iowa as such great examples as an entry point and the fact that they are non-controversial Jim. I agree with you completely that our waterways, especially river corridors, are also recreational superpowers that just haven't been allowed to come back to life. But we will do it! Maybe not in my lifetime, but it will happen.
Couldn’t agree more Jim. Working on rivers is a harder sell because of ag adjacent ag land and ag tiling which under current law are allowed to pollute our rivers, streams, wetlands and lakes at will with little consequence. Trails often lead to these areas and the public can then witness the destruction of our waterways leading to more change.
This is a great start to revisioning Iowa, David. An aspect that needs to be included is growing food for a healthy Iowa. Recreation needs water and food to sustain all the outdoor activities you mention.
Iowans are worried about who will replace this generation of farmers. Over the past two decades there has been a dedicated number of people who have been growing healthy food and teaching others how to do grow. Land is too costly and it’s hard for people to understand that Iowa DOES NOT have to grow only corn and beans!
There are many people who want to grow on a smaller/local level but it is difficult when Iowa has no infrastructure to support them.
When talking about a new vision for Iowa - please remember that Iowa land has the richness that can grow healthy food for Iowans to eat.
The biggest trend in cycling now is gravel riding. What does Iowa have a lot of? Gravel roads.
Exactly. I do a lot of gravel riding here in Dickinson County. It’s the best! I wanted to go into this but my story was already getting too long. I will address this in another more detailed story coming up.
A few years ago on Iowa Press, I tuned in and saw Bill Stowe talking about water quality, nitrate pollution, and ag runoff. I didn’t recognize the other speaker but after listening to him, I figured he must be with the Farm Bureau or something similar. Turns out he was the head of the DNR. I knew then that we were lost.
Sad. DNR, The Department of of Nitrogen Runoff.
Another great way to look at it. I've also covered this in my recent post about the "water trails" in Des Moines and Bill Stowe's heroic fight. This is Iowa trying to make money off of polluted rivers. How many will have to get sick (and be blamed for it) before we have clean water? https://postcardsfromtheheartland.substack.com/p/we-are-the-inchworm
This makes so much sense. Thank you, David!
Sometimes I think Iowa leadership doesn't know a good thing when it smacks them in the face. A number of years ago now, I spoke with a county supervisor (a Republican) who said that the bike trail through his county seat brought income in food sales and other amenities. However, his colleagues on the board would not provide even lip service to the events that drove this opportunity. How much can people just be sticks in the mud? Apparently to a high degree. Some of our state parks offer experiences that exist in few other states, but the same parks lack promotion and suffer from lack of maintenance. And some of those experiences have been compromised by poor designs (sedimentation in lakes, trails overgrown by invasive shrubs) and lack of enforcement of rules. I tend toward pessimism on this one. Economic diversity? No way.
A free market economy would actually support this economic diversity. I would venture a premise that the current MAGA GOP in Iowa/USA are not capitalist at all. They don't believe in a free market system of ideas. There are terms for political regimes who control the economy and limit competition and I believe it could be equated with National Socialism which favors certain industries (Big Oil, etc). I mean we have a state fuel don't we? Ethanol. Why not solar, wind, battery storage, farmers as energy entrepreneurs?
Why else would you denude Iowa of family farms and public lands in favor of just a very few ag products and force Iowa farmers to produce millions of hogs with undocumented workers for export to China? The leadership in Iowa is purposefully limiting the Iowa economy and manipulating prices by allowing industrial ag to mine our soils and pollute our waters. Privatize the profits, while socializing the costs onto the public while making the residents compete in the "free market" for the scraps.
Some predicted over a century ago that authoritarianism and its blindness was the final stage of capitalism. I don’t know how final this point is, but I do agree that free markets veer this way because of inherent protections for power and wealth - “conservatism” in some sense. MAGA is not surprising in most respects; it’s the abject failure of the imagination that once drove the free market and allowed markets to regulate from within (moral codes like the sin of avarice) or without (SEC, EPA, etc.).
Nice column. I know you are out West, but the Driftless area of Iowa is spectacularly beautiful and despite the growing number of CAFOs, still features great trout streams, kayaking and hiking and biking trails. Wisconsin promotes the hell out of their section of the Driftless but I feel like the average Iowan has no idea what it is or why it's unique and important.
It is another largely untapped tourism/recreation asset.