A Critical Look at Iowa City

Overall, Iowa City is a nice town. I don't think I'd want to live here forever, but if I had to I probably wouldn't hate it. Here are the good things:

The downtown has many shops and restaurants that I like.
The river is pretty and there are lots of trees.
There are bike lanes and paths all around.
There are cultural events and so on.
The bus service is good.
Hy-Vee (I could do a separate entry on why I like Hy-Vee, but that's another blog.)
Banana split hot chocolate at the Java House.
Close to open green spaces and not smoggy.

Things that are not so good:

Students overrun everything: the parking, the post office, the bars.
Drunk people in general.
Coral Ridge Mall feels like an airplane hanger.
Not too many great jobs outside of healthcare.
A general air of pretension.
People pan-handling all the time.
Still a lot of people driving poorly in pick-up trucks. (If you own a pick-up, I mean no offense to you. But, I see many people in pick-ups who think they can drive either very fast or very slow and not be courteous to other drivers. I don't know if rude people are attracted to pick-ups or if driving pick-ups makes a person rude.)