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Another murder in Iowa's " worst city " ...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - One person is dead and another injured after a shooting incident on the northeast side of the city in a late Friday night incident, according to law enforcement officials.

://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Two-shot-on-northeast-side-of-Cedar-Rapids-late-Friday-night-567290921.html

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Davenport says thank you, Cedar Rapids. :)
 
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I've lived in in the CR area for 40+ years - if it's a shithole and the worst city in Iowa, then the world is indeed a wonderful place.

Have those that are critical of CR been there in the last 5 years? Sure, the city had struggles in the 80's when all the manufacturing jobs went away. The downtown was crappy and loaded with empty store fronts.

The 2008 flood was a freakin' disaster on so many levels, but mostly in terms of human hardship. But, it opened the way from a ton of new development in the flooded areas. CR has always had nice neighborhoods and the public schools are outstanding.

DM is a great Iowa city. But, Council Bluffs, Clinton, Davenport, Muscatine, Ottumwa, Sioux City, Waterloo, Newton, Mason City, Ft. Dodge, Dubuque - all better than CR?

Everything about this post is spot on.
 
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I switched it off as quick as I could, but some of the broadcast was heard.
He was claiming the FBI and the CIA was calling him off the air threatening him with massive press scandals if he didn't quit talking about Bill Gates being behind the corona virus.

Do you believe this ?
 
I switched it off as quick as I could, but some of the broadcast was heard.
He was claiming the FBI and the CIA was calling him off the air threatening him with massive press scandals if he didn't quit talking about Bill Gates being behind the corona virus.

Do you believe this ?
yes , because he has said they call him on previous stuff too. he has stated they have planted stuff on him when he went to Canada to get him in trouble and he has stated they sent in guys with him near an airport when they were waiting on a plane and the guy was starting small fires trying to blame alex and stuff. he claims they call him up all the time. do I believe it he believes it? yes. do I personally believe it? probably. more than likely. what I think is more likely is A; it's a false flag by the cia to test him, or, B: it's a dude hoaxing, or, C: it's a rogue agent out to warn him. or D. it's actually the alphabet soup guys and they are for real.
 
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it's been probably 25 yrs or so since I been there to CR. we went to the field of dreams in the 90's and I think we went thru CR,maybe or maybe not. I used to race bmx there a lot in the 80's. I wouldn't think it would be any worse than say des moines. I have been to des moines lately and it's seemingly got a few bigger city issues.

If you did indeed visit CR 25 years ago, you would not recognize it today.
 
Dallas sucks, but if this map is of people's idea of worst city as far as crime, drugs, et goes....then yeah, it should go to one of Texas' fine establishments close to the Mexico border.
yea but no matter the cost of open borders, it help democrats get more votes and they also get more seats in congress based on illegals, unfairly under-representing American citizens in other states.
 
I've lived in in the CR area for 40+ years - if it's a shithole and the worst city in Iowa, then the world is indeed a wonderful place.

Have those that are critical of CR been there in the last 5 years? Sure, the city had struggles in the 80's when all the manufacturing jobs went away. The downtown was crappy and loaded with empty store fronts.

The 2008 flood was a freakin' disaster on so many levels, but mostly in terms of human hardship. But, it opened the way from a ton of new development in the flooded areas. CR has always had nice neighborhoods and the public schools are outstanding.

DM is a great Iowa city. But, Council Bluffs, Clinton, Davenport, Muscatine, Ottumwa, Sioux City, Waterloo, Newton, Mason City, Ft. Dodge, Dubuque - all better than CR?
All I know is I go there several times a month and my cousin is an elementary teacher there. No way would I live there.
 
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Around a year a half ago my daughters summer program in Tiffin went to a park in CR. They had to sprint to their vans while playing because of a crazy person with a weapon

I still can’t fathom why people who work in IC choose to commute from CR and not live in IC area.
 
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Gastonia, NC is one of those places that is often in the news in a bad way. Macon, GA has similar issues. They have not rebounded in recent years like so many places have. Kinda stuck in a bad cycle it seems...

Fayetteville (a.k.a. Fayettenam) is worse than Gastonia.
 
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Around a year a half ago my daughters summer program in Tiffin went to a park in CR. They had to sprint to their vans while playing because of a crazy person with a weapon

I still can’t fathom why people who work in IC choose to commute from CR and not live in IC area.

If you choose to judge a city by " that one place" then not many will be found acceptable. I wouldn't judge IC based strictly on a visit to the Broadway St area. I worked in IC area from 2003 til 2006 while living in North CR. I got a lot more house for my money. The commute sucked, but nothing like my Dallas or KC commutes.
 
If you choose to judge a city by " that one place" then not many will be found acceptable. I wouldn't judge IC based strictly on a visit to the Broadway St area. I worked in IC area from 2003 til 2006 while living in North CR. I got a lot more house for my money. The commute sucked, but nothing like my Dallas or KC commutes.
Agreed. But when it is my child involved don’t expect completely rational thoughts. They were playing in a city park and had to deal with that.
 
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Figure I was going to read something about Fort Dodge or Waterloo when I opened this.

I’m friends with a high ranking Waterloo cop. He said they put pressure on the Chicago gangsters and they just moved to CR and it’s their problem now.
 
Fayetteville (a.k.a. Fayettenam) is worse than Gastonia.
A former roommate was from down that way and he always talked about it being a tough spot, but unless it reaches national or regional newsworthy, we don’t hear about the carnage down there.
Gastonia, ”Ruffton” (AKA Rutherford County), and the Shelby area are close enough for us to hear about the routine drive by, child abandonment, elderly abuse, non-profit misuse of funds, etc... incidents that occur seemingly weekly or more often.

BTW, the locals pronounce it Fett-Nom. No long A or Y involved in the name.
 
I worked in CR from 2003-2009 and found it to be the most boring largish city in Iowa, but not the worst. Chain restaurant hell and the absolute worst of suburbia cliches (no, I don’t want to go to your epic neighborhood block party or head to Hunter’s Ridge club house). A dead downtown. Outside of Czech Village, zero character and I can count on one hand the places worthwhile going to (Irish Democrat, Starlite, shit...I’m out of places). And stay away from the SE side. CR while I was there was the definition of vanilla.

That said, I hear it’s all better. But I’ve only gone to CR probably 10 times in the last 10 years because Iowa City is where home is and CR had a LONG way to catch up and make it worthwhile.
 
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I can think of many nice smaller towns in that area, including one not to far away that I grew up in - Tipton.

Anyway - I haven't suggested that CR is the best city in Iowa, only that it isn't the worst.
Not Tipton, the other direction...but I have several friends from there! To be fair I wouldn't live in the other places you listed either : )

And you're right, I wouldn't classify it as the worst in Iowa, either.
 
I worked in CR from 2003-2009 and found it to be the most boring largish city in Iowa, but not the worst. Chain restaurant hell and the absolute worst of suburbia cliches (no, I don’t want to go to your epic neighborhood block party or head to Hunter’s Ridge club house). A dead downtown. Outside of Czech Village, zero character and I can count on one hand the places worthwhile going to (Irish Democrat, Starlite, shit...I’m out of places). And stay away from the SE side. CR while I was there was the definition of vanilla.

That said, I hear it’s all better. But I’ve only gone to CR probably 10 times in the last 10 years because Iowa City is where home is and CR had a LONG way to catch up and make it worthwhile.

I have always said that "CR is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there", inverting the old saying. It is vanilla, and it is chain restaurant hell. There is very little about CR that has people booking summer vacations here. But, it's been an excellent place to live and raise my family. Oh, and the downtown is no longer dead.

I grew up 30 miles from IC and went to school there. I have spent many, many days there for work or fun. It's a great city - in fact, being close to IC is a nice thing about CR!

But I would pick CR to live in.
 
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I have always said that "CR is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there", inverting the old saying. It is vanilla, and it is chain restaurant hell. There is very little about CR that has people booking summer vacations here. But, it's been an excellent place to live and raise my family. Oh, and the downtown is no longer dead.

I grew up 30 miles from IC and went to school there. I have spent many, many days there for work or fun. It's a great city - in fact, being close to IC is a nice thing about CR!

But I would pick CR to live in.

I think it all comes down to what you like. I worked with guys that thought CR was a fantastic place to live. I get it. Cheap housing. Decent taxes. For the most part safe. Good schools. Every chain store and restaurant you could want giving you the ultimate in predictability. Most of CR (not all) is Pleasantville complete with a smiling dad in an apron over the backyard BBQ and good old-fashioned suburban neighborhood "charm."

Not my thing, but I get why some people really like it.

Edit to re-emphasize what I said initially - my perception is based on 2003-09. I hear it is a lot different now.
 
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I think many towns have their fair share of bad neighborhoods and bad people. I grew up in Fort Dodge. It's not a bad little town. Has some descent restaurants and decent shopping (for a town its size). It's sort of the "hub" for that part of the state.

That being said, there are some crappy neighborhoods with some crappy people living in them who cause a lot of problems for the greater community. I see some of the same "family" names I grew up knowing ... who were bad news then who've since spit out their own offspring (in great numbers)... and many of those offspring are now old enough to cause havoc.

Sadly, there are lots and lots of cold and callous people coming from broken homes with no/little parenting... and now these offspring are old enough to cause havoc within a community - and they are ...

It's our society that's getting a bit uglier each and every year. A little less caring ...
 
The 2008 flood was a freakin' disaster on so many levels, but mostly in terms of human hardship. But, it opened the way from a ton of new development in the flooded areas. CR has always had nice neighborhoods and the public schools are outstanding.

The flood also moved a lot of the poorest of the poor to other areas of town. It used to be that "newsworthy events" stayed close to the fringes of downtown and Wellington Heights.

But now it seems a lot more spread out. J Street Apartments area, over by Wiley Blvd, and other small pockets around town. Anywhere you have a concentration of older apartment complexes, I bet crime there has increased dramatically in those areas.

And yes, "the hood" (what it was known when I was a kid here, mainly the Wellington Heights area) has spread out in that concentrated area also to where one can state it's twice as large as it used to be.

It seemed from when I was a kid up until the 90's, to watch the local news stating "shots fired in CR" in any story was seemingly tops maybe a once every month at most issue.

Now it seems almost a daily occurrence.

But ever since the flood - there's simply more "poor sections" in town, and it's a combination of things contributing to those new sections staying that way (call it an influx of poor) - and crime coming along with it.

But to me...the trigger of all this was simply the flood.
 
I have always said that "CR is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there", inverting the old saying. It is vanilla, and it is chain restaurant hell. There is very little about CR that has people booking summer vacations here. But, it's been an excellent place to live and raise my family. Oh, and the downtown is no longer dead.

I grew up 30 miles from IC and went to school there. I have spent many, many days there for work or fun. It's a great city - in fact, being close to IC is a nice thing about CR!

But I would pick CR to live in.

I dont really understand the "chain restaurant hell" perception of CR. We go out to eat twice per week, never go to chain restaurants, and yet we dont get to the same restaurant more than a few times per year. Maybe 4 times for a few closer to my house. A quick glance on Yelp pulled up only 10 chains in the 1st hundred selections. The chains that are in CR are in about every metro, around every mall.
 
I dont really understand the "chain restaurant hell" perception of CR. We go out to eat twice per week, never go to chain restaurants, and yet we dont get to the same restaurant more than a few times per year. Maybe 4 times for a few closer to my house. A quick glance on Yelp pulled up only 10 chains in the 1st hundred selections. The chains that are in CR are in about every metro, around every mall.

This is something that I think has been remedied in the last 15 years since I was in CR regularly - which is a very good thing. I feel like I should give the CR food / bar scene a second chance because there certainly are a lot more local options than in 2005.
 
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I dont really understand the "chain restaurant hell" perception of CR. We go out to eat twice per week, never go to chain restaurants, and yet we dont get to the same restaurant more than a few times per year. Maybe 4 times for a few closer to my house. A quick glance on Yelp pulled up only 10 chains in the 1st hundred selections. The chains that are in CR are in about every metro, around every mall.

We live on the NE side and it is chain heaven (or hell). There are plenty of good local options.
 
Orlando is nowhere near the worst city in Florida.
Well Orlando is pretty shitty at the end of OBT down by the Parliament House. Those side streets are pretty nasty. But Liberty City should have taken the honor, am I right?
 
This is something that I think has been remedied in the last 15 years since I was in CR regularly - which is a very good thing. I feel like I should give the CR food / bar scene a second chance because there certainly are a lot more options than in 2005.

The thing that you will find is that the best places are much more spread out than IC. There are small clusters of activity, vs the centralized IC Downtown. We tend to rotate between Downtown/NewBo/Czech Village and NE Side/ Uptown Marion.
 
The thing that you will find is that the best places are much more spread out than IC. There are small clusters of activity, vs the centralized IC Downtown. We tend to rotate between Downtown/NewBo/Czech Village and NE Side/ Uptown Marion.

What are some of your favorite places? New(er) places I've been to include Cobble Hill, Need, Map Room, and Zeppelins. Old places I've hit are Vino's, Winifred's, Parlor City, Little Bohemia, Tornado's, Chrome Horse, Starlite, Zoey's, Flying Wienie, Irish Democrat, Al's Red Frog (I think gone), and numerous Mexican iterations of Cancun (maybe different names now).

What else you got?
 
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I dont really understand the "chain restaurant hell" perception of CR. We go out to eat twice per week, never go to chain restaurants, and yet we dont get to the same restaurant more than a few times per year. Maybe 4 times for a few closer to my house. A quick glance on Yelp pulled up only 10 chains in the 1st hundred selections. The chains that are in CR are in about every metro, around every mall.

It's gets that label because lots of restaurants that were "interesting" have failed in CR. CR residents tend to stick to Old Reliable for the most part - so a lot of the successful non-chain restaurants in town have been around for a long time.

For example, you can hardly ever get a table at Olive Garden, but it's pretty easy most nights to get into Vino's, and excellent Italian restaurant.

It's far from an absolute label. It's probably mostly an urban legend. A lot of new non-chain restaurants have figured out part of the formula for success here is a smaller footprint with lower overhead.
 
What are some of your favorite places? New(er) places I've been to include Cobble Hill, Need, Map Room, and Zeppelins. Old places I've hit are Vino's, Winifred's, Parlor City, Little Bohemia, Tornado's, Chrome Horse, Starlite, Zoey's, Flying Wienie, Irish Democrat, Al's Red Frog (I think gone), and numerous Mexican iterations of Cancun (maybe different names now).

So what else you got?

Places we like

Downtown

Need Pizza, White Star Alehouse, Bricks, Pub 217, Grin and Goose, Cobble Hill, Black Sheep Social Club/Clockhous Brewing. Quarter Barrel Brewing. Want to try MidTown Station.

Kingston Village (west of river)

Local Pour/Thew Brewing, Popoli, Quintons, want to try Bari Italian

NewBo/Czech Village

Caucho, Lion Bridge Brewing (has food) Parlor City, Fongs, Luckys (best breakfast ever...seriously) BoMacs. Want to try Rodina, Lucita's

NE side

30Hop, 3rd Base Brewing, Thomaso's (Hiawatha) ,Butcher Block (sit on the patio) Gumption, Mas Margaritas, Cappys Pizza, Lucky Penny (Hiawatha) Rileys, Lebowskis (Robins) Zepplins, Daisys Garage, LaCantina, Adelitas, Edisons, Irish Democrat, Vinos, Emils, Mandarin Spice ( find it!) Ting's Red Lantern, Casa Las Glorias, Want to try Blind Pig

Marion

Zoeys, Goldfinch, Qdogs Bbq, Bistro 319, Uptown Snug (drinks) Thomaso's', Villa's Patio (when it reopens). Want to try Short's Buger and Shine, West End

Damn....I'm hungry!
 
yea but no matter the cost of open borders, it help democrats get more votes and they also get more seats in congress based on illegals, unfairly under-representing American citizens in other states.
In reality... we need more gun reform and much stricter gun laws. It won't completely solve the problem, but it will be a giant step in the right direction.

But there's lots of Republicans covering for the NRA, so I don't have much hope for a better situation until the Dems control all three branches of govt.
 
Dallas is the worst big city in Texas and it's not even close. That place sucks.
what on earth? that place is like the glistening crown jewel, the crystal chandelier, the Steinway piano huge gold plated grand, played by liberace… of texas
 
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