My wife is from Iowa as she did her first 32 years there. From the way she talks, one would think it is paradise.
However after having been dragged over there due to her brothers who never left town, I can say it is just a typical farming state which has the usual assortment of people.
Some coastal provincials like to think it is somehow backward, but like the rest of the US since the invention of radio, television and the internet, it is no more backward than NYC or San Francisco. In fact the people are far more sophisticated, on average, than they are here in West Texas.
Considering that in most every metric such as education, quality of life, low crime, happiness, etc. it usually comes out far ahead of most other states, in the same range as Vermont or New Hampshire.
To me however, it lacks mountains and is somewhat monotonous. Worse, the first winter I visited it was 25 below zero Fahrenheit for a week, a definite drawback for an old desert rat like me.
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis Bacon
The more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza
™ Version 4.2