Your Town Now: ICE in Iowa
It may have been just another Iowa City arrest for some, but in the minds of several community members it was a call to the picket line. Toting young children and clutching homemade signs, protesters...
Your Town Now
Your Town Now: Justice Center returns for a May 7 vote
Guess what: the Johnson County Justice Center proposal is back from the dead. In November of last year, opponents of the proposal to build a new, bigger jail in the heart of Iowa City (at a cost to t...
Your Town Now: Neighborhood Nirvana
In an unprecedented meeting on Feb. 26, representatives of the City of Iowa City and the University of Iowa student government (UISG) sat down to discuss student concerns, namely with city safety pro...
Your Town Now: The city council’s Chauncey decision is remarkably opaque...
The Iowa City Council’s 5-1 decision last month to move ahead with Marc Moen’s Chauncey building project settled the question of what is to become of the corner of Gilbert and College, bu...
Your Town Now: A treaty to end competition between Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty...
The collective brass of the Iowa City-Coralville-North Liberty Commerce Triangle are hard at work on a landmark economic policy charter to be known as the Community Business Attraction and Anti-Pirac...
Your Town Now: Urban Chicken Keeping
At long last, it appears that urban chickens may be on their way to Iowa City. On Nov. 27, an amendment to the Iowa City zoning code that would allow chicken-keeping at single-family homes passed sec...
Your Town Now: A New Levee or Amtrak for Iowa City?
Iowa City’s floodwall plans raise a question about priorities Hurricane Sandy’s ravaging of New York City and other parts of the eastern seaboard serves as a grim reminder of just how vulnerable ou...
Your Town Now: Justice: Supply & Demand
If you can cut through all the glittering doublespeak and rhetoric, you’ll find a deeply ambiguous set of truths about the proposed Johnson County “Justice Center” (read: jail) that will be put to a ...
Your Town Now: Following the Money
Your Town Now—now featuring twice as many writers as a 1,000-word column should need—is Little Village’s monthly look at local news items of interest. In this edition, we look at two proposed initiat...
Your Town Now: Red Light Caution
Many of us subject ourselves to forms of surveillance on a daily basis. Every time we post a picture on Facebook or send out a tweet, we are contributing to vast digital archives of data about oursel...
Your Town Now: Beyond Bike Friendly
From the outskirts of Rochester Avenue to heavily-trafficked downtown streets like Burlington or tree-sheltered lanes like Summit Street, “Share the Road” signs suggest that Iowa City is a bike-frien...
Your Town Now: Students Lobby for Sweatshop-Free Options
The name Alta Gracia means “high grace.” In the Dominican Republic, the Virgin of Altagracia is the protector of her people. Her name is invoked tenderly and with reverence by those seeking bl...
Zoning Out: One Resident’s Take on Crime, Capital & On-Campus Housing...
In 1965, Nancy Carlson came to Iowa City as a student and never left. At that time, about 40 percent of UI students lived in on-campus housing. As an Illinois transplant and farm girl, Carlson...
Your Town Now: Slouching Towards Downtown
Carpetbaggers to Iowa City have had a bit of fun with us lately after skulking away to Michigan. Stephen Bloom, who embarrassed himself in The Atlantic’s formerly admirable online presence, ...
Your Town Now: The Year to Come
Saying the face of downtown will change this year is no hyperbole, given the spread of likely-to-be-developed properties. This column will give you the lowdown on some things to expect this year. But...