Would IL have benefitted by concentrating urban development in its central region?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Per Wiki, most of Iowa's growth is Des Moines metro (100K per Wiki) and Iowa City metro, so the rest of the state is not growing and may be shrinking like downstate IL.

but that's the whole point.

iowa has a major center to base growth around, downstate IL does not.

and even then, out in the rural counties, IA still had more growing counties than downstate IL had.

even the metro east had negative overall growth last decade.