Why did Iowa's growth stalled? (user search)

I just looked at trends in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and I think the answer is that Iowa never developed any large cities much over 200,000, so when rural areas declined, there was no Omaha, Wichita, or Kansas City to balance them out with large, growing suburbs. This perhaps raises the question why Des Moines and the small cities in the east never got very big, and I can’t answer that.

Rural decline did send large numbers of people from Iowa to Southern California the same way all of the Plains states lost small farms.

Just FTR, Des Moines is growing quickly.

2000: 481,394
2010: 569,633 (+18.3%)
2019: 699,292 (+22.8%)

For comparison, Omaha is 975,454 (with ~122k on the Iowa side) and Wichita is only 644,888. There was an article in 2018 saying that Des Moines is actually the fastest growing metro area in the Midwest, though I am not sure if that is still the case. From 2010 to 2020, only Minnesota (+6.7%) and Indiana (+ 4.2%) grew faster than Iowa (+3.8%) in the Midwest, too, especially compared to states like Illinois (-1.9%) or Michigan (+ .8%).

That’s interesting. From this chart, it looks like the metro area grew slowly from 1950 to 1990, barely increasing 25,000 a year, and then starting in 1990 growth accelerated.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22973/des-moines/population

Kansas City metro grew much faster from 1950 to 1970, paused, and then resumed fast growth. Omaha metro also had fast growth in the Baby Boom era and after a pause, rapid growth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23028/kansas-city/population
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23090/omaha/population

Wichita was much flatter in the postwar period. In retrospect, not much of a contrast with Des Moines.

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23179/wichita/population

So perhaps the next question is why other metros boomed after WW2 while Des Moines, and with it Iowa, lagged... and what changed 30 years ago to shift Des Moines onto a growth track.

I'm honestly not sure about the mid-Twentieth Century stuff, but I think part of the "disconnect" between people's analyzing of these trends is that Iowa is not as rural as many people think and it definitely doesn't embody some of the "stereotypes" of other "rural states" like Arkansas in the Deep South or West Virginia in Appalachia. These are 2016 numbers for Iowa's population, as I haven't updated my spreadsheet since then, but I imagine the breakdown to be similar still:

Eastern Iowa: 1,322,231 (42.18%)
- 267,799 in Cedar Rapids metro (20.25% of the region)
- 172,474 in Quad Cities metro, Iowa side only (13.04% of the region)
- 170,015 in Waterloo/Cedar Falls metro (12.86% of the region)
- 168,828 in Iowa City metro (12.77% of the region)

Central Iowa: 1,241,382 (39.62%)
- 634,725 in Des Moines metro (51.11% of the region and 20.25% of the state)
- 97,090 in Ames metro (7.82% of region)

Western Iowa: 570,620 (18.20%)
- 122,703 in Omaha metro (21.50% of the region)

So, in each of those regions, the following percent of people live in what I would consider to be decidedly not rural areas:

Eastern Iowa: 58.92%
Central Iowa: 58.93%
Western Iowa: 21.50%

Obviously, counties aren't a perfect cutoff so not all of those metros are "Urban" or "Suburban," but I also left off a few places (like Dubuque) that aren't really rural at all, so I bet it balances out. Added up, about 52% of Iowans live in what is very clearly not a rural area. This is obviously low compared to Illinois or Minnesota, but it is still a majority, which I feel is worth noting. Additionally, with areas like Des Moines and Iowa City/Cedar Rapids growing quite rapidly for Midwestern metros, the percent is going to keep going up.

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