Iowa City's foreign policy

Nathan Brixius — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 03:34:00 GMT

Back a few weeks ago this Raymond Chen posting got me to thinking about Iowa City. In the comments I wrote "there was a columnist for the Des Moines Register who wrote that Iowa City had the only city council in the state with a foreign policy." I wanted to get a source but couldn't find one at the time. I'm pretty sure I read this in an "you know you're from Iowa City when" article published back in 2000 in the Icon. The Icon was a small weekly paper in the vein of The Stranger, but more mainstream, naturally. The columnist quoted in the article was David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register; you see him on CNN every four years when the politicians start stumping for the Iowa caucuses.

I thought it was cool, and even a little charming, that Iowa Citians (long-time residents more than the undergrads) actually gave a crap about what was going on outside the city limits. The attitude reflected in the Yepsen quote was sometimes met with eye-rolling elsewhere in the state; as you drove into town there used to be a sign saying "Entering a Nuclear-Free Zone" with a mushroom cloud with a line through it. (No kidding.) A little something for the out-of-towners driving into town on Saturday morning for the game at Kinnick. Here's a breathless account from a few years back expressing amazement that such an attitude can exist in Iowa.

Anyway, I tried to find a source for the quote again today and was sad to learn that the Icon shut down shortly after I left in 2000.

Nathan Brixius : Iowa

Iowa City's foreign policy