by Jim Duncan

"What's past is prologue." - Shakespeare

Prince Evans rode into Des Moines on a long nightmare. In his native Liberia, he owned a large fleet of fishing ships. After ending up on the wrong side of that nation's civil war, he escaped with three of his boats and rebuilt his life in Burkina Faso until another civil war displaced him again. For the next 10 years he was a man without a country, separated from his family. Finally a local church group brought him to Iowa.

"I thought I would fish. So I asked, 'Where is the ocean?' They told me to work at Wal-Mart," he says.

With help from local investors, Evans now runs an international import business out of his clothing/grocery/jewelry/beauty store on Ingersoll Avenue. Among other things, he grows cashews in Ghana and trades them for retread tires in Singapore. He jokes that his life is testimony to the adage: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

Rosa Martinez Ruiz can relate to an ironic God. Closing her La Rosa cafŽ this week to support "National Day Without Immigrants," she reflects on the inscrutable nature of change, showing a photo of her old hometown in Michoacan.

"Everywhere you look now there's lavender. The fields used to all be corn, to feed the people. But after North America Free Trade Agreement, it was cheaper to buy [imported] corn than grow it and the people all left to find work. Now it's beautiful, billions of flowers, but no one left to see them," she says.

At Perry's 106-year-old St. Patrick's Church, Fr. David Polich sees the new reality of immigration from a broader perspective.

"Almost all the baptisms I perform are in Spanish. The Spanish-speaking community is the growth industry of our church."

If past is indeed prologue, then the future is both divinely ironic and deadly serious, for Iowa as much as for the people who will define it. With 1984, Y2K and 2001 all behind us, popular culture needs a new futuristic milestone. Since looking forward is a visionary pastime, the year 2020 appears to be a clear choice. What will we be like in 14 years? As an insurance center, with an exalted number of actuarial scientists, Des Moines is a good place to ask.

Will you even be here?

First things first. Since most people's interest in the future is self-centered, what are the odds that you will even be alive come 2020? The good news is that in 15 years, the average life expectancy of newborn Americans should climb to 80.7 years, from 77.5 today. If you are a 25-year-old Iowan now, the odds you will be alive in 2020 are 100 to 1 in your favor. If you are 55, the odds drop to 8 to 1. The chances of seeing 2020 even out for Iowa men at age 65, for Iowa women at age 71. However, if you are among the lucky half in those groups who make it, you then have another 50-50 chance of living through 2028.

Who figures this stuff out? A century ago, the Futuristic Movement was conceived as a political inspiration. Focused on the new speed of life, it glorified change and disrespected traditions, for which it coined the word "passŽ." While Futurism correctly predicted the growth of monster cities and the demise of rural life, it glorified fascism and was buried in the rubble of World War II. About 40 years ago, a second wave of futurists arose with dire predictions for the late 20th century. Certain that food production would lag behind booming population growth, they wrote best sellers about widespread starvation and worldwide upheaval. Their credence crashed with Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution." As economists say, "It is the unexpected, always."

Bob Utter's vision

Twice discredited by association with losers, futurism settled into a home for actuarial scientists. Des Moines' Principal Financial Group pioneered this neo-futurism with Bob Utter forming their first department of Futurism, a "what if" think tank. Utter's tragic death last year left a vision gap in the city because the man lived his work. He was using the phrase "the world is flat again" years before New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman cashed it in.

Utter spoke of the need to fill "a youth void" in the state's demographics by our milestone year of 2020. He, more than anyone, knew that the actuarial probabilities for Iowa were in need of shock therapy. Namely, that we are very apt to grow much older, but hardly any larger. So Utter built bridges by promoting international exchanges in sports, arts, sister city partnerships and cooking; activities he believed had the best residual payoffs.

Utter explained how that worked with examples. For instance, in Clarinda locals organized a one-time festival to observe the 50th anniversary of hometown hero Glen Miller's death. Little did they expect that fans would come from all continents and incite educational and musical exchange programs with Japan. Such synergies made the festival an annual tourism event and encouraged the Japanese manufacturing company NSK to expand its Clarinda plant 16 times. It is the unexpected, always. But Bob Utter taught that unanticipated opportunities only enter open doors.

The aging of Iowa

Neo-futurist actuarial charts diagnose a drastic need to correct Iowa's far-sighted vision. The state is projected to age dramatically, particularly between 2012 and 2020. In 14 years, the percentage of Iowans over age 80 will increase by a quarter. While the overall population is expected to grow by barely 1 percent, those Iowans over the age of 85 will increase 16 times faster. That's a lot of baggage for any economy.

The news gets worse. The number of infants born each year is predicted to fall every year between 2010 and 2020. In 15 years, Iowa's birthrate will have dropped 3 percent. The number of Iowans who are 18 years old is projected to fall precipitously in 2010 and continue declining annually, except for the year 2017 when there will be a slight blip up accounting for babies conceived on the eve of the new millennium.

Most worrisome are our 25-year-olds, the most cherished demographic of all economies. There are 44,000 this year in Iowa, but in 2020 only 34,000 are projected, which is 13 percent fewer than today's 10-year-olds. That predicts a brain drain that drives leaders here nuts, because it assumes those 10-year-olds will leave Iowa in droves after college. It's also a justification cited for public building projects, as magnets for the entertainment that young people want. So are we opening the right doors to change our fate?

We began asking such questions where they have been answered since Des Moines' beginning. James Hubbell III represents the fifth generation of the family that, more than any other, built this city in its vision. As chairman of Hubbell Realty, he heads a locally focused company that is literally shaping our civic future.

Immigration: the not-so-easy answer

Hubbell began by commenting on the inevitable fate of purely political solutions to 15-year problems.

"Obviously, immigration can fill Iowa's demographic void. Immigrants are always much younger than the traditional population. But Vilsack got hammered worse on that issue than on anything else he advocated in his first term. He didn't think it was politically sustainable," Hubbell says, referring to the Governor's backing off after earlier promoting immigration to Iowa. Hubbell reminded us that politicians cannot afford long-term visions because their survival depends on the next election. So who better designs our future?

"A good architect, whether local or a big-name star, needs to understand the client and the project. That is why we always use local architects and all of our development is in Central Iowa. Our client is us. For the most part, all of our staff are Iowans. So some of that communication with clients is inherent. That is why using local architects works for us. They know the conditions and they keep money circulating in the local economy," he says.

"The [1979] Civic Center was the first major new thing in Des Moines in a long while. It created a buzz that stimulated a lot of things. Even now it's still having a positive effect. It was a new style and it was appreciated by the public," Hubbell says, referencing the democratic design of the auditorium, which did away with private boxes and balconies, while consciously relating to adjoining Nollen Plaza, a public park.

Integrated or segregated designs?

But Des Moines' latest large public projects, Wells Fargo Arena and Central Library, controversially hired out-of-state architects. The arena design segregated its audience on multiple levels. When asked if the 180-degree change is stratifying into economically segregated classes, Hubbell says he doesn't think so.

"I don't see that. First of all, security drives that need to a degree, and we are a relatively secure and safe place. Secondly, I think we are a more egalitarian society here," he says. "We're pretty small geographically. In all parts of town, we all go to the same grocery stores and the same schools. We are used to a wide variety of people. People here aren't as threatened by people of different income levels as they are in other places.

"On the private side, we have one gated community in Des Moines, it's been around for a long, long time and I don't see any rush at all to imitate it," Hubbell goes on. "Looking at all big development today, the only way to make them work is with mixed uses - to mix commercial with residential, as well as with mixed price points, apartments, senior living arrangements, entry-level housing, town houses and expensive housing. The private development designs suggest we will have a more integrated community in 15 years, not less."

Chick Herbert's dream

Hubbell says any story about vision in Des Moines has to include Chick Herbert, the architect of the Civic Center, Nollen Plaza and a dozen or so other civic landmarks. So we asked Herbert about his inspiration for the Civic Center's single-level design, which was so stunning a departure from the elitist style of its predecessors that National Geographic gave it a spread. He modestly claimed serendipity.

"Our research showed that the number-one complaint people had about theaters was how long it took to exit or get to an intermission. We decided that one common seating area and a vast series of doors was the fastest way to let them move in and out. I am not sure I really thought about creating a commonality," he says.

Herbert thinks Milwaukee, where he lives half the time now, has lessons for Des Moines about changing a city's demographic fate.

"Milwaukee has an exciting renaissance going on. A very progressive mayor put into effect a great amount of housing being built within a short bus ride of downtown," he says. "It has brought huge numbers of young people back into the core of the city. I would foresee MLK in Des Moines creating the opportunity for that same culture. If we want a young lifestyle in Des Moines, that is where it has an opportunity to happen."
Herbert points out that the new Science Center of Iowa is a step in the right direction, as well as other projects.

"Principal is spending a lot of money improving the natural assets of the river. You can have lots of bike and jogging trails, but having them along the river is just a superior attraction. One thing that has been talked about for a long time looks like it's finally going to be pushed along. Between the Capitol and East 14th Street, there is a huge parking lot. Those cars should be put underground so that we can develop a green space approaching the capitol grounds. The East Side is coming along, so this should finally happen now."

As far as dream commissions that can shape the future? Herbert says architects don't really give direction, they just provide some definition to a client's.

Bringing us together

Chick Herbert's dream begets Pete GochŽ's vision. An artist and young architect in Herbert's firm (HLKB), GochŽ explains how designers provide definition to a city or county's direction.

"If you embed yourself in a project that is public, like Chick Herbert did with the Civic Center, you engage yourself in historical research to learn who your client is, to build something for Des Moines that is appropriate for Des Moines," says GochŽ. "It's about understanding who you are working with, knowing people as a neighbor rather than as an opportunity. The designer in Des Moines today is stagnating because of operating on old premises, that they are the author, and that their energy is going to make things happen.

"Today at our firm, there is an idea that if we engage the client as a person and bring them into the design curriculum, we add another expert who knows what they want, and what kind of culture they need," GochŽ goes on. "East Village and the Temple are part of something vital that is going on here, and it's all connected to preservation of past traditions, to what's important to the community."

Asked about designing a better 2020, GochŽ also drifted to the MLK expansion.

"The Pittsburgh Steel building is a treasure. The site is so big it will probably never be razed, so it's going to be there to bring people together, in some extraordinary way," he says.

An open door

If Iowa is to be rescued from its actuarially ordained fate, then something extraordinary must indeed bring us together, for longer than a "Day Without Immigrants." Most people interviewed for this story mentioned positive omens: The new Central Library, like the Gateway Park it anchors, professes an intention of integrating the community, but it has drawn mixed reviews about how well it succeeds; the new arena at the University of Northern Iowa, an HLKB project, seems completely on point, bringing people together in a common area; Prairie Trail development in Ankeny, Iowa's fastest growing city, plans to bring 9,000 residents into symbiosis with Des Moines Area Community College, which has perhaps the most multicultural demographics in Central Iowa.

So, while Iowa's 2020 vision is composed of scientific probabilities and artistic designs, its song will be played by the divine music of chance. Just as Prince Evans never dreamed of life so far from tropical water, no one in Florida conceived that swampy Orlando would become the fastest growing city in America - not until a California artist built an amusement park inland from the hurricane-baiting coast. It is the unexpected always, the discovery of gold, miracle water, magic kingdoms and cornfield ball parks for ghosts. Our destiny depends on circumstances beyond our ken. But, thanks to our visionaries, we know one important thing - it's drawn only to those who leave doors open. CV

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