Park positive. Good tippers. Big trees. A $300K median home price. And Iowa… works?

Park place. Des Moines continues to be a solid destination for those looking to live within walking distance to a park. According to Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit that helps create parks and protect public land, 75% of Des Moines residents live within a 10-minute walk to a park. The national average of the 100 most populous cities is 76%, while the national average for all urban cities and towns in the U.S. is 57%. It also says 13% of Des Moines land is used for parks. The national median is 15%. 

ParkServe, a park mapping service used by TPL, says Des Moines has 201 total parks and 7,465 total park acres. The website’s interactive map shows how many acres TPL has preserved and how many projects they have completed in the state. North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa are the only states to have zero in both categories. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation has helped protect more than 200,000 acres of Iowa’s landscape. …

Bernie Saggau passed away on May 10. He was a 1949 graduate of Buena Vista University and a longtime supporter. He lived to the age of 96 and left behind a remarkable legacy as a student-athlete, coach, official, administrator and tireless advocate for young people. His name is synonymous with Iowa athletics, having served as executive director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association for 38 years. His alma mater recently announced that the basketball court inside Siebens Fieldhouse will now be known as Saggau Family Court, which also honors his late wife, Lois (Kretzinger) Saggau, a 1950 BVU graduate. A dedication ceremony for Saggau Family Court is planned for later this fall. …

Real estate is rolling. The Des Moines Area Association of Realtors released its May 2025 area housing statistics. The number of available homes rose 20.2% (3,994), and the number of home sales rose by 2.3% (1,403). This time last year, the median sale price hit a record high of $299,500. In May 2025, that number was $300,000. The highest median home price recorded by DMAAR since the start of 2024 was in June 2024 at $307,000. …

Big tree hunter. Measuring trees all his life, Mark Rouw, who recently retired as an animal specialist from the Science Center of Iowa, has been continually looking for a state or national record tree. He wrote an article in the spring 2025 issue of “Iowa Outdoors” magazine, which is published by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The article contains a photo of him standing next to a massive catalpa tree in Woodland Cemetery. Large as it is, five others around the state are larger. …

Need a job? A new unemployment system was launched in June by the American Job Center network. It can ironically be found at iowaworks.gov. According to Iowa Workforce Development, this replaces a system that was used for more than half a century, required multiple websites and accounts to file for unemployment. Now, all of these resources, such as job and recruitment tools, function from one site. If you are curious, current openings are 49,164, and the unemployment rate is 3.5% as of June 23. …

Stolen goods. Iowans are getting their packages taken right from their doorsteps at one of the highest rates in the country, according to third-party logistics provider GoBolt. The group analyzed Security.org’s 2024 package theft report and found that Iowa reported the third-highest percentage of residents who had a package stolen in the last three months at 10%. The median value of those goods stolen was $200. It also found that Iowa has the 13th-lowest average monthly searches related to mail tracking and stolen parcels. Iowa was tied with Alaska for the third-highest percentage at 10%. Kentucky at 12% and North Dakota at 11% were the only other states higher. …

Uncertain about finances. Northwestern Mutual, a financial services company, released a study showing financial uncertainty is heavy on the minds of Des Moines residents. Their study revealed that 79% of Des Moines residents say financial uncertainty has made them feel depressed and anxious, higher than the national average of 69%. A total of 68% say money worries have kept them up at night, 5% higher than the national average. About 64% say the uncertainty has impacted their relationship with their spouse or partner, and 45% say it has made them feel physically ill, 5% higher than the national average. 

Des Moines residents were also asked to describe how “strong” or “weak” they feel about various aspects of their personal lives. About 57% labeled their finances as “weak.” This was much higher than how they felt about their mental health, 32%, their physical health, 31%, friendships, 31%, job stability, 24%, and relationships with family, 24%. …

Good tippers. Toast, a restaurant point of sale company, revealed its quarter one restaurant trends report that showed good news for Iowa service workers. According to the report, Iowans are among the best restaurant tippers in the nation. In general, tips at full-service restaurants rose to 19.4%. Iowans tipped their waiter or waitress at an average of 20%. Tipping 20% used to be the standard, but across the nation, states such as California, Washington, Nevada, Florida and a majority of the south dipped below 19%. Delaware was the best state for tipping at 22.1%. …

 Wax on, wax off. Whether it be cheap beer, tailgate culture or, most importantly, quality education, students from other states are attending Iowa’s universities at an incredibly high rate. A study from medical school admissions consulting firm Inspira Advantage showed Iowa ranking fifth for student migration with 12,308 students from outside the state while losing 3,882 of local students at a ratio of 3.10:1. Whether it be the Mormons or mountains, Utah’s student migration ratio ranked the highest at 4.56. …

Don’t get sick. Shane Smith Law, a personal injury law firm, compared the average daily cost of hospital expenses against the average hourly pay by state to see how long workers earning the average amount would need to work to pay for a single day of hospital care. According to their research, Iowa residents need to work 64.4 hours to pay for one day in the hospital. Sound high? This is the fifth-lowest number nationwide. …

And, please, don’t drink and drive. DUI fatalities are on the rise in Iowa, according to a study from personal injury lawyers at H&P Law. The group analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System. They compared the alcohol-impaired fatality rise and fall percentages across the U.S. from 2022 to 2023. In that time, Iowa had an 11.21% increase in DUI-related deaths, the fourth-highest in the country. In 2022, Iowa had 33.63 alcohol-related deaths per 100 overall fatalities. That number rose to 37.50 in 2023. n