{"id":3030,"date":"2008-04-21T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2008-04-21T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/04\/21\/road-trip-des-moines-very-own-east-village\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:08:34","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:08:34","slug":"road-trip-des-moines-very-own-east-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/21\/road-trip-des-moines-very-own-east-village\/","title":{"rendered":"ROAD TRIP: Des Moines&#8217; very own East Village"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3245\/2429757959_4046d10de1.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>DES MOINES, IOWA<\/strong> &#8212; Day four of my road trip found me crossing the Midwest. As much as I wanted to see the results of a revitalized downtown Omaha, I was running behind schedule and had to skip the eastern Nebraska city. I instead stopped in Des Moines, Iowa. I read about the emerging East Side neighbourhood in a <a href=\"http:\/\/americancity.org\/daily\/entry\/162\/\">previous issue of the Next American City magazine<\/a>, so I was interested to see it up close.<\/p>\n<p>The area is only 10 or 15 blocks in size, just east of the downtown, and benefits from decent pedestrian traffic <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=Locust+and+East+5th+Street,+Des+Moines,+Iowa&amp;sll=41.589513,-93.611412&amp;sspn=0.006307,0.010858&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=41.58973,-93.611283&amp;spn=0.006307,0.010858&amp;t=h&amp;z=17&amp;iwloc=addr\">due to its location<\/a> just west of the state capitol building. Two distinct features about the neighbourhood were quite charming: the nicely manicured tree pits\/garden beds and the bike rack public art program.<\/p>\n<p>Below are a series of photos of the bike installations, landscape architecture, and street furniture of the &#8216;hood. You can also view <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\/photos\/spacing\/sets\/72157604652541493\/\">my photoset on Flickr<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2217\/2430580216_9b9310fbc0.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3150\/2430576736_b9916bb718.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The racks are located on various corners with little plaques denoting who created the pieces.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3266\/2429843709_dcf6d2f447.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2362\/2430575506_2798ea13a9.jpg\" height=\"351\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3032\/2429765877_54cb37964d.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2333\/2429767247_62a2581e8c.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3180\/2429764323_7bacbe641b_o.jpg\" height=\"746\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The tree pits have three great features: large space for soil to absorb water and to grow roots, artful and distinctive metal edges, and vegetation that protects the soil from the hot sun. A few small gardens were found every three or four trees.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2363\/2429762687_3194ab5a33.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2204\/2430576346_15212d19fa.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2397\/2430579178_c4f9afc40f.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Just like Albuquerque and Denver, Des Moines uses pedestrian wayfinding signs (photo below and at top of post). Distances are measured in blocks rather than miles.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2142\/2429765455_18b73a2e83.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sidewalks were used effectively too. Leading down from the capitol building were etchings in the sidewalk indicating when cities and counties joins the state of Iowa. There were about 30 of 40 stretching seven blocks on either side of the road.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3290\/2430580460_280fdd7602_o.jpg\" height=\"748\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Slightly cute was the doggie bag dispenser built right in the lamp post.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3109\/2430577800_f376eb118c_o.jpg\" height=\"751\" width=\"498\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The requisite street-side trash bin shot and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3274\/2430577186_f3a4657dbb.jpg\" height=\"332\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;  real bike racks.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2158\/2429764987_a49a56edbb_o.jpg\" height=\"747\" width=\"497\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>TOMORROW<\/strong>: &#8220;Iowa City goes pedestrian&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>All photos by Matthew Blackett <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>BACKGROUND ON MY TRIP:<\/strong><br \/>\nMy trip is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153driveaway\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for a vacationing snowbird &#8212; I&#8217;m driving his car back home in exchange for paying my plane fare and gas expenses (read my <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/09\/help-pick-the-route-of-my-road-trip\/\">first post<\/a> for more info on what a driveaway is). It was arranged by my friend David Smaller and his little organization called <a href=\"http:\/\/hittheroad.ca\/\">Hit The Road<\/a>. You can join the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/group.php?gid=2855879236\">Facebook group<\/a> to receive notices of upcoming driveaway opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DES MOINES, IOWA &#8212; Day four of my road trip found me crossing the Midwest. As much as I wanted to see the results of a revitalized downtown Omaha, I was running behind schedule and had to skip the eastern Nebraska city. I instead stopped in Des Moines, Iowa. I read about the emerging East<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/21\/road-trip-des-moines-very-own-east-village\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;ROAD TRIP: Des Moines&#8217; very own East Village&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,21759],"tags":[8140,8769,8721,1240,8767,8770,4657,8727,2870,8768,667,8766,21,60,5787],"class_list":["post-3030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-culture","category-features","tag-albuquerque","tag-artful-and-distinctive-metal-edges","tag-david-smaller","tag-denver","tag-des-moines","tag-eastern-nebraska","tag-facebook","tag-gas-expenses","tag-iowa","tag-iowa-city","tag-matthew-blackett","tag-omaha","tag-other-cities","tag-road-trip","tag-the-next-american-city"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ROAD TRIP: Des Moines&#039; very own East Village - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/21\/road-trip-des-moines-very-own-east-village\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ROAD TRIP: Des Moines&#039; very own East Village - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"DES MOINES, IOWA &#8212; Day four of my road trip found me crossing the Midwest. 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