I live in what would be considered more urban Iowa. I work in the ISU Research Park [1] for a company doing software development. My brother lives in our hometown and works as an industrial engineer at a plant that makes bio fertilizer and pesticide products [2]. We also have a sock factory in town, which I think is pretty neat [3]. Iowa really has a pretty diverse and thriving economy. It's a good place.
That research park has really grown in the last 5 years! I'm finishing up my masters degree online, but it was always interesting to see how it grew while I was on campus. I networked with people from Workiva, Vermeer, and Proplanner over the years. John Deere is in the mix too now (which was natural with how much research they fund on campus).
Also potentially of interest to the HN crowd, my hometown has municipal broadband [1]. Where I live, I actually have municipal broadband as well, though it looks like perhaps OMU beats us on speed [2]. My mom lives out in the country and gets her internet from an antenna pointed at the water tower, which seems to work pretty well [3].
