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Provide your ideas and vote on others' to help us plan for a more sustainable Greater Des Moines. Please note that these questions are about the region as a whole – all 17 communities in four different counties.

 
     

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»Absolutely! Although, this has been available in the past, and apparently no one utilized the service. Being a transit coordinator, I think this could be a valuable service - if you promote it, people will use it!
However, the airport is in the "parking" business too, they are currently working on a parking expansion project - this might take a lot of convencing.
»Take a look at replacing some of the parking lanes in areas such as downtown and convert them to bike lanes. Just got back from Amsterdam where possibly 70+% of the population chooses the bike as their transportation mode and are given the right of way always making the rider feel very safe.
»it would be nice to seat out side and watch a play ,we watched footloose in austin tx
»I love this idea, thanks Marna! We had actually discussed getting one for my house. I think if a lot of people adapted to this, the city government would lose money, beacuse residents are using more natural sources of water, rather than from the faucet.
Just a thought - I am definately all for the environment though!!
»We have two mulberry trees that hang over the sidewalk and the kids love picking and eating them...they even come into our yard (not fenced off) to get them. However, the strong winds are "tipping" them over and we will be forced to have to cut them down soon. I'd like to know WHERE I can get more Mulberry trees to replace them -- I am also looking to replace the old walnut trees too.
»How BIG does an affordable house really need to be? Are "extras" really essential or do they make maintenance more expensive? How big do bedrooms really need to be and how many should there be? My dad grew up with 8 brothers and sisters in a home with two bedrooms upstairs and his parents slept in the living room on a hide-a-bed. They didn't even have running water in the home until he was in High School and they had to split their own wood. But, it was a roof over their heads, it kept them warm and they owned it. Why is what was good enough for our parents no longer good enough for us?
»I prioritize my freedom to make my own choices as the most important "Quality of Life" issue.
»It seems that farmers are harvesting more bushels per acre every year. In that sense, the loss of agricultural land doesn't bother me too much. When it comes to buffer zones and loss of natural habitat, we just need reinforce good decision making by allowing people to experience the consequences of the choices that they make. This will prevent people from planting where their crop will be lost to flooding every spring. Ultimately, I prefer that individuals make more choices and the government makes fewer.
»Social Equity is a flowery term, but what does is mean? Are we talking about an equal playing field or an equal outcome? Not everyone wants the same things so who gets to decide and who picks up the tab?
»I keep reading about how we need to make parking so expensive no one will want to drive downtown, but in my opinion, the real issue is making mass transit so convenient people won't want to drive. Many cities, even some smaller than Des Moines, have convenient mass transit making it almost unnecessary to own a car. As an example, when we visited Minneapolis/St. Paul a few years ago, we were amazed at their bus system. Their buses ran every 10 minutes every day. We left our car at the motel and took the bus everywhere we went. They ran radial routes like Des Moines has, but they also have cross town routes, so you don't have to go downtown and back out to go from one part of town to another. A ticket was good for two hours, so you didn't need transfers and you could often get on the bus, run your errand, and get back home on one ticket. And the buses went to outlying areas, such as Stillwater, which is about as far from the Cities as Ames is from Des Moines.
»I would concur that there is most likely a case of unwillingness on the part of the local (although pretty corporate) large grocers to employ unconventional thinking and make an investment in a downtown location. I agree that, theroretically, downtown can support a small-sized, well-stocked grocer.
Another factor is that true "downtown living" is still a relatively new concept to nearly everyone who lives downtown, or close, for several reasons. First, they are generally younger "urban pioneers" who enjoy the urban lifestyle, but have not necessarily lived in a true urban environment for a long period of time (dwntwn Chicago for example) and are not necessarily aware of all the possibilities that can exist to support a largely bike and pedestrian oriented environment. Basically, everyone still has a car, and is loathe to get rid of it. Why put a store downtown when 10 mins by car is a store?
Perry is its own town far removed from other points of commerce; dwntwn is not.
»Additionally, there is already parking scheduled for the new hotel on the riverfront. More parking a community does not make. Additionally, it would be a several hundred million dollar investment, the owner of which, either the city/county or a private entity, would definitely not appreciate their investment being treated as a water holding basin for the flooding Des Moines river.
»Maybe... This parking area is currently used during the day for I believe county courthouse employees and other businesses in the ara, and at night it is basically for the under 30 crowd when they visit the Court Ave District. At this point, removing that parking for a beautifully landscaped area would raise terrible hackles from both crowds. There are definitely new opportunites for courthouse employees to use the new DART station when it's finished late this summer, and I would hope that the county would partner with DART to encourage public transit use. The "party" crowd would be a different story, and while it would be nice to think that they could also embrace the new public transit opportunities provided by DART, there is a huge amount of education of this crowd that is necessary before they would feel comfortable using those opportunities.
»This idea is really right on target for what we are learning is our precipitation forecast has been based on an a very dry period in history and these last few years precipitation has been returning to "normal precipitation" not records. The bad thing is we have been building, farming and designing levees in these marsh/low lying areas not realizing our statistical mistake. Many states have been moving towards correcting this, but Iowa is not one of them.
»Would it make sense to build a multi level underground parking ramp under this park? It would serve as two things... 1) parking for the ballpark and the new hotels without damaging the cityscape 2) flood relief in the event that we have an overflow, it would be nice to have a concrete pit to take some of the water.

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Which natural areas within Greater Des Moines should be protected from future development?
Prior to European settlement, what is now Greater Des Moines was blanketed by tallgrass prairie and thousands of small wetlands. Forests existed primarily...
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