Interactions

Amid a flourishing Iowa skate culture, locals look to improve the Iowa City skatepark (July 6)

Iowa City deserves a new skatepark. The skateboarding scene is one of the best, if not the best, in Iowa and is in a prime location for many outof-towners to come and experience the skatepark. A new skatepark in a college town is also a good aspect about it. There is plenty of room for a bigger and better skatepark. One that better suits all skill levels and just an updated skatepark would be a lot better for everybody who goes to the place. College is about making friends and/or connections, and a new skatepark would just be another place to do so with people of similar interests. —Raymond L.

Give them bathrooms and a water fountain! —Stevie T. this week, so of course I just started skating again after 12 years off-deck, and my experience here has been a bit crunchy. We’ve had issues finding places to just practice the basics like hopping off and onto curbs, even just flat, low traffic places to push, stop and revert. Day one, after scoping out spots for a while, we carved out a small spot at the top of the farmer’s market ramp with no cars but mine and got bounced out within 20 min, literally.

We’ve since found a few spots that are pretty gnarly, choppy concrete and crumbling corners, where we can get our chops up a bit, but I’ve already had a handful of experiences with dogooders reminding me that basically we’re not really welcome anywhere. I’m familiar with the general atmosphere, it’s not like there’s not a bit of it practically anywhere you go. The worst part, though, is being treated like we basically “have our place,” but then

/LittleVillage READER POLL:

How many people in your town are you actively not speaking to?

37.8%

0 35.6%

1-4

4.4%

5-9 22.2%

10+

My family and I just moved to Iowa City from Omaha, NE in October of last year. My son (and possibly my other two kids soon) just started skating

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