A Dystopian Iowa?

Stephen Bloom lays out his view of Iowa in The Atlantic.  Apparently, he's caught a lot of flak for calling Keokuk, "a depressed, crime infested slum town."  I've never been to Keokuk, but Clinton and Burlington aren't the greatest.  I've got to say that, unlike him, I've never heard the corn growing.  But this section definitely rings true:

Four states -- California, Texas, New York, and Florida -- get two-thirds of the nation's immigrants. But for many immigrants, these states serve only as ports of entry; once inside the U.S., these newcomers converge in rural America in waves of secondary migration. And some immigrants head directly inland, altogether bypassing American coastal cities. In Iowa, they almost all come for slaughterhouse jobs, where entry-level positions are plentiful and workers don't need to know a word of English. The only requirements are a strong stomach and a strong back, and a willingness to accept that the work and the pay don't match. It's no wonder Iowa locals spurn such jobs as knockers, stickers, bleeders, tail rippers, flankers, gutters, sawers, or plate boners, all of whom work on what amounts to a disassembly line. Turnover at these grueling jobs is higher than 100 percent a year; health benefits at most plants don't kick in for several months; but the first months in a slaughterhouse are the most dangerous, when accidents are most likely to occur.
How'd so many slaughterhouses get from the cities to the country? For more than a century, slaughterhouses were located in brawling cities like Chicago, Fort Worth, and Omaha. Chicago rose to prominence, in part, because of its famed cattle-processing industry. The city's Union Stock Yards opened in 1865 and eventually grew to 475 acres of slaughterhouses. Today, only one slaughterhouse remains in Chicago, a tiny boutique lamb and veal processor. All the rest have closed shop or moved to rural America.
In a fundamental shift in how meat was processed, industry leaders decades ago realized it made more sense to bring meatpacking plants to the corn-fed livestock than to truck livestock to far-off slaughterhouses in expensive cities with strong unions and government regulators poking their noses into the meatpackers' business. Mobile refrigeration allowed processed meat to be trucked without spoilage. At the same time, the industry became highly mechanized. Innovations such as air- and electric-powered knives made expensive, skilled butchers superfluous. Mega plants in rural outposts became the norm. Hourly wages for union meat-production workers in 1980 peaked at $19 per hour (1980 dollars), not including benefits. Today, starting pay is often barely minimum wage at rural slaughterhouses. Because packinghouses are located in such isolated pockets of America, employers don't have to pay wages competitive with jobs in more urban venues. It's take it or leave it, and most locals would rather leave it. For undocumented workers, though, these jobs are a bonanza.

There is no doubt that we wouldn't get much meat if native residents had to work the line at meatpacking plants.  At least at the current wages.  As my former employer said, the only white folks in those plants are the supervisors.  Everyone else is from Central America or is a refugee from Asia or Africa.  I think Professor Bloom could stand for some criticism in being a little too negative about Iowa, and exaggerating and stereotyping too much.  The state is still nicer than many other parts of the country.  That said, it is crazy for him to receive threats for calling it like he sees it.  Can't people just ignore the snooty college professor and go about their business without threatening to use him for target practice?  But really, what's worse, a condescending liberal professor who wants to see better paying jobs for middle-class Americans while increasing taxes on the wealthy, or a condescending conservative politician who wants to give rich folks even larger tax cuts while slashing the social safety net?  I would hold my nose and go with the liberal.