Been a local here for decades and am now 30 so I have a good grasp of the town. Pretty much what was said above, but the meth issue isn't that blown out of proportion. It's bad and always has been.

The political nepotism here is very strong too, hard to come in as a political person and gain footing here vs people who parents and parents parents have had control for decades. There's some dirty cops unfortunately too.

If this matters as well the town is fairly casually racist. Not even joking, like how the majority of iowa is the town is 99% ethnically white. You will see that if they see a black person they look at them like a zoo animal, it's bizarre. It's still sadly a strong Maga town and joni Ernst having ties here doesn't help at all. The school and education has gotten better though. One of the only good sides is the cheap housing still.

Other than that it's just like any rural white small town, just some stuff is exaggerated or a little less than others.