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It's fairly compact for a school of 20k students. On one side of the river is the Pentacrest, the original campus, and surrounding buildings in which the vast majority of undergrad classes are held. A handful of dorms are within 15 walk of this area. Across the river are additional dorms and the health care/hospital side of campus. This is walking campus, from what I can tell, with only a few bikes and no scooters in sight.
In my opinion, it's attractive but not jaw-droppingly so. It's clean and tidy and the river running through is a nice visual point of interest. There are paths along it for running, walking, etc.
Adjacent to campus is the "campustown" area of Iowa City which has a very funky, Madison-esque feel, with ethnic restaurants, record stores, bars, boutiques, etc. I very much like this as I think it's important for a campus to blend into town. Beyond this area is the real Iowa City and Coralville, which make up a modest sized town of limited interest. Interestingly, Outside Magazine did call out Iowa City as a Best City to live in within the last couple years as there's a fair amt of outdoor recreation nearby.
I'm just a parent that's been there a couple times and offer my observations because there isn't a ton of traffic on this forum. Hopefully you'll get some good first-hand observations.
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