BROOKLYN, Iowa — There are a few reasons to prefer Brooklyn, Iowa, to the coastal borough that shares its name. For starters, the rents are much cheaper: you can get a two bedroom apartment for around $500 a month. I dated a girl in Williamsburg who I think paid $1,700 a month for a studio with two other roommates.
The people here seem to care more about their community as well. I’m currently standing outside Brooklyn’s Flag Store, an all-volunteer communal consignment store that would make a member of the Democratic Socialists of America party blush.
The store uses funds to maintain the town’s Community of Flags, which describes the arrangement of roughly 70 flags in its downtown. There’s one for each of the 50 states, each branch of the military, and a few random countries in honor of an exchange student or foreign dignitary. It’s not exactly clear why the town of Brooklyn decided to get so into flags. Their official explanation is that a cycling organization drove through in 1991 and a townie figured a bunch of flags would make a good greeting. That idea stuck, and there’s really no going back once you’ve committed to putting up this many flags.
[Related: Postcard from: Fairfield, Iowa]
Brooklyn’s population hasn’t changed a ton since 1870, when it counted 1,250 people. Today, just under 1,500 call Brooklyn home. That doesn’t seem to be much of a concern for Brooklynites here — they’d prefer rural America stay rural. The flags, it seems, are connection enough with the outside world for the folks of Brooklyn, Iowa.
“Small towns struggle to survive nowadays,” Mary Bromnian, who was working in the shop when I stopped by, told me. “Things like these flags help us stay on the map, they help us get good press. You need a community — you need something to connect you to the world. That’s something the younger generation forgets when they’re on their smartphones.”
