Music and entertainment certainly aren't limited to the university campus. Saturday nights are occupied by a downtown jazz series from early June until early September. There are arts festivals in June and September, a Shakespeare festival in June, sidewalk sales in July and September. As in other university towns, residents are sensitive to health, environmental and conservation concerns. Curbside recycling orchestrated by the city is popular, and the municipal recycling center is often crowded with items that can't be easily handled elsewhere.
Retirees play a large role in a program to catalog the age of local trees.
It's easy to get around downtown and the campus thanks to free shuttle buses. Eleven additional bus routes, all publicly funded, simplify travel from neighborhood to neighborhood and from Iowa City to other area towns. Although nobody retires to Iowa City specifically to play golf, seven courses are open to the public. Tennis courts dot the city. Not that Iowa City isn't without its challenges.