We may have lost the football game, but according to www.cnnmoney.com, www.bestplaces.net and the Centers for Disease Control, we have one huge leg up on Iowa City: The people of Story County, on average, live longer than the people of Johnson County.

Both, however, made www.cnnmoney.com’s list of “Best places for a long life.”

Citing the Memorial Union’s Workspace programs, Reiman Gardens and Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, the list compiled by the online joint venture between CNN and Money magazine ranks Story County at number two — just ahead of Carver County, Minn. — easily outpacing Johnson County, which rolled in at number nine — just ahead of Honolulu County, Hawaii.

Looking from the viewpoint of the Greatest Generation, there is indeed a lot to look forward to here: butterflies, flowers, basket-weaving, five golf courses and comparatively low crime, poverty and property tax rates.

From the viewpoint of the under-30 crowd, however, things look just a touch different. While butterflies are cool, they’re not really an attraction in our eyes and we — or at least the vast majority of us — don’t own any real property, so we don’t pay any property tax.

Census statistics bear out the startling facts of the graying of Iowa:

— Between the 1990 and 2000 censuses the median age in the state of Iowa increased by more than two-and-a-half years, from 34.0 years to 36.6 years.

— While the total number of people in Iowa 18 and younger rose by approximately 15,000 in the 1990s, the percentage of the population that they account for fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point.

Furthermore, 39 out of Iowa’s 99 counties — more than one-third — have a median age greater than 40. Only two — the same two cited by www.cnnmoney.com for their longevity and senior-friendliness — have a median age under 30. Comparatively, 16 of Utah’s 29 counties have an average age below 30.

What, then, does all of this add up to?

While rural flight has been around since the Great Depression and is nothing new, the effects have once again mounted to the point where the effects are becoming unavoidable — rural schools struggling to keep their doors open, a rise in municipal disincorporations and the degradation of rural institutions, such as churches.

Not that we haven’t seen this before.

Iowa’s prairies have been harrowed like this before. Literally hundreds of ghost towns and abandoned farmsteads dotting this state’s landscape today stand as mute testimony to this fact. But, at very least, this is a good place for graying and, perhaps, a good place for learning from the past.