I lived in Europe for 10 years and experienced essentially the same thing. Once I became very comfortable with public transportation schedules, I could be more spontaneous. I loved being there.chaglang wrote:When we lived in the Northeast the biggest hassle for me was that if you didn't have a car, it took an hour to get anywhere on the subway. Unless you were going around the corner, everything had to be planned. It lacked the spontaneity that I love about KC.mean wrote:I'm not sure what these "hassles" are that everyone refers to when talking about larger and more vibrant cities. More people? Well, yeah. That comes with the territory. So does an increased cost of living, increased traffic congestion, and various other "hassles" which are the trade-off for living in a hip, vibrant, cool place--a trade-off that most people seem to be willing to make.
Kansas Citians are really lucky in the spontaneous department. I now live in Houston and nothing is easy. If I want to go downtown on a weeknight, I pretty much have to take a half day off work and go down there before rush hour; traffic is such a pain in the ass here. Unfortunately, urban Houston doesn't really have a very good reward-to-hassle ratio so I rarely go there any more, there's very little there worth the hassle. I get my urban fixes elsewhere. My parents live in south KC and, when we visit, we can usually be downtown in 20 minutes and it's generally a stress free drive with the easiest parking in any major metro in the US. Anybody in the KC metro who sees going downtown or to the plaza as a hassle has a desperate need to get some perspective.
EDIT: Saw this in the Pitch this morning...thought it applied.
http://www.pitch.com/plog/archives/2012 ... ic-commute