Kansas City optimism

[Highlander]

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.

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.

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.

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

[mgh7676]

This article from the KC Star does a great job of highlighting why KC can be a great place, I only wish more people in the metro would realize how much we truly have here.

It’s hard to tell when you are living in a golden age. Woody Allen made that point in his recent movie “Midnight in Paris,” where even some of the great writers and artists in Paris of the 1920s longed for other places and times.

Check your watch, Kansas City. This is our finest hour. This is our golden age, here and now.

For the last decade, something amazing has been happening in this city. Something has been growing, and last year it all finally came together. Since the millennium turned, the greater metro has invested about $3 billion in facilities for entertainment and the arts. We expanded the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, refurbished Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, built Kansas Speedway, Sprint Center, the Power & Light District and Johnson County’s Nerman Museum, among others. Then, in 2011, we hit critical mass.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/13/33 ... rylink=cpy

[earthling]

My brother lived in KC (River Market) in late 90s to 2002 then went to NYC. Lived in Philly and Austin before KC. He visited this weekend and had a great time. Visited Nelson expansion, PAC (was wowed by both), P&L (not for him but agreed with me every city should have a touristy district, was very happy to see the surface lots developed), Xroads galleries (though has yet to do a recent FF), new downtown AMC theatre (said this is the only place to see a movie, NYC has nothing like it), downtown grocer, bluestem, you say tomato, succotash, the drop, manifesto, saw changes in River Market/Columbus park, Crown Center, Union Hill, W Side, etc...

He left saying people in KC have no idea how good they have it. Said if downtown KC was like this 10 years ago, he may not have left - though his job took him to NYC. He seemed to be reconsidering KC given how challenging it can be to live in NYC.

[grovester]

This article from the KC Star does a great job of highlighting why KC can be a great place, I only wish more people in the metro would realize how much we truly have here.

It’s hard to tell when you are living in a golden age. Woody Allen made that point in his recent movie “Midnight in Paris,” where even some of the great writers and artists in Paris of the 1920s longed for other places and times.

Check your watch, Kansas City. This is our finest hour. This is our golden age, here and now.

For the last decade, something amazing has been happening in this city. Something has been growing, and last year it all finally came together. Since the millennium turned, the greater metro has invested about $3 billion in facilities for entertainment and the arts. We expanded the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, refurbished Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, built Kansas Speedway, Sprint Center, the Power & Light District and Johnson County’s Nerman Museum, among others. Then, in 2011, we hit critical mass.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/13/33 ... rylink=cpy

That guys is a new public contributor for the editorial page. Looking forward to his columns this year.

[FangKC]

I lived in NYC for 10 years, and never really found it to be that challenging a place to live. I enjoyed everything about the experience. I loved not having to own and maintain a car.

Having grown up in a farming town of less than 400 people, you would think I would have had a big adjustment to endure, but I loved every minute of living there. I was never bored.

The only real downside for me was how expensive it is to live there, and how hard it is to find an apartment in Manhattan. If I had big money, I would move back there in an instant.

Kansas City is a really easy place to live. The commute times here are ideal. When I lived in Phoenix, I hated driving on the freeways during rush hour, so I moved closer to work, and took arterial streets.

The only real downside living in Kansas City is if one doesn't have a car. When I moved here from NYC, I went a couple of years without a car, but finally it just sucked too much, and I bought one.

The other thing I don't like is that I have to drive so far for my shopping needs. That is one thing I will say about the Old Northeast; there is little variety of retail nearby. It doesn't really take that long to go shopping, and traffic is never really bad, but I just hate having to go so far for little items. The Old NE was developed when downtown was where one went shopping. When downtown retail dried up, nothing replaced it in the NE. There used to be a Montgomery Ward department store in the street level of their big mailing distribution warehouse at Belmont and St. John, but that closed years ago.

I really wish some retailers would return to the central city. I think there is certainly a big market niche to mine that many big retailers have just ignored. I think a Target would do quite well on the former Hardesty Federal complex at Hardesty and Independence Avenue. Sears and K-Mart are losing so much market share that they should consider returning to center cities to go after places that Wal-Mart ignores. I think a K-Mart on Truman Road around Cleveland would serve a big underserved market. Even a small K-Mart at Prospect and 31st Street might do okay.

Retail management should remember that Wal-Mart (Sam Walton) started out going into small towns that had little discount retail in them, and then he branched out. I think he started with Ben Franklin variety stores.

[pstokely]

I lived in NYC for 10 years, and never really found it to be that challenging a place to live. I enjoyed everything about the experience. I loved not having to own and maintain a car.

Having grown up in a farming town of less than 400 people, you would think I would have had a big adjustment to endure, but I loved every minute of living there. I was never bored.

The only real downside for me was how expensive it is to live there, and how hard it is to find an apartment in Manhattan. If I had big money, I would move back there in an instant.

Kansas City is a really easy place to live. The commute times here are ideal. When I lived in Phoenix, I hated driving on the freeways during rush hour, so I moved closer to work, and took arterial streets.

The only real downside living in Kansas City is if one doesn't have a car. When I moved here from NYC, I went a couple of years without a car, but finally it just sucked too much, and I bought one.

The other thing I don't like is that I have to drive so far for my shopping needs. That is one thing I will say about the Old Northeast; there is little variety of retail nearby. It doesn't really take that long to go shopping, and traffic is never really bad, but I just hate having to go so far for little items. The Old NE was developed when downtown was where one went shopping. When downtown retail dried up, nothing replaced it in the NE. There used to be a Montgomery Ward department store in the street level of their big mailing distribution warehouse at Belmont and St. John, but that closed years ago.

I really wish some retailers would return to the central city. I think there is certainly a big market niche to mine that many big retailers have just ignored. I think a Target would do quite well on the former Hardesty Federal complex at Hardesty and Independence Avenue. Sears and K-Mart are losing so much market share that they should consider returning to center cities to go after places that Wal-Mart ignores. I think a K-Mart on Truman Road around Cleveland would serve a big underserved market. Even a small K-Mart at Prospect and 31st Street might do okay.

Retail management should remember that Wal-Mart (Sam Walton) started out going into small towns that had little discount retail in them, and then he branched out. I think he started with Ben Franklin variety stores.

Unions and high land prices are keeping Walmart of out urban areas. Target has a few stores in NYC.

[KCMax]

This article from the KC Star does a great job of highlighting why KC can be a great place, I only wish more people in the metro would realize how much we truly have here.

It’s hard to tell when you are living in a golden age. Woody Allen made that point in his recent movie “Midnight in Paris,” where even some of the great writers and artists in Paris of the 1920s longed for other places and times.

Check your watch, Kansas City. This is our finest hour. This is our golden age, here and now.

For the last decade, something amazing has been happening in this city. Something has been growing, and last year it all finally came together. Since the millennium turned, the greater metro has invested about $3 billion in facilities for entertainment and the arts. We expanded the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, refurbished Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, built Kansas Speedway, Sprint Center, the Power & Light District and Johnson County’s Nerman Museum, among others. Then, in 2011, we hit critical mass.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/13/33 ... rylink=cpy

That guys is a new public contributor for the editorial page. Looking forward to his columns this year.

He used to write for the Atlantic (or still does). I think one of his articles was panned here.

EDIT: He wrote an article for KC Mag called "Things I Hate About KC". Nice.

[trailerkid]

I think Kansas City is turning the corner. Seriously. It's not just the Google stuff. It's a lot of things. It's the people. It seems more like a place to dream than ever before. A lot has changed in the last 10 years (both physically and mentally). It's exciting because there is a sense of optimism and community pride radiating. You can feel it. It's contagious. Sure, it's a place with a bunch of conservative, older people but it's starting to feel like this treasure that people are polishing and making cool again.

As a disclosure...I live in San Francisco now.

[Brodees]

I think Kansas City is turning the corner. Seriously. It's not just the Google stuff. It's a lot of things. It's the people. It seems more like a place to dream than ever before. A lot has changed in the last 10 years (both physically and mentally). It's exciting because there is a sense of optimism and community pride radiating. You can feel it. It's contagious. Sure, it's a place with a bunch of conservative, older people but it's starting to feel like this treasure that people are polishing and making cool again.

As a disclosure...I live in San Francisco now.

+1

I remember when Cordish swept in and overhauled swaths of dilapidated downtown blocks; when H&R Block erected its new headquarters; when the Sprint Center started reflecting that Kansas City Sunshine off of its magnificent all-glass exterior; when the Kauffman Center started grazing the Kansas City skyline. As exciting as it was to see so much reinvigoration and reinvestment in downtown, I feel like these times offer even more to be optimistic and prideful of.

We took a risk putting so many eggs in the entertainment basket in an effort to revive the city, but it truly seems that now the residential horse seems to be catching up to that cart. Throw in the additional big-ticket items like the All-Star Game, Google Fiber initiative, and streetcar effort, and the optimism seems so abundant that it's almost palpable.

I moved back here a few months ago after almost five years in DC -- a truly amazing city -- and I don't have one regret. Love this city!

[FangKC]

Yes, and the thing about all this new investment is that Kansas City is an old city. We also don't have a lot of big corporations here, or generous benefactors (well, since Ewing Kauffman died). It's not in the Sun Belt, yet it's building new amenities and trying to create a technological edge. It has many great institutions. The metro has continued to grow over time--albeit not as fast as some Sun Belt cities.

I have a long-time online friend who might be moving here with his mother this fall--from LA. She is from Missouri originally. His father also lives in Harrisonville. My friend is very tentative about the move. He's spent most of his life in LA, and went to college in New York City.

My point is that he didn't know that it's a metro of over 2 million, or that Kansas City had a symphony, a ballet, an opera company, or the second headquarters for the Alvin Ailey dance troope. He didn't know that we had one of the best art museums in the country, or that housing was so cheap here. He was unaware of our arts district, and that we have a burgeoning burlesque arts community. He didn't know these things existed here.

He is somewhat excited to be near the Ozarks though.

[KCMax]

I think Kansas City is turning the corner. Seriously. It's not just the Google stuff. It's a lot of things. It's the people. It seems more like a place to dream than ever before. A lot has changed in the last 10 years (both physically and mentally). It's exciting because there is a sense of optimism and community pride radiating. You can feel it. It's contagious. Sure, it's a place with a bunch of conservative, older people but it's starting to feel like this treasure that people are polishing and making cool again.

As a disclosure...I live in San Francisco now.

And this is important. I think it could have been really easy for us to have just done P&L/SC and sat back and said "that's enough" especially after P&L had to be subsidized so heavily and SC didn't land a tenant. But it is great to see all this additional momentum, and I'm really glad to see people - including many people on this forum - dismiss the critics and haters and those who have for too long said "that will never happen here" and "we've already tried that and it failed" and made things happen. It really give one a lot of hope for the future here.

[FangKC]

It's important for a city to try new things, even if there are some misses and failures.

Kansas City has had worse times. It was once a very corrupt city--including the police force. There was a time when the mob was regularly blowing up buildings--creating a blanket of fear over the city. Epic flooding, race riots, etc.

In some respects, Kansas City's future looks good for the long haul--over the next 100 years. We don't have to worry about things like sea level rises like many of our big coastal cities. We think $2 billion over the next 25 years is bad, imagine the infastructure costs of building sea walls 100 years from now for cities like New York, Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa/St. Petersburg, and Miami, and levees for New Orleans.

[mean]

Kansas City has had worse times. It was once a very corrupt city--including the police force.

True, but those times were also the city's most prosperous.

[Highlander]

It's not in the Sun Belt, yet it's building new amenities and trying to create a technological edge. It has many great institutions. The metro has continued to grow over time--albeit not as fast as some Sun Belt cities.

I once liked the idea of rapid growth, sun-belt type growth, in KC. But now, after living over 3 years in a sunbelt city, I wouldn't wish that on KC ever. Moderate growth should be the goal, few cities have handled rapid growth with applomb (Denver - Seattle) and some, like several fast growing SE cities, are just disasters - aesthetically, culturally, in civics, and in quality of life. These cities tend to grow by sprawl first with limited infill back into the urban core and the inner burbs turn to ghetto at startling rates.

I'd like to see higher growth rates for KC and, in particular, see KC attract more white collar jobs to the urban core, but leave the boom town mentality to the sunbelt.

[loftguy]

Kansas City has had worse times. It was once a very corrupt city--including the police force.

True, but those times were also the city's most prosperous.

I offered to be the new Pendergast, but they said no.

[grovester]

I could be bribed with a Pendergast.

[ShowMeKat]

Does anyone else think that people in Kansas City lack optimism?
We are hyper-critical of our town. When people move here from other places, they are often asked why they would choose kansas city. What image does that project to newcomers and visitors?

I moved to the area from Southern California about a year ago. I visited here several times before moving, and always had the impression the people here were very proud of KC. After the move, I was a little taken aback by people's reaction to my move. They did seem a little doubtful when they asked if I like it here. I think the weather is mainly the concern. I do understand that, but there is also a flip side to not having seasons. Imagine going through Christmases as a child without ever having seen snow!

[chaglang]

Does anyone else think that people in Kansas City lack optimism?
We are hyper-critical of our town. When people move here from other places, they are often asked why they would choose kansas city. What image does that project to newcomers and visitors?

I moved to the area from Southern California about a year ago. I visited here several times before moving, and always had the impression the people here were very proud of KC. After the move, I was a little taken aback by people's reaction to my move. They did seem a little doubtful when they asked if I like it here. I think the weather is mainly the concern. I do understand that, but there is also a flip side to not having seasons. Imagine going through Christmases as a child without ever having seen snow!

Welcome. I'd bet they were surprised that you moved away from the ocean.

[KCMax]

Does anyone else think that people in Kansas City lack optimism?
We are hyper-critical of our town. When people move here from other places, they are often asked why they would choose kansas city. What image does that project to newcomers and visitors?

I moved to the area from Southern California about a year ago. I visited here several times before moving, and always had the impression the people here were very proud of KC. After the move, I was a little taken aback by people's reaction to my move. They did seem a little doubtful when they asked if I like it here. I think the weather is mainly the concern. I do understand that, but there is also a flip side to not having seasons. Imagine going through Christmases as a child without ever having seen snow!

We have a serious inferiority complex to outsiders. "We like it here, do you think its lame that we like it here? Do you like it here? Really? Whew!"

[chaglang]

We have a serious inferiority complex to outsiders. "We like it here, do you think its lame that we like it here? Do you like it here? Really? Whew!"

That's true, but I've also seen in in every city I've lived in. The only exception was NYC.

There are two conversations KC people have with outsiders. With tourists, we don't seem to know how to talk about itself apart from barbeque and the Plaza. Maybe that's because it's been drilled into our heads from a young age. It's better than it was (go visit the Stamboat Arabia Museum, BTW), but there is some genuine befuddlement as to why someone would take a vacation here, even among the most pro-KC residents.

The conversation with new transplants is totally different. It's much more confident. It winds through neighborhoods, parks, events, and gets into the quality of life that makes people proud of the city. Frankly, it's a better conversation, because you get to talk about things like eating lunch on the steps of the Nelson or lying on the grass in front of the Liberty Memorial and listening to the Symphony play on the 4th of July. The best things about KC are things that have to be experienced over more than a few days.