KCRag Forum

some of the neighborhoods of minneapolis as well as st. paul had a vaguely kansas city like feel. if kansas city had a bigger brother, it might be minneapolis/st. paul. kansas city is kind of like both minneapolis and st. paul together in a way.

i agree that KC feels very similar. if the "active" parts of broadway and main were pushed further north, they would have a definite "hennepin/lyndale" relationship to downtown ("uptown KC?"). to me the main/broadway corridor feels a lot like Uptown mpls, although midtown KC likely declined much further and now is more iffy.

i liked that in mpls there were a few 35-story weird commie-block towers outside of downtown, looming over random neighborhoods like eat street (or whatever).

On another thread Grid insists that KC is most similar to Cincinnati which i don't really see. I posted in that thread that KC is a lot like the Twin Cities, having went up to school in Minnesota I thought the two places have a lot of similarities

http://www.city-data.com/forum/kansas-c ... ar-kc.html

chrizow wrote:
i liked that in mpls there were a few 35-story weird commie-block towers outside of downtown, looming over random neighborhoods like eat street (or whatever).

Pretty sure those towers you are talking about are over by Augsburg University. I think its student apartments or some kind of dorms

Are these the buildings your talking about
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=augsburg ... 21,,0,8.59

yeah and also there are a couple near warwickland's photo of kramarczuk's.

brewcrew1000 wrote:On another thread Grid insists that KC is most similar to Cincinnati which i don't really see. I posted in that thread that KC is a lot like the Twin Cities, having went up to school in Minnesota I thought the two places have a lot of similarities

http://www.city-data.com/forum/kansas-c ... ar-kc.html

I think there are some superfical similarities between Cincy and KC, like metro size and a deco tower(s), but St. Louis and Cincy, once you strip away the geography and the urban renewal (if thats possible) in St. Louis, are far more cut from the same cloth. Both cities have strikingly similar vernaculars and insular social, religious/educational, and culinary quirks.

So flat compared to KC. Other than that, those pics looked very KC like. Those bike trails look like fun! (though maybe not too scenic)

warwickland wrote: I think there are some superfical similarities between Cincy and KC, like metro size and a deco tower(s), but St. Louis and Cincy, once you strip away the geography and the urban renewal (if thats possible) in St. Louis, are far more cut from the same cloth. Both cities have strikingly similar vernaculars and insular social, religious/educational, and culinary quirks.

I'm on record as disagreeing. I think there is a persuasive argument that culturally StL:Cleveland = KC:Cincy.

I wish Columbia was our Columbus.

But more to the point, I wish KC had more in common with Minneapolis than it does.

chingon wrote:

warwickland wrote: I think there are some superfical similarities between Cincy and KC, like metro size and a deco tower(s), but St. Louis and Cincy, once you strip away the geography and the urban renewal (if thats possible) in St. Louis, are far more cut from the same cloth. Both cities have strikingly similar vernaculars and insular social, religious/educational, and culinary quirks.

I'm on record as disagreeing. I think there is a persuasive argument that culturally StL:Cleveland = KC:Cincy.

I actually feel like the housing stock in Cleveland looks more like KC (where it is intact in Cleveland), and anecdotally I feel the people are friendlier in Cleveland than Cincy...KC isn't so easily compared to cities in Ohio, though, really. Plains cities (of which I lump KC in) are different animals than Ohio River valley type cities (which I feel like St. Louis is an outlier of culturally and even architecturally), and Great Lakes cities (KC seems to have some similarities with Great Lakes type cities just as much as river cities).

As well, Cincinnati is older than Cleveland, just as St. Louis is older than Kansas City. I don't think you can really do an urban Missouri to urban Ohio comparison that is remotely close unless you are just talking about St. Louis.

warwickland wrote:
I actually feel like the housing stock in Cleveland looks more like KC (where it is intact in Cleveland), and anecdotally I feel the people are friendlier in Cleveland than Cincy...KC isn't so easily compared to cities in Ohio, though, really. Plains cities (of which I lump KC in) are different animals than Ohio River valley type cities (which I feel like St. Louis is an outlier of culturally and even architecturally), and Great Lakes cities (KC seems to have some similarities with Great Lakes type cities just as much as river cities).

Totally agree about the housing stock and the architectural relationship with KC and the great lakes cities, but culturally Cleveland has the more brawny, industrial, enclavey history, with the same kind of population slip chip-on-shoulder that StL has and the history of being the big dominant city in the state. Cincy and KC have the same little-brother/country cousin syndrome, the same strange rednecky undercurrent, the same dominant neutral white ethnicities, and the same political atmosphere and suburban/urban ratios...just separated by about 50-75 years of development. As I pointed out before, north of McMillian and throughout its most successful urban hoods (Clifton, Hyde Park), Cincy looks a lot more like KC than either Cleveland or StL.

Hyde Park Cincy has a lot of homes that look straight from Clayton, Clifton Heights (StL City), or Maplewood here, too. Parts of Clayton and parts of St. Louis County also happen to feel a little like Kansas City in my opinion, architecturally and "street feel." Parts of North County feel straight like from the Eastside. So i'm not in disagreement that there are similarities to between Cincy and KC.

Here's a comparison of different areas.


http://www.cincinnatiohrealestate.net/i ... orhood.jpg


http://stlouispatina.files.wordpress.co ... nel007.jpg


They ask you where you went to high school in Cincy.

Maybe Cincy is lacking a "heavy" type urban aura, I think that the topography plays into that. Cincy comes off feeling remarkably "light" for an old river city, really. KC comes off the same way kind of, although it feels heavier than it's "doppleganger" Indy. St. Louis is strewn with old infrastructure with a topography that isn't flattering to neglect, somewhat similar to Cleveland, although Cleveland has a more varied topography than it's given credit for, just like St. Louis.


We could play this game for months probably.