Kansas City's Twin is Nashville says analysis

[langosta]

i forgot about this thread, the nashvegas transit vote of course failed:


transitfornashville.com

nashville really needed this.

It would be nice if we started thinking about something like this for 10-15 years from now.

[beermestrength]

I'm guessing Nashville's City Council doesn't torpedo development for political gain.

[kcjak]

Interesting that Nashville's zoning prevented downtown residential until the 1990s.

[KCLover]

Found a webcam for the Nashville yards project and was amazed at how many cranes are up in the distance.

[kboish]

Yup. I'd say KC people generally have no idea how much other cities' are growing. We pale in comparison. And the pipeline is looking pretty dry.

[rxlexi]

Yup. I'd say KC people generally have no idea how much other cities' are growing. We pale in comparison. And the pipeline is looking pretty dry.

Yep, 100%. Unbelievable the recent attitude we're seeing in the Star and the beginning of the current mayoral administration (to be fair, still very early).

[GRID]

Yup. I'd say KC people generally have no idea how much other cities' are growing. We pale in comparison. And the pipeline is looking pretty dry.

This is so true. I keep seeing people talk about "crane counts" in KC and I just have to laugh. There are never more than a few tower cranes up at the same time in KC. Even now, KC is a pretty slow growth place.

Having said that, I just spent the weekend there and while the same things about KC still bug me (mostly just a lack of bustle, traffic, pedestrians etc), the city has a unique buzz and charm that cities like Denver, Charlotte, Minneapolis and Nashville can't touch.

The built environment in KC is one of the best in America and with the infill development (rapid by kc standard), it's getting better every year. I took a ton of pics and will post them somewhere soon, but I wouldn't get too worked up comparing KC to places like Nashville.

My concern for KC right now is that the local political environment there is going to slow growth before it has really even started to gain traction compared to many peer cities. Local people in KC are already using words like over gentrification etc when KC is not really having those types of problems. And of course the business community is just not there in KC. KC pretty much has no real "major" corporate presence downtown that is really making a difference. Honestly, Cordish is probably the single biggest corporation that is really doing a lot of major investment and maintaining multiple blocks at a high standard and KCMO city hall and many residents are on the verge of running them out of town.

Anyway, KC is still a cool place and still totally under the national radar. Someday it might become popular nationally and you might actually see some real office towers go up like you see in just about every city except KC right now. (still WAY too much office space going up in suburbs). But till then, the organic growth that KC does have is pretty awesome and it's enough to compete with just about any city out there. You just have to know the city.

Oh and the crossroads hotel is probably the best hotel I have seen anywhere in any city. That's one awesome place.