Sadly, I can't disagree with Grid on this. We are so spread out that much smaller cities actually have better downtown streetlife.Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 8:58 amYeah, no. Compared to any city in the Midwest of a similar size that I’ve been to, KC absolutely blows the others out of the water. The core has a significantly higher bustle factor as compared to even just 5 years ago, and if you’re going to compare KC to other spots, at least make them places with comparable metro populations and densities.GRID wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 2:11 amI love KC, but if you think it's a very active city, you don't get out much. I'm sorry if the truth hurts. But KC feels like a very "empty" city for a large city most of the time. That's just how the city is. It has small pockets of activity, but for the most part, it's just not a very busy city and the same goes for the parks etc. I mean have you spent time in the parks in Austin or Minneapolis or Denver or even St Louis? And KC does have a high percentage of "blight".TheUrbanRoo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2024 12:17 am
He thinks literally everything in KC is either dead or blighted. I stopped engaging with him years ago.
I'm sorry this is so offensive. Doesn't mean KC is a terrible place by any stretch. But on the surface and to most people when the visit it for the first time, the city still lacks "people" and the urban core lacks any real urban bustle. Nearly every video of KC on youtube is full of comments of people asking "where are the people?" "it looks like a very quiet place". It's a photogenic city from the air etc, but from the street level, it's empty in most places (compared to central urban areas of other large cities).
If you don't see this, then you don't get out of KC much.
Stop taking shit so personal. Maybe KC could improve some things if people there would even acknowledge some things about it. It's like the area around the stadiums. It's like people don't even realize how bad that area looks now and if you say something like I do, then you are the bad person.
Springfield, MO and Lawrence are college towns who's bar district is downtown, but South Street (Spfd) and Mass St both have better streetlife than any street KC has downtown.
OKC and Wichita both have downtown adjacent bar districts vs Westport being 5 miles away.
Memphis has Beale St and an NBA team downtown. San Antonio has the riverwalk, Our up and coming similar metro population peers of Austin, Portland, and Nashville blow us away. What peers besides dying rust belt cities can we even say we are better than? Tulsa?, that's not something to brag about having a similar streetlife with....
We have little pockets of life at City Market(on Saturdays when the weather is above 60) , Crossroads (only on first Fridays) and westport and the plaza on a more regular basis but these areas are all disconnected and spread out. I think the streetcar extension will really help connect these areas and eventually create more synergy around the stations and between the areas (at least give tourists using the streetcar a better impression of the city). We have a TON of potential along the extended streetcar route and if baseball moves to the Crossroads it will massively help spur this into a streetlife corridor at least during the summers.
First Fridays for 2 hours per month is what major cities feel like on a Tuesday afternoon.