Which City feels larger:Kansas City or St.Lous? (cons, market, south)
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I've lived in both as an adult and am not from either one. I live in KC now but my in laws live in St Louis so I visit several times a year.
15 years ago, I'd have said they were comparable cities in terms of vibrancy, growth, economy, etc. St Louis is bigger and more urban but KC is newer and superior from a layout perspective. KC has come a long ways in the last 10-15 years though and I'd say it is a superior city and metro to St Louis. St Louis has a lot going for it too and is starting to improve in a lot of areas.
Clayton and the west county highway farty corridor have really hurt the city imo. KC has some of that with the business parks in JoCo KS and the MO side burbs.
(emphasis added)
I've got to find some way to use that phrase in something I write.
Definitely St Louis, after visiting both many times I can say that. After looking at the population decline in St. Louis, and the crime rate I was expecting a sad city, but I was very suprised by how vibrant, and city like it felt. Not to mention St Louis County suburbs such as Clauton I was simply suprised that a city of that size had all that.
When I went to Kansas City I was more disappointed the central city area was pretty dead. I actually did enjoy the plaza area, and westport while I was there.
What really made me fall in love with St. Louis was the Forest Park, the drive down I-270, and the loop area which really made the city feel bigger than it was. Both great cities, but Kansas City is more spread out and OKC feeling. While St Louis feels more like Cincinnati.
Definitely St Louis, after visiting both many times I can say that. After looking at the population decline in St. Louis, and the crime rate I was expecting a sad city, but I was very suprised by how vibrant, and city like it felt. Not to mention St Louis County suburbs such as Clauton I was simply suprised that a city of that size had all that.
When I went to Kansas City I was more disappointed the central city area was pretty dead. I actually did enjoy the plaza area, and westport while I was there.
What really made me fall in love with St. Louis was the Forest Park, the drive down I-270, and the loop area which really made the city feel bigger than it was. Both great cities, but Kansas City is more spread out and OKC feeling. While St Louis feels more like Cincinnati.
KC doesn't make you feel anything. When we got out and experience the city is when we had our fun.
Many people don't expect St. Louis to have the thriving neighborhoods or an over all healthy qol because it looks so bad on paper with the declining population and crime stats or when people visit 2 or 3 blocks of DT during in the winter and say the core is dead.
What makes a city is a diverse economy to the point not everyone is chasing the same dollar, exciting neighborhoods, sense of place, ability to get around, nightlife, parks and culture. Both KC and STL has plenty of the above but St Louis offers more of it because of built environment and larger urban area and msa.
With that being written, I don't think one could love one without atleast liking the other.
When I said StL feels bigger, I mean the metro area. I honestly think the urban cores of the cities are very close today. You act like KC has nothing outside of Downtown. This is all outside the Downtown Loop:
When I said StL feels bigger, I mean the metro area. I honestly think the urban cores of the cities are very close today. You act like KC has nothing outside of Downtown. This is all outside the Downtown Loop:
All great areas, but speaking from experience with both cities that's just how I felt. Maybs it's due to St. Louis the city has more than three times the population desity. Heck, even St louis county is more dense than tbe city of Kansas City, and it feels like it
All great areas, but speaking from experience with both cities that's just how I felt. Maybs it's due to St. Louis the city has more than three times the population desity. Heck, even St louis county is more dense than tbe city of Kansas City, and it feels like it
St. Louis has a functioning light metro network.
Kansas City is slowly lurching towards having a streetcar line that serves as more than a downtown circulator.
I love my hometown to death, and before my Washington (now North Jersey) reporter friend and I returned to it in 2014, we had had some conversations along the lines of "you know, it might not be a bad idea if you went back there to live," in part because I had been going on about how much cooler my hometown had become when I had visited it in 2006.
(Relevant aside: He worked for the McClatchy Washington Bureau, and in that capacity had made more than a few visits to the city to talk with people at The Kansas City Star, the first newspaper I wrote for professionally and a McClatchy property now.)
When we got back, we stayed at a hotel my brother ran at the time near KCI.
The first full day we were there, as we were driving back from downtown to the hotel, having driven everywhere else we wanted to go, he turned to me and said, "So, Sandy, do you really think you want to come back here to live?"
"Hmmmmmmm....." was my response. We both chuckled after that.
(A second relevant point, driven home if you look at where all the neighborhoods kcmo listed are located on a map of the city: A good bit of that driving I did on the city's East Side, which is where I grew up, where just about all my cousins live and where my (now deceased) favorite uncle lived in his parents' house in a little patch of the city's southeast side whose white landowner deeded for black settlement decades before blacks were allowed to own homes anywhere south of 31st Street: my reporter friend had been to the city several times before, as I mentioned. He thanked me for showing him a Kansas City he knew nothing about as we drove over Bruce Watkins Drive on Meyer Boulevard. My Kansas City is the part not even many locals know or care much about.)
And a coda: I now have in my T-shirt collection one that I picked up on my visit there in the fall of 2016 for my 40th high school reunion, reporter friend in tow (I got to meet one of his fellow McClatchy Washington Bureau colleagues, who graduated from Pem-Day five years before I did; I knew this guy's brother, class ahead of mine, as well). I saw someone wearing it as we were waiting to begin the Boulevard Brewing Company tour and told him I wanted it; he in turn said he wanted the T-shirts the two of us were wearing (they said "Kansas As F**k").
His T-shirt, one of which I now have, read, "I lived in Kansas City BEFORE it was cool."
Definitely St Louis, after visiting both many times I can say that. After looking at the population decline in St. Louis, and the crime rate I was expecting a sad city, but I was very suprised by how vibrant, and city like it felt. Not to mention St Louis County suburbs such as Clauton I was simply suprised that a city of that size had all that.
When I went to Kansas City I was more disappointed the central city area was pretty dead. I actually did enjoy the plaza area, and westport while I was there.
What really made me fall in love with St. Louis was the Forest Park, the drive down I-270, and the loop area which really made the city feel bigger than it was. Both great cities, but Kansas City is more spread out and OKC feeling. While St Louis feels more like Cincinnati.
When did you visit? IMO KC nightlife and city neighborhoods are better than their STL counterparts and KC has a better young people scene. Everything in KC that you'd want to see as a visitor is really pretty close to each other, River Market south to Plaza or Brookside/Waldo. St Louis' cool areas are spread out with awful areas in between them.
Here’s an easy test— go on Google Earth and fly over both cities. If you still think KC feels bigger or more urban than St Louis, please post here so we can call a mental health professional for you. There is simply no contest, and Google Earth is the easiest, most impartial way to compare.
All great areas, but speaking from experience with both cities that's just how I felt. Maybs it's due to St. Louis the city has more than three times the population desity. Heck, even St louis county is more dense than tbe city of Kansas City, and it feels like it
Oh, I think St Louis feels much larger. St Louis is one of the more urban cities in the country, especially outside the coasts. I'm just saying central KC has some solid urbanity to it as well and it's well beyond the downtown core. And you can't even remotely look at KCMO's density stat unless you are drilling down to specific areas. the city has too much annexed land and even the original city limits is loaded with greeways, flood plains and huge industrial districts. KC's urban neighborhoods are quite dense (but not as dense as StL.) Metro StL blows metro KC away as far as density and continuous development. Metro KC is just super spread out. Again, much of this is due to geography (river valleys, flood plains, rough topography etc) but still, KC spreads out real quick once you leave the central urban core.
KC:
KC/StL
Last edited by kcmo; 02-17-2018 at 01:35 PM..
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