Maybe if Kansas didn't recently give away 120 million dollars, they could afford a few million to keep the buses going. (Kansas City: upper-class, sublease)
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To be fair kcmo, I do think it's crazy that government is getting in the business of corporate welfare. Then again, I also think it's crazy that government is getting into many other things like building zoos, building nightlife districts at the expense of privately built nightlife, handing out money to stadium owners, new arenas, light rail, and personal welfare so that poor people have no incentive to look for work.
Clearly Kansas, not only the governments, but many people, are making money from this deal or else they wouldn't be doing it, plain and simple. 120 million may be a waste of taxpayer money, but it sounds like a much better waste of money relative to the billions that KC spends on frivolous attractions while failing to address the basics. Johnson County has everything except good nightlife, as they address the basics first: schools, roads, parks, crime, etc. Not to mention a ton of well-paying jobs, so it's hard to say that this practice only benefits a small elite class. Also, not all the jobs come from across the state line. Some come from California (such as my mother's job), and others are just the firms there growing.
You say that most of KS is struggling, and yes I agree to that. However by focusing on JoCo they've made the best of a really tough situation, not having anything remotely attractive to people, yet finding a way to have economic and population growth. Sure people are leaving rural KS, Wichita, and Topeka, but those places were never that great in the first place. I'll bet many of them are moving to JoCo and/or Lawrence.
It boils down to hatred of anything KS. For whatever reasons (the wizard of oz?) KS has ALWAYS been the primary bashing target of the national media, even though other states (Missouri for one) are much more redneck and backwards, and other states are flatter and/or more barren. And the whole evolution fiasco in the media was pretty overblown too... only a very few (NOT in western KS either) wanted the creation in public schools thing, and the measure was quickly removed but anyway. Many on the MO side hate anything having to do with Kansas, and/or Johnson County, and some of it I'm sure is jealousy. I work on the MO side and constantly get trashed and treated like crap because I live in and am from Johnson County.
This is not to say JoCo is perfect, either. See my very controversial thread, and some of the core topics there apply to joco as well (not as much the crazy mind games while driving or as much of the passive-aggressiveness, but certainly the lack of branching out applies to joco too). I imagine some of this may be changing too as more transplants move in.
As for the media bashing..... many celebrities and media people are either from, or have started their careers, in either rural KS, MO, or the KC area. I'm talking Brian Williams, Rush Limbaugh, and the 500+ celebrities listed on imdb as having come from the KC area. These are people that I assume see the whole area the way I do, got out by being very career focused, and then bashing their hometown at every possibility. Though obviously KC is not a complete brain drain, as we have a ton of engineering/IT jobs that do bring in some transplants.
To Though obviously KC is not a complete brain drain, as we have a ton of engineering/IT jobs that do bring in some transplants.
I think personalities of metros become more alligned when they have a large amount of IT and engineering types of jobs because they tend to attract people with certain types of personalities as was mentioned on other threads. This would likely be more applicable to JOCO.
To be fair kcmo, I do think it's crazy that government is getting in the business of corporate welfare. Then again, I also think it's crazy that government is getting into many other things like building zoos, building nightlife districts at the expense of privately built nightlife, handing out money to stadium owners, new arenas, light rail, and personal welfare so that poor people have no incentive to look for work.
Clearly Kansas, not only the governments, but many people, are making money from this deal or else they wouldn't be doing it, plain and simple. 120 million may be a waste of taxpayer money, but it sounds like a much better waste of money relative to the billions that KC spends on frivolous attractions while failing to address the basics. Johnson County has everything except good nightlife, as they address the basics first: schools, roads, parks, crime, etc. Not to mention a ton of well-paying jobs, so it's hard to say that this practice only benefits a small elite class. Also, not all the jobs come from across the state line. Some come from California (such as my mother's job), and others are just the firms there growing.
You say that most of KS is struggling, and yes I agree to that. However by focusing on JoCo they've made the best of a really tough situation, not having anything remotely attractive to people, yet finding a way to have economic and population growth. Sure people are leaving rural KS, Wichita, and Topeka, but those places were never that great in the first place. I'll bet many of them are moving to JoCo and/or Lawrence.
It boils down to hatred of anything KS. For whatever reasons (the wizard of oz?) KS has ALWAYS been the primary bashing target of the national media, even though other states (Missouri for one) are much more redneck and backwards, and other states are flatter and/or more barren. And the whole evolution fiasco in the media was pretty overblown too... only a very few (NOT in western KS either) wanted the creation in public schools thing, and the measure was quickly removed but anyway. Many on the MO side hate anything having to do with Kansas, and/or Johnson County, and some of it I'm sure is jealousy. I work on the MO side and constantly get trashed and treated like crap because I live in and am from Johnson County.
This is not to say JoCo is perfect, either. See my very controversial thread, and some of the core topics there apply to joco as well (not as much the crazy mind games while driving or as much of the passive-aggressiveness, but certainly the lack of branching out applies to joco too). I imagine some of this may be changing too as more transplants move in.
As for the media bashing..... many celebrities and media people are either from, or have started their careers, in either rural KS, MO, or the KC area. I'm talking Brian Williams, Rush Limbaugh, and the 500+ celebrities listed on imdb as having come from the KC area. These are people that I assume see the whole area the way I do, got out by being very career focused, and then bashing their hometown at every possibility. Though obviously KC is not a complete brain drain, as we have a ton of engineering/IT jobs that do bring in some transplants.
Nobody in MO is "jealous" of KS. Trust me. There is nothing about JoCo that even remotely interests me and to most people it’s just a nice suburb, nothing more. If so many people were jealous, they would live there rather than commute there every day from all over the MO side suburbs and the central city.
People don’t like JoCo because if you live in KC even for even a short period of time, you will notice that you are considered second class by JoCo people if you don’t live there and that is not just MO side people, but people in just about every other county in Kansas as well. That plus the poaching and freeloading just annoys people in MO. JoCo people think they are better than everybody else or at least JoCo is better. They really take that JO on their license plate to mean something, but at the same time take full advantage of your side of town as they please without any financial contribution. (yes they buy tickets, I know).
Also, I would agree that rural MO might be just a tad more redneck than rural KS. Only when you compare southern MO though. MO between KC and STL is about the same as KS is between KC and Salina. As far as the KC area, it’s ridiculous to say the MO side is more redneck. First off, the MO side it where the “CITY” is. Urban KC is in MO, you know where the high-rise condos, museums, office towers, entertainment districts etc. All that city stuff that KS doesn’t even have. Is the plaza redneck? Cause the village west area sure does feel a bit neck to me and that’s in KS.
Now JoCo itself is mostly big city suburbia, I will agree with that. Although it can be pretty redneck/blue collar in many parts like parts of Olathe and the fringes of the county. But the KS side of KC also includes Wyandotte and Leavenworth and Miami counties, all of which can be just as redneck/(blue collar is the better adjective) as anything in MO. People love to compare JoCo to places like Independence, when comparing KS to MO, but you never hear them compare KCK to Lee’s Summit or Parkville. It’s whatever makes them look best. Brookside is not redneck, but bonner springs sure is so that means KS is more redneck than MO!
Much of Jackson County is urban and white collar suburban even though its burbs do have more blue collar than JoCo, Platte County is very much like JoCo etc.
Basically it’s about the same across the metro when it comes to white collar/blue collar etc. The only difference once again is that the MO side is much less segregated where KS has all of its most impressive demos living in a single county with nobody else, which makes that one county shine statistically even while the the rest of the KS side and most of the rest of the state is on the other end of the spectrum.
So basically the only county in KS people seem to claim is nothing more than a suburb of MO that gets everything from its culture and entertainment to the companies that fill its office parks to its freaking national identity (kcmo)....from Missouri. Yet they look down on MO. So yea, it's not jeoulousy.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but as far as which side of the immediate metro is more "redneck", I definitely think the Missouri suburbs are - all of them, but there's nothing wrong with that. I think there's something more wrong with a place that snubs those type of people. I also think rural Missouri is a tad more redneck too, which makes sense being much of Missouri is where the South tapers out. I'll also add that I think redneck and blue-collar are not exactly interchangeable. Redneck is rural and comes in all sorts of income levels. (Remember the user Nota on the Rag who lived in an upscale Parkville subdivision but talked about her rural connections and F350?). And blue-collar folks can be quite urban.
Nobody in MO is "jealous" of KS. Trust me. There is nothing about JoCo that even remotely interests me and to most people it’s just a nice suburb, nothing more. If so many people were jealous, they would live there rather than commute there every day from all over the MO side suburbs and the central city.
People don’t like JoCo because if you live in KC even for even a short period of time, you will notice that you are considered second class by JoCo people if you don’t live there and that is not just MO side people, but people in just about every other county in Kansas as well. That plus the poaching and freeloading just annoys people in MO. JoCo people think they are better than everybody else or at least JoCo is better. They really take that JO on their license plate to mean something, but at the same time take full advantage of your side of town as they please without any financial contribution. (yes they buy tickets, I know).
Also, I would agree that rural MO might be just a tad more redneck than rural KS. Only when you compare southern MO though. MO between KC and STL is about the same as KS is between KC and Salina. As far as the KC area, it’s ridiculous to say the MO side is more redneck. First off, the MO side it where the “CITY” is. Urban KC is in MO, you know where the high-rise condos, museums, office towers, entertainment districts etc. All that city stuff that KS doesn’t even have. Is the plaza redneck? Cause the village west area sure does feel a bit neck to me and that’s in KS.
Now JoCo itself is mostly big city suburbia, I will agree with that. Although it can be pretty redneck/blue collar in many parts like parts of Olathe and the fringes of the county. But the KS side of KC also includes Wyandotte and Leavenworth and Miami counties, all of which can be just as redneck/(blue collar is the better adjective) as anything in MO. People love to compare JoCo to places like Independence, when comparing KS to MO, but you never hear them compare KCK to Lee’s Summit or Parkville. It’s whatever makes them look best. Brookside is not redneck, but bonner springs sure is so that means KS is more redneck than MO!
Much of Jackson County is urban and white collar suburban even though its burbs do have more blue collar than JoCo, Platte County is very much like JoCo etc.
Basically it’s about the same across the metro when it comes to white collar/blue collar etc. The only difference once again is that the MO side is much less segregated where KS has all of its most impressive demos living in a single county with nobody else, which makes that one county shine statistically even while the the rest of the KS side and most of the rest of the state is on the other end of the spectrum.
So basically the only county in KS people seem to claim is nothing more than a suburb of MO that gets everything from its culture and entertainment to the companies that fill its office parks to its freaking national identity (kcmo)....from Missouri. Yet they look down on MO. So yea, it's not jeoulousy.
Most people I know who were born in Missouri and still live there are anxious to get OUT as quickly as they can. The many parts of Missouri I have seen and experienced are dirty, crime riddled, full of major drug use and corruption and it appears to me (my opinion only) that there are a lot of batpoop crazy humans who live in Missouri and NONE of them can drive worth a tinkers damn.
Trust me NO ONE I know is jealous of ANYONE who lives in Missouri or moved out of Missouri.
Most people I know who were born in Missouri and still live there are anxious to get OUT as quickly as they can. The many parts of Missouri I have seen and experienced are dirty, crime riddled, full of major drug use and corruption and it appears to me (my opinion only) that there are a lot of batpoop crazy humans who live in Missouri and NONE of them can drive worth a tinkers damn.
Trust me NO ONE I know is jealous of ANYONE who lives in Missouri or moved out of Missouri.
That says it all. Which part that you've seen is the worst and what is it you saw? How did you see drug use?
So weird. I'm not from Missouri OR Kansas. I moved to the KC metro (city itself initially, now Lee's Summit) from Illinois, where I lived both extremely rurally, and in Chicago's urban core. To say that either Kansas OR Missouri is more "redneck" than the other is laughable. Both states are essentially MOSTLY rural communities and small towns, geographically. To the average suburban lifers and urban dwelling advocates, this makes predominant portions of each state "redneck." Whether or not "redneck" is an accurate descriptor for people when you base it mostly on pickup truck ownership, preference for sportsman leisure pursuits, and whether or not there is a Bed, Bath, and Beyond or a chain cafe with WiFi connectivity within twenty minutes of a given dwelling place is another debate altogether, of course.
And saying you live in the "most urbane, sophisticated communities" in Kansas and Missouri is, in the eyes of much of the rest of the country, a bit like saying you live in the most luxuriously appointed mobile home, anyway. Sorry, but it's true. It's not MY feeling, but on the occasions that I do see somebody getting on their high horse about living in Leawood or Overland Park, with a tone that implies that it's practically Palm Beach, I have to roll my eyes. I also have to giggle at people online who trot out their "Johnson County" cred and pedigree and conveniently don't mention that they live in a raised ranch in Olathe virtually indistinguishable from one in south Kansas City or Liberty or Belton, shockingly, NOT a two million dollar listing in Mission Hills.
The Missouri/Kansas animosity that I see as a transplant (which, as I've noted, I see far more virulently on online forums than ANYwhere in day-to-day life) isn't about Missouri vs. Kansas, anyway. It's about suburbs bashing city, and suburbs AND city together bashing rural/small town lifestyles. It's not any different than other settings in other states where I've lived, where hardcore suburban lifestyle proponents can't imagine why anybody would want to live in the big, fat, nasty, filthy city, and where neither they nor the true urban dwellers can think how anybody would choose to live in a less populated area.
I work with a majority of young adults from KS side suburbs. Can't speak to the middle-aged suburban dwellers in JoCo, as I don't really know any, but in that demographic, half the people I know in Johnson County grew up in places like Baldwin City, Eudora, Lawrence, Oskaloosa, etc., anyway. They're just small town people, not idiot pod people who are afraid that crossing over State Line means being ripped to shreds by gangbangers and meth heads and people with NRA stickers on their F350s. They certainly don't find anywhere in the KC metro, Missouri-side or otherwise, to be anymore "redneck" than the parts of Kansas from which THEY hail.
And rural folks are not necessarily redneck, of course. I'm not, and have spent about 70% of my life rurally. I wouldn't say rural = redneck, redneck = rural. Everyone in my family has college degrees/continued degrees, we mostly work in education/higher education and journalism, we don't farm, hunt, fish, listen to country music routinely, or ride ATVs, we all vote Democrat, and we have all our teeth! Yet, we all enjoyed growing up on a gravel road and learned to ride a pony before we learned to ride bikes, had to drive 60 miles to get to the nearest Pottery Barn, and were okay with that. Shocker.
I think the small town demographic you speak of that live in JoCo are actually MORE likely to be the ones that respect, interact and are actually moving to urban kcmo from joco. It's the long time JoCo "middle aged" people that seem to have the most animosity toward kcmo (or anything MO, so it's not just suburban vs urban) and that often will carry down to their children, sometimes. If your parents have little good to say about the city, it's easy for you to grow up and do the same. I have dealt with people from JoCo in every demographic for a very long time and it's the ones that have actually been in the county for a generation that seem to be so anti kcmo. Nearly everybody I have known that lived in JoCo that came from a small Kansas town were totally cool about KC and open to the city. Actually, a lot of them have migrated to urban kcmo and mo side suburbs since initially moving to JoCo.
The same can be said for the people I know in JoCo from other areas of the country. All seem cool with KCMO and would agree with me on nearly all of my ideals. They would love to see more regional cooperation etc and really have nothing but good things to say about the city or any other part of the metro.
These people have a hard time overcoming the much more vocal crowd of of JoCo people that have been there a long time and seem to have brainwashed themselves into thinking that JoCo is god's gift to the planet and KCMO is nothing short of hell on earth that they must drive through to get to the zoo or a ballgame.
I have always thought just the idea of a Kansas person calling Missouri redneck as hilarious. That's like NYC people calling Chicago urban. Colorado saying Utah has mountain people etc. I heard it all the time. Some hayseed that lives in Olathe telling me (a person that didn't see a farm field till I was 17 and grew up within walking distance of the plaza) that Missouri is redneck. Same deal in college. Nearly everybody in the bigger MO colleges are from KC and StL metros. What is the general demographic of K-State? quite different. Even KU, which is JoCo's baby, has a ton of outstate rural kids (that get annoyed by the JoCo mentality as well).
The KC area is not redneck at all. The tiny parts that are, but they are pretty evenly split between the states. (western wyco, parts of cass etc). Some of the KC area is blue collar though. Raytown, Independence, KCK, Olathe etc. Just because you work at the Ford plant and not Sprint doesn't make you a redneck. I have worked with a lot of people from both sides of the state line and the people into hunting, fishing, nascar, college sports fanatics etc were always nearly evenly split from KS vs MO.
All these little comments add up. Schools are bad, roads are bad, missouri is redneck, missouri is all crime and thugs, you would live in KS if you could afford it etc. Kansas people will say these things as a little side jokes, but after a while, it starts to rub you the wrong way and you start to realize they actually mean it because you hear it so often. That's why you will often get rolled eyes when you tell somebody in MO you are from JoCo.
And that does sucks for all the people that live there that don't deserve it and they might begin to resent MO people. It's a vicious cycle I know. But things like poaching kcmo companies and refusing to cooperate with MO side issues in anyway only adds fuel to the fire. So the good people of JoCo need to stand up to their selfish leaders and anti kcmo friends in joco and try to understand that all MO has ever wanted was a little respect and cooperation. They are not jealous.
Another funny thing, CSD610's analysis of Missouri could soooo easily be applied to their longed-for Tennessee. Drug use, crime, dirty...
Maybe they haven't actually been there yet.
Also, Kansas and Missouri are virtual twinkies in terms of redneck culture, rural culture, blah, blah, blah. Missouri has some hillbilly culture in the south (not an insult), but is not any more redneck... however you want to define that.
All these state have more in common culturally than not.
Last edited by northbound74; 05-17-2012 at 11:44 AM..
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