Can someone explain the allure of Kansas City, MO? (St. Louis: section 8, 2013)

[MidWestCityNative]

Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash

Other then a reasonable cost of living, Jazz (if you like that sort of thing), and BBQ what's the attraction?

The attraction? Perhaps you haven't heard of the National WWI Museum at the Liberty Memorial? There's also Union Station, Crown Center, Nelson Atkins, KC Zoo, Worlds of Fun, Truman Library, etc. Aside from the stuff you mentioned, this is also what KC Pride is made of.

[Port Pitt Ash]

Originally Posted by MidWestCityNative

The attraction? Perhaps you haven't heard of the National WWI Museum at the Liberty Memorial? There's also Union Station, Crown Center, Nelson Atkins, KC Zoo, Worlds of Fun, Truman Library, etc. Aside from the stuff you mentioned, this is also what KC Pride is made of.

Sounds interesting. I just saw Patriots Point in Charleston, SC not long ago.

[NT Fellowship]

Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash

I hear an a lot about what a great place KC is. This is doubly true if you're talking about the Midwest. Often it seems to get listed right behind Minneapolis as one of the top spots.

But when I ask about the details people are surprisingly vague.

Granted the Country Club Plaza with its Seville, Spain like design is certainly surprising (even though most people don't mention it), it's hardly a thing to make a city a tourist magnet on its own).

It seems like the area has:

- A lot of crime
- High Taxes
- Poor water quality
- Extremes temperatures in both summer & winter
- Tornadoes
- So-so sports teams

The Power & Light District sounds interesting, yet tacky (and probably overpriced). A lot of people don't like malls so why would you want the nightlife equivalent?

Other then a reasonable cost of living, Jazz (if you like that sort of thing), and BBQ what's the attraction?

What are the major flaws?

What are the people like compared to the rest of the Midwest and in general?

Lived south of KC twice--once on the Kansas side for 2 years. once on the Missouri side for almost 7.
Best thing about KC? If you count the run-on cities like Blue Springs, Independence, etc., my wife would say unequivocally: THRIFT STORES!! Lots of 'em, mostly good prices, alot of quality items...
Other than that, I really don't know...

[MarketStEl]

KUDL was a pop music station when I was coming of age in Kansas City in the mid-1970s. And at that time, Westport had yet to happen, the River Quay's short first life was already coming to an end, and it seemed no one cared about the citu's rich jazz history. (I agree with the poster upthread who called jazz in KC a cultural legacy rather than an integral part of the contemporary entertainment scene: aside from the historic Mutual Musicians Foundation* and its legendary all-night weekly jam sessions and the events at the nearby Blue Room, part of the American Jazz Museum, it seems to me that there's not really all that much in the way of great jazz clubs in KC, certainly none like those in NYC or even the unmarket place near me on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia.

I left the city for college in New England and for good in 1976. I had an uncle who told me some years later that he knew I would never return there to live. When I visited KC 30 years later, the city had changed so much, I said to myaelf, "If I had to come back here to live, I think I could."

I feel that way even more strongly now, after a return trip this past August, with one major caveat: While driving around the city remains a breeze, I don't want to live in a city where one has to drive everywhere. Yes, I know there's the Metro (the KCATA, formed in 1969 from the remains of the successor to Kansas City Public Service Company - whose logo graces the PCC on display next to Union Station), but its service seems even less extensive than I remember it growing up, MAX on Main Street notwithstanding.

Besides, I didn't live near Main Street. I lived near Benton Boulevard, on the side of town I suspect most participants on this thread never venture into except to pass through on the way to the Truman Sports Complex. My neighborhood was a solid, middle-class black neighborhood in the 1960s and 1070s, and it still looked like that in the 1980s, but now, not even the trees that now form a canopy even more majestic than the one that Dutch elm disease destroyed over Benton Boulevard cannot mask the decay. There are two Kansas Cities, and I don't mean Missouri and Kansas; the divide is real, and everyone knows the significance of Troost Avenue. But I'd still take race relations in KC over those in most other large cities with sizable black communities - especially St. Louis - any day. (Which is not to say it's all hunky-dory, but it's not that bad.)

Just about everything else about the city lives up to its advance billing now. I'll grant that the P&L District is an improvement over the parking lots that it replaced, but I too prefer my nightlife organic rather than artificially fertilized. Give me Westport any day.

The famed park and boulevard system is inspired less by Rome and Paris than it is by the local terrain; notice how so many of the boulevards follow natural valleys and ridges? That was George Kessler's doing, beginning in the 1890s. The overgrown north bluffs need some TLC, however, so that the views from Cliff Drive can once again be appreciated. (I wonder if the Parks and Recreation Department could afford it if the city weren't dipping into the general fund to pay off that P&L District bond?) I agree that the parks and boulevards are also one of the city's true treasures, though.

BTW, I went to the city's best private school from 7th to 12th grade; the public schools hadn't begun their descent into awfulness yet (I got a decent education at William Rockhill Nelson Elementary; given my career path since, I consider the name of the school karmic - I cut my teeth on journalism at The Kansas City Star), but the seeds of the decline were being sown, largely by white parents who simply couldn't deal with the prospect of real integration. I don't know if the will exists to bring them back now, but if the city as a whole could transform itself from "it's a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there" to a place that wows the visitor as much as it offers pleasant living for the resident, then it should be able to right its schools.

[TabulaRasa]

The fact that driving/having access to a car is essentially a necessity for most is definitely something that makes a city like KC not for everybody.

Although I've lived in cities where a car is not needed, it's not a dealbreaker for me.

As far as turning the schools around, as an educator, I'm firmly of the opinion that efforts at the local level would not be nearly enough to effect any real change. KC's (and many urban areas') public ed issues are beyond what was created by - and beyond what can be fixed at - the local level. Much larger, more systemic issues in education in the U.S. as a whole have more than a thumbprint, here.

[Tenebrae]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I left the city for college in New England and for good in 1976. I had an uncle who told me some years later that he knew I would never return there to live. When I visited KC 30 years later, the city had changed so much, I said to myaelf, "If I had to come back here to live, I think I could."

[...snip...]

Besides, I didn't live near Main Street. I lived near Benton Boulevard, on the side of town I suspect most participants on this thread never venture into except to pass through on the way to the Truman Sports Complex. My neighborhood was a solid, middle-class black neighborhood in the 1960s and 1070s, and it still looked like that in the 1980s, but now, not even the trees that now form a canopy even more majestic than the one that Dutch elm disease destroyed over Benton Boulevard cannot mask the decay. There are two Kansas Cities, and I don't mean Missouri and Kansas; the divide is real, and everyone knows the significance of Troost Avenue. But I'd still take race relations in KC over those in most other large cities with sizable black communities - especially St. Louis - any day. (Which is not to say it's all hunky-dory, but it's not that bad.)

Very well written post! I also left Missouri and was sure I wouldn't ever come back. Last time I visited my folks in KCMO, I also thought, "If I had to come back here to live, I think I could."
And Benton...yes, I'm familiar with that area. My sister used to rent a place on Benton Blvd. It seemed slightly sketchy, what with the gang art and stories of bullet holes in the sides of houses, but I didn't really feel unsafe visiting it somehow. Well...except for her psycho abusive BF. Nothing a baseball bat wouldn't help with, though.
Maybe it was because I was still teenaged and "immortal".

-T.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Tenebrae

Very well written post! I also left Missouri and was sure I wouldn't ever come back. Last time I visited my folks in KCMO, I also thought, "If I had to come back here to live, I think I could."
And Benton...yes, I'm familiar with that area. My sister used to rent a place on Benton Blvd. It seemed slightly sketchy, what with the gang art and stories of bullet holes in the sides of houses, but I didn't really feel unsafe visiting it somehow. Well...except for her psycho abusive BF. Nothing a baseball bat wouldn't help with, though.
Maybe it was because I was still teenaged and "immortal".

-T.

Thanks for the compliment!

For what it's worth, the next-to-last time I ever set foot inside 4138 Bellefontaine Avenue, the home I grew up in, I noted what looked like buckshot-sized holes in the ceiling of my mother's bedroom.

I was informed that those got there while a cousin of mine lived in it; Mom was living in St. Louis at the time. Yes, it was a drive-by shooting, but what they were using pellets for mystifies me.

[Port Pitt Ash]

You know I think it's strange nobody ever mentions the underground or all the caves, which in my opinion are one of the cooler points of interest in the state.

[joshmvf]

Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash

You know I think it's strange nobody ever mentions the underground or all the caves, which in my opinion are one of the cooler points of interest in the state.

It seems to be getting some more attention lately. KCTV5 has been doing a series on it during the last month. Here's one...

KCTV5 uncovers Kansas City's underground - KCTV5

[TerriGernell]

Kansas City, in my opinion, is one of those places that sometimes you hate and sometimes you love it. I mean Kansas City has this untapped potential that draws in entrepreneurs and yet it is small and quaint enough to where, in some places, you would not mind raising a family. Its so hard to explain and I apologize if it feels like i am talking in circles. Kansas City is like a combination of suburban living and city living. Its small but dramatic, family friendly enough but has more than enough crime. There are things to see but not so much that it would get you in trouble and that it would track a buttload of tourist traffic. We have a rush hour, but it is nowhere near like that of NYC or Chicago. I also think KC gets this, "southern hospitality" name which... i dont know where that came from. It also probably has something to do with KC constantly trying to ... get a bigger city feel. So a lot of articles have began making it seem as though KC is a rising city which will always appeal people because they will start with "blank city is overrated, its really happening in blank city".

I hope i helped like... even a little bit.
Prob nots tho. sorry