Kansas City is no longer just a "Cowtown"! (California: transplants, house)

[Versatile]

www.kansascity.com | 01/13/2008 | Renewal puts Kansas City in the national spotlight (broken link)

Whoot! Whoot!

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by Versatile

www.kansascity.com | 01/13/2008 | Renewal puts Kansas City in the national spotlight (broken link)

Whoot! Whoot!

Kansas City is a wonderful city! The surrounding 'burbs also offer terrific communities. IMO, KCMO has been "undiscovered" by the rest of the nation and perhaps that is not a bad thing.

Here in Charlotte, NC, we have been discovered and our infrastructure cannot keep up w/ the growth. We are having the Great Northeast Migration going on here.

I loved living in the KCMO metro area . . . and didn't want to leave . . . but w/ a job opp back in NC and being a native of NC w/ family here . . . we moved to Charlotte. However, I miss KCMO area and make trips back whenever I can.

Anyone who is unaware of what the KCMO region has to offer . . . just has not checked it out! Wonderful people, great COL, reasonable housing, terrific neighborhoods, great school systems throughout the region . . .

I get very sad every Thanksgiving b/c I miss the Plaza Lights! We have flown into KCMO on cheapie flights in the past - just to enjoy the Plaza for a few days at Christmas.

KCMO has a more developed infrastructure, especially w/ highway system as compared to the Charlotte area, so perhaps an influx of newbies to that area won't impact things as it has here. Also, more mature outlying 'burbs. Charlotte has experienced urban sprawl and it has been quite rapid.

I hope if Kansas City gets the recognition the area so rightly deserves - that the area will not experience the strain on resources that NC has had due to the sudden arrival of so many transplants!

[Jimmy Burma]

Hey, quiet down now. We don't want all those North Easterner's coming over here raising the rents. It's just not worth it to be so hip or newsworthy and have the rents increase triple fold in half a decade now is it?

Actually, we know we don't have to worry about that...Kansas City, though it is a great city and will get the occasional glowing write up yet I highly doubt that we'll have a mass exodous of folks from either coast bombarding our borders any time soon. I think it's still gonna be quite awhile.

[RichMonk]

I don't mind some glowing accounts of KCMO once in a while. It helps to have a healthy influx of newcomers. It keeps the economy growing and helps improvements along. However, I agree with Jimmy Burma that I don't want so much acclaim that the smug comes in and hangs over the city forcing everyone to eat tofu, rasing home prices to unreasonable levels, stimulating overgrowth, tearing down beautiful small old homes for huge fugly McMansions, and just killing the Midwestern charm we all love.

Though, I doubt any of that will ever happen (fingers crossed).

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

I don't mind some glowing accounts of KCMO once in a while. It helps to have a healthy influx of newcomers. It keeps the economy growing and helps improvements along. However, I agree with Jimmy Burma that I don't want so much acclaim that the smug comes in and hangs over the city forcing everyone to eat tofu, rasing home prices to unreasonable levels, stimulating overgrowth, tearing down beautiful small old homes for huge fugly McMansions, and just killing the Midwestern charm we all love.

Though, I doubt any of that will ever happen (fingers crossed).

KC is filled with McMansions just like every other fast growing metro. I wouldn't buy any house built in the last 20 years there for the most part (especially in JOCO).

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

KC is filled with McMansions just like every other fast growing metro. I wouldn't buy any house built in the last 20 years there for the most part (especially in JOCO).

From my distant view of things here in Chicago, it seems that the Urban Core of KC is still free of big rashes of teardowns to McMansions. JoCo is a given...I grew up there and can't stand the monotony of it, though I get why people still build and buy them.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

I don't mind some glowing accounts of KCMO once in a while. It helps to have a healthy influx of newcomers. It keeps the economy growing and helps improvements along. However, I agree with Jimmy Burma that I don't want so much acclaim that the smug comes in and hangs over the city forcing everyone to eat tofu, rasing home prices to unreasonable levels, stimulating overgrowth, tearing down beautiful small old homes for huge fugly McMansions, and just killing the Midwestern charm we all love.

Though, I doubt any of that will ever happen (fingers crossed).

Eating tofu? Sounds like you're referring primarily to the West Coast and California in particular.

As a Califoreigner who will be moving to MO in the next few months I can't dispute anything you said. The small, residential island I grew up on in Southern CA was filled with 1940s and '50s, custom Mediterranean homes, cottages and bungalows. Gorgeous, original architecture. The last time I visited, 12 years ago, the new trend was for people to purchase two, side-by-side homes, tear them down and build a new and, in my opinion, ugly McMansion on the adjoining lots.

You definitely d0on't want that happening in KC or anywhere else in MO.

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Eating tofu? Sounds like you're referring primarily to the West Coast and California in particular.

Hehe, mostly joking...nothing against tofu really...just tired of people trying to convince me its better than meat. While I agree a lot of commercial farms produce some atrocious meats there are those that raise their farm animals properly and that meat is chock full of Omega 3 and other good stuff that is severely diminished in your run of the mill piece of meat.

But yeah, teardown practices scare the heck out of me. I think I am part of a small but growing group of people who recognize that we, or our families, don't need 5000 square feet of space to waste energy heating, cooling and maintaining sparsely used space. I've never quite understood the bigger is better mentality. To me it sounds like people are behaving like cancer.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

Hehe, mostly joking...nothing against tofu really...just tired of people trying to convince me its better than meat. While I agree a lot of commercial farms produce some atrocious meats there are those that raise their farm animals properly and that meat is chock full of Omega 3 and other good stuff that is severely diminished in your run of the mill piece of meat.

But yeah, teardown practices scare the heck out of me. I think I am part of a small but growing group of people who recognize that we, or our families, don't need 5000 square feet of space to waste energy heating, cooling and maintaining sparsely used space. I've never quite understood the bigger is better mentality. To me it sounds like people are behaving like cancer.

Good analogy the way the over-sized homes are spreading and taking over. I think it's all conspicuous consumption and snob value. My worth is not wrapped up in the size of our home. It's how welcoming our home is to us and to our guests.

For the record, I can't stand tofu!

[TabulaRasa]

I truly prefer the city I live in to be underrated and a more hidden treasure.