Which category of the MId-Major Midwest should KC be included in? (manufacturing, health)

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by kcbluesprings

But couldn't we do the same thing to Missouri? There's at least 4 different ways we could slice and dice up the Show Me State. You have the western portion which includes Kansas City, St Joe, and everything in between which has more to do with the plains... you have the entire northern region above the Missouri River which tends to be more Iowa-esq... The eastern portion which has the River City- St. Louis flavor, and of course everything south of the Missouri River which is mostly the Ozarks. Without being too specific on the boundaries, these regions of Missouri seem to stand apart from one another...kinda like Oklahoma, or even Texas.

As far as what's Midwest, and what's not....details are a bit sketchy. There's a lot of variety, as far as physical topography, history, and cultural of an area that stretches from the western reaches of Kansas and Nebraska, to Eastern Ohio. From the Canadian Border down to the Southern Bootheel of Missouri. Personally, I think Kansas has nothing in common with Michigan and Ohio.

Sorry if I slightly veered off topic. I'm somewhat passionate about this discussion when it comes to Missouri and it's place in the Midwest.

Missouri is a hybrid with the largest metros having more in common with the Midwest. Northern Missouri is mostly like the Midwest but with strong southern influences. South-central Missouri is a more southern than midwestern, and southern and SE Missouri are more southern overall. Oklahoma is situated at a further south latitude than the majority of Missouri, so by default on latitude alone it has more in common with the South and Southwest than anywhere in the Midwest. Most of the Midwest is northern by default, not much of the South at all would be part of the region..

[Weaubleau]

I was shocked when I moved to Kansas City and met some people from Oklahoma, probably the northeast of OK, and they looked like Midwesterners, talked like Midwesterners, and considered themselves Midwesterners. I was actually shocked as I considered Oklahoma as southern as say, Arkansas or Tennessee. They, however did not see it that way, and I had NO preconceived notions that Oklahomans were considered Midwesterners, in fact the opposite!

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Weaubleau

I was shocked when I moved to Kansas City and met some people from Oklahoma, probably the northeast of OK, and they looked like Midwesterners, talked like Midwesterners, and considered themselves Midwesterners. I was actually shocked as I considered Oklahoma as southern as say, Arkansas or Tennessee. They, however did not see it that way, and I had NO preconceived notions that Oklahomans were considered Midwesterners, in fact the opposite!

People can label themselves whatever they want, it doesn't change culture, geography, climate, and other factors pertaining to Oklahoma, however. I've seen some Hoosiers that are Indiana natives label themselves southerners, but doesn't change the fact that Indiana is a Midwest state that isn't in the South.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

People can label themselves whatever they want, it doesn't change culture, geography, climate, and other factors pertaining to Oklahoma, however. I've seen some Hoosiers that are Indiana natives label themselves southerners, but doesn't change the fact that Indiana is a Midwest state that isn't in the South.

I bristle whenever I hear someone up my way call Missouri a Southern state.

But I also tell people that "Missouri is the nation in microcosm."

Nonetheless, despite its status as a cultural, topographical, social and economic salad, Missouri is firmly in the geographic Midwest.

[RisingAurvandil]

Tulsa and Omaha felt like smaller versions of KC. KC and StL also share a few similarities.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by RisingAurvandil

Tulsa and Omaha felt like smaller versions of KC. KC and StL also share a few similarities.

Actually, I wouldn't disagree, and one of the biggest of them many Kansas Citians overlook - and the population figures mask, as they include all the post-WWII growth the city prepared for by annexing as many of the cornfields that surrounded it on the Missouri side as it could in the years immediately following that war. (That annexation of land is the big difference that accounts for the two cities' differing overall fortunes.)

But I'd still like to hear what you think those similarities are.

[RisingAurvandil]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Actually, I wouldn't disagree, and one of the biggest of them many Kansas Citians overlook - and the population figures mask, as they include all the post-WWII growth the city prepared for by annexing as many of the cornfields that surrounded it on the Missouri side as it could in the years immediately following that war. (That annexation of land is the big difference that accounts for the two cities' differing overall fortunes.)

But I'd still like to hear what you think those similarities are.

Both are centered in Missouri and are divided between two states.
Both are major railroad, trading, and manufacturing hubs.
Similar climate, flora, and geography.
Delmar and Troost
...related issue with crime and blight.
Both are trampled in Jefferson City.
Similar suburban development. Layout, architecture, demographic staging.

They aren't a perfect match. But in the grand scheme of American cities, they share strong similarities.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by RisingAurvandil

Both are centered in Missouri and are divided between two states.
Both are major railroad, trading, and manufacturing hubs.
Similar climate, flora, and geography.
Delmar and Troost
...related issue with crime and blight.
Both are trampled in Jefferson City.
Similar suburban development. Layout, architecture, demographic staging.

They aren't a perfect match. But in the grand scheme of American cities, they share strong similarities.

Check, check, check, check (check), check and check.

What I was referring to was the total depopulation of a vast swath of their older built-up cores.

I remember being shocked to travel around the northwest part of St. Louis, not far from Goodfellow and I-70, in the early 1980s and seeing not a single structure still standing.

You can find the same thing in the old black residential district to the south of 18th and Vine in Kansas City. There's a sidebar I wrote to a long feature that ran in Next City in 2014 where I took a photo of the skyline from a point across from the old Lincoln High School. I would have been standing in someone's living room had I tried this when I was young.

[KSinmyrearviewmirror]

Interesting thread, for someone who worked in DoD & lived outside Detroit, STL & KC (have a sister in OKC); and grew up in Wichita (when it was Air Capital of The World). Surprised no one has mentioned the Military influence on these midwest cities, particularly still present in STL:

U.S. Air Force National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency/Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center/St. Louis Arsenal; Scott Air Force Base/U.S. Transportation Command (the base employs about 12,500 people, making it the seventh-largest employer in the metro area, according to the St. Louis Regional Chamber); U. S. Army Aviation and Troop Command/AVSCOM/AMCOM.

When we moved to Detroit in 1980, we were surprised to find they considered themselves midwesterners. They didn't feel anything like Kansans. 4 Detroit friends visited us in Manhattan, KS, in 1981. They thought things were "much, much slower."

@ DMAAC (formerly, AF Chart & Information Center) in STL (1981-85), there were ~ 1700 Top Secret cartographers (GS-11 & above), ~ 3400 employees total (AFAIK, Top Secret info); with the highest per capita training budget in the Fed. Govt. There was also a small outpost of ~ 150 in KC.

Detroit has the Tank Automotive Command. Wichita has McConnell AFB; OKC has Tinker AFB; Omaha , Offutt AFB. IMHO, Whitman AFB is not proximal to KC. I worked @ Ft. Leavenworth (1985-86). All the local merchants assumed that IF you didn't buy their goods, you could simply drive to KC; so I guess that makes it part of KC? It certainly has a much different impact on KC, than Ft. Riley (1998-2000) has on Manhattan.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by KSinmyrearviewmirror

Detroit has the Tank Automotive Command. Wichita has McConnell AFB; OKC has Tinker AFB; Omaha , Offutt AFB. IMHO, Whitman AFB is not proximal to KC. I worked @ Ft. Leavenworth (1985-86). All the local merchants assumed that IF you didn't buy their goods, you could simply drive to KC; so I guess that makes it part of KC? It certainly has a much different impact on KC, than Ft. Riley (1998-2000) has on Manhattan.

Whiteman AFB, IIRC, is in or near Knob Noster, which is far enough away from Kansas City to be out of its orbit. From 1952 until sometime in the 1990s, Kansas City had Richards-Gebaur AFB in Grandview (on the site of the airport that filled in for Municipal Airport when the devastating 1951 flood threatened to swamp it), and the Olathe Naval Air Station near that town in Johnson County operated from sometime around World War II until the late 1990s. There was also the Park City Army munitions plant just east of Independence.

Leavenworth - Kansas' first city, established in 1854 - has long been a "satellite" of Kansas City of sorts, but the presence of both Fort Leavenworth and the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary meant that most Leavenworth County residents also worked in the county, which kept it out of the Kansas City MSA until 1990, when commuting ties grew large enough to include it.