Wooooo! Kansas City!!! (St. Louis, Chesterfield, Liberty: travel, health, housing)

[WestCoDude]

I just got back from a little sojourn in your fine town. Lemme just say...Kansas City is now one of my absolute most favorite cities in America (maybe....just maybe....my MOST favorite of all). Not only is it clean and quite beautiful, but there is a certain vibrancy and energy that my city of St. Louis lacks. I very much loathe core cities. I very much loved KCMO. I felt perfectly safe, loved the Plaza, and found most of the neighborhoods amazingly beautiful.

And....this is prolly the number one top reason why KC rocks....people are not mindnumbingly slow on the roads as in St. Louis. St. Louis is slow. The people are slow. The traffic is slow. It's slow to change. Slow to progress. It's slow. In Kansas City there is a recognition that MOVEMENT in a forward direction is often a positive, welcome feature of any great American city!

I would be moving in about a year and I have a choice of many great cities. I think KC is tops right now. And while I was sure that I would be headed for JoCo (I'm conservative, religious, and yuppie)--I've found that other areas like Liberty would fit well too.

You've got a phenomenal city, KC. And you've got no reason to bicker over this Kansas/Missouri business. I found both sides equally appealing and vibrant.

[RjRobb2]

Originally Posted by WestCoDude

And....this is prolly the number one top reason why KC rocks....people are not mindnumbingly slow on the roads as in St. Louis. St. Louis is slow. The people are slow. The traffic is slow. It's slow to change. Slow to progress. It's slow. In Kansas City there is a recognition that MOVEMENT in a forward direction is often a positive, welcome feature of any great American city!

That's refreshing to hear from someone on the outside. I have actually had the same opinions about KC that you have about St. Louis and I have thought about St. Louis about how you feel about KC.

But, with the addition of the Sprint Center and the P & L District things seem to be on the upswing here.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by WestCoDude

I just got back from a little sojourn in your fine town. Lemme just say...Kansas City is now one of my absolute most favorite cities in America (maybe....just maybe....my MOST favorite of all). Not only is it clean and quite beautiful, but there is a certain vibrancy and energy that my city of St. Louis lacks. I very much loathe core cities. I very much loved KCMO. I felt perfectly safe, loved the Plaza, and found most of the neighborhoods amazingly beautiful.

And....this is prolly the number one top reason why KC rocks....people are not mindnumbingly slow on the roads as in St. Louis. St. Louis is slow. The people are slow. The traffic is slow. It's slow to change. Slow to progress. It's slow. In Kansas City there is a recognition that MOVEMENT in a forward direction is often a positive, welcome feature of any great American city!

I would be moving in about a year and I have a choice of many great cities. I think KC is tops right now. And while I was sure that I would be headed for JoCo (I'm conservative, religious, and yuppie)--I've found that other areas like Liberty would fit well too.

You've got a phenomenal city, KC. And you've got no reason to bicker over this Kansas/Missouri business. I found both sides equally appealing and vibrant.

Really? There are some very trashy/run down parts to metro KC. The areas you saw are definitely nice and relatively clean.

Conservative/religious/yuppie - you'll fit right in

[northbound74]

Coming from St. Louis, even the run down parts of KC might look decent. Don't get me wrong, I like St. Louis well enough, but it's not the cleanest place out there.
The Kansas City metro has been growing at a faster rate than the St. Louis metro for quite some time, possibly giving it a more vibrant, progressing feel.

[christina0001]

I love St. Louis, but KC is dear to my heart too. So glad you enjoyed your visit! I would definitely recommend the KC metro area to anyone.

[northbayeric]

Conservative/religious/yuppie: Guilty, no contest, and a qualified not guilty! So I'm really looking forward to getting more familiar with everything KC has to offer too! With high gas prices all ready to bust through the $4.00 per gallon barrier here in the Land of California (some more remote places I'm sure are well over $5.00 per gallon--I kid you not), I'm by no means a leadfoot, so I'll stay in the slow lane if I need to. My car still gets pretty good mileage at 65 mph but past 70 and it starts to drop off quite a bit. Yeah, the St. Louis area drivers stay pretty much between 55 and 65 on the interstates. As long as the KC drivers don't slingshot across three or four lanes all at once as is pretty typical in the SF Bay Area, I think the OP and I are going to really like it there!

Lord Chesterfield, keep all of us posted--do you think you're going to go ahead and pull up stakes? Maybe at some point the two of us and MoNative34 can get together for a good pow-wow or two in the future! I'll be in St. Joe God be willing soon, MoNative is in southern Buchanan County, and if you're in Liberty or thereabouts, that wouldn't be bad at all! Liberty was my second choice, Parkville's great, and recently I've been reading very good things about the city of North Kansas City.

[anifani821]

Just saw this post and had to insert my thoughts, LOL. I moved from JoCo to Charlotte five years ago. I am an NC native. I fell in love with KCMO and didn't want to "come back home" to NC! I have settled into my life here in Charlotte, but I miss Kansas City. I return to visit every chance I get. People talk about retiring to NC. Well, I may retire back to JoCo. That is how much I love it there. I left my heart in Kansas City.

As for STL, my DH grew up there, so I have spent a lot of time there, too. There are parts of STL that I really like, but as far as a place to settle . . . give me the KCMO metro.

I often wonder if people who have lived in the KCMO metro region all their lives have any clue what a terrific place it is . . .

[Plains10]

Originally Posted by anifani821

Just saw this post and had to insert my thoughts, LOL. I moved from JoCo to Charlotte five years ago. I am an NC native. I fell in love with KCMO and didn't want to "come back home" to NC! I have settled into my life here in Charlotte, but I miss Kansas City. I return to visit every chance I get. People talk about retiring to NC. Well, I may retire back to JoCo. That is how much I love it there. I left my heart in Kansas City.

As for STL, my DH grew up there, so I have spent a lot of time there, too. There are parts of STL that I really like, but as far as a place to settle . . . give me the KCMO metro.

I often wonder if people who have lived in the KCMO metro region all their lives have any clue what a terrific place it is . . .

Retiring in JOCO?
To each his/her own I guess.
As soon as my parents hit retirement age they got the heck out of JOCO and moved elsewhere.

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by Plains10

Retiring in JOCO?
To each his/her own I guess.
As soon as my parents hit retirement age they got the heck out of JOCO and moved elsewhere.

I understand that - people often want to leave the midwest and move some place warmer (don't know if your parents want to do that or not).

Other areas may seem to have things going for them that are not in JoCo, but the reality is - the cost of living, housing, entertainment, restaurants, etc. are excellent in the KCMO metro region. Until you leave the area, you just do not realize how the rest of the country lives. Kansas City is a very convenient area, good highways, excellent healthcare and schools . . . a terrific place to live.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by anifani821

I understand that - people often want to leave the midwest and move some place warmer (don't know if your parents want to do that or not).

Other areas may seem to have things going for them that are not in JoCo, but the reality is - the cost of living, housing, entertainment, restaurants, etc. are excellent in the KCMO metro region. Until you leave the area, you just do not realize how the rest of the country lives. Kansas City is a very convenient area, good highways, excellent healthcare and schools . . . a terrific place to live.

Forget retirement. I left right after graduating from high school! I guess I was alway adventurous and wanted to travel the world, so I did. I think JoCo has a culture that if you don't fit in, you want to leave. It's just too conservative, religious, and suburban for me. But it certainly wasn't a bad place to grow up - low crime, good schools, and it's cheap.