What state is better to live in? Kansas or Missouri? (Kansas City: condo, motel)

[Worldguy]

What state is better to live in? Kansas or Missouri? Which would you prefer to live to work?

[bls5555]

We just moved from Illinois and chose the northland in missouri. I couldn't tell you why but I personally can't stand the Kansas side of Kansas City (Johnson County area). It seems to much like cookie cutter suburbia to me while the areas up north around Parkville just feel different. Close to the city yet not so generic. Just my opinion.

[RjRobb2]

This thread could start a war of words just to warn you. Mo vs. KS arguments can get pretty heated.

I live in MO and work in KS.

I personally prefer the Northland on the Missouri side. It takes me about 10 minutes to get downtown and about 20 minutes to get anywhere in the city. It is quiet, clean, and I have everything I need within about 5 minutes.

If I were to live on the Kansas side, it would likely be the Mission area because it is the equivalent to the Northland on the Missouri side. I personally would not live in OP, Lenexa, or Olathe.

[kcmo]

I have a feeling this is a bait post, but I'll bite .

First, let me say this.

You can live your entire life in KC and never set foot on the KS side and you will miss nothing, unless you like nascar.

You can live your entire life in KC and never set foot on the MO side (which is nearly impossible), but then you may as well live in North Dakota.

Basically, I wouldn’t say one side is better than the other, both sides offer a lot so long as you think of the city as one community and ignore the state line. The MO side offers far more than just suburban though. I personally think the MO suburbs are better than the KS suburbs because they are closer and more tied to the city and its attractions and infrastructure (like KCI), have more interesting terrain such as rolling hills and lakes and are more diverse, yet you can live just as upscale as you can in JoCo.

I also think that JoCo can be quite snobby and arrogant toward the MO side.

So you can find good suburbs on both sides of the line, but that’s where the similarities stop. If you want anything urban or cosmopolitan or historic or not “cookie cutter”, you are going to have to look at the MO side. There nothing in KS that even remotely comes close to what urban KCMO offers if you don’t want a suburban lifestyle. The Plaza, Westport, Union Hill, Crossroads, Downtown, City Market and all the areas that surround this corridor like Brookside, Hyde Park, South Plaza etc are not an option in Kansas.

So personally, I would take the MO suburbs over the KS suburbs because they are not quite as “plastic” or “fake” as the KS suburbs, they don’t have quite the snobby attitude and they are much closer to the city (northland anyway), KCI and all of what KC has to offer.

And as I said, there is nothing “urban” on the KS side and sorry, KCK is not urban compared to KCMO. So MO wins there too.

If you want to live in a beige home and ***** about how much KCMO sucks and how bad the roads are in MO and never have to raise your taxes to fund all those horrible MO side attractions like stadiums and museums and zoos and your life is all about KU and you think the Legends shopping center is really something than the KS side is for you!

[northbound74]

I prefer the Missouri side for a lot of the reasons already mentioned.

[northbayeric]

My own personal preference would be Missouri. There's a greater diversity of things to do throughout the state. I think the economy in most of Missouri is better than the economy in most of Kansas. Missouri's state government is in outstanding shape from a fiscal standpoint, and Missouri's roads and highways have improved dramatically from what they were even five years ago. Johnson County residents should take notice.

When we move back there from California, I know I would enjoy driving over to the Kansas side to watch Kansas City T-Bones baseball games, and driving to places like the Flint Hills region. And as far as a place to live, I would choose Missouri and Kansas over California.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by northbayeric

My own personal preference would be Missouri. There's a greater diversity of things to do throughout the state. I think the economy in most of Missouri is better than the economy in most of Kansas. Missouri's state government is in outstanding shape from a fiscal standpoint, and Missouri's roads and highways have improved dramatically from what they were even five years ago. Johnson County residents should take notice.

When we move back there from California, I know I would enjoy driving over to the Kansas side to watch Kansas City T-Bones baseball games, and driving to places like the Flint Hills region. And as far as a place to live, I would choose Missouri and Kansas over California.

The economy in Kansas is actually better than MO. The unemployment rate in KS is around 1.5% lower compared to MO. Johnson County KS has the highest median income of any county in either Kansas or Missouri. Missouri has an average economy in the larger metro areas while the rural areas tend to lag further behind overall.

[northbayeric]

Unemployment rates - Unemployment rates by state from CNNMoney

According to this site, the April 2008 unemployment rate in Kansas was 4.0 percent. In Missouri it was 5.2 percent. I stand corrected on this! Well I could say that Missouri is more viscerally appealing! But there are large rural areas of northern and southeast Missouri where the economy could use a nice boost.

Maybe one day Interstate 72 will be extended west from Hannibal out to Interstate 29 in St. Joseph, bringing more commerce in this region.

[northbound74]

When you're strictly talking about the metro area, I don't think unemployment rates really matter. If you live in one state, it's not that far to commute to the other for work, if you need to do so. Not my cup of tea, but a lot of people commute both ways. The Missouri side may not be a non-stop boom town like JOCO, but there is a very large amount of positive economic activity going on in places like downtown, Lee's Summit, Independence Center, Blue Springs, Liberty, Parkville... in other words, most places outside of east KC. East KC, along with a couple of other places make the Missouri side look worse than it really is, in my opinion.
As far as rural areas go, I'll take Missouri any day. With or without a bad economy.

[kcmo]

Missouri is growing faster than Kansas both economically and in population.

You are forgetting that Kansas has Johnson County and that is it. The rest of the state is pretty much in a decline or barely hanging on.

Missouri has KC and StL, plus Springfield is booming.

Also, there is much more going on in the Metro MO side than the KS side. It's just that it's spread out a little more while in KS it's all on the newer edges of JoCo. JoCo builds about 25% of the metro homes now which is right about what their metro population is.

KCMO has been building more homes than Olathe and Overland Park combined now for several years in the northland alone.

JoCo has even less than 25% of the commercial construction now. The days of JoCo having 75% or even 50% of the metro's new housing permits and commercial construction are long gone and the Northland, Eastern Jackson, Cass and the urban core are now much more powerful then they were in the 80's and 90's.

Back in 1990 people from all over the metro went to JoCo to shop and dine and live if they wanted an upper bracket home.

Now there is no reason to do that. If you live in Platte County or eastern Jax or a downtown condo, there is no reason for you to travel to JoCo unless you just want a change of scenery.