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Old 02-03-2011, 04:24 AM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
3,565 posts, read 7,922,996 times
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Okay. My above post seems obnoxiously long. But I have an emotional attachment to the place. I lived and went to high school in Independence, KS, which was much to my relief and enlightenment at the time having lived in KCK all of my life prior to that.

Something that I think separates Independence from other towns is the fact a highway bypass was never built, so traffic is still funneled through the original town. To provide contrast, you can look at nearby Coffeyville, where the vast majority of the businesses relocated from the original town to the outskirts to cater to highway traffic.

Also, and this applies to many other small towns, Independence feels very self-sustaining and lived in, whereas certain small towns, like Atchison, for example, have cool historic architecture and scenery, but feel desolate and left behind, probably because of proximity to much larger cities.

I'm only familiar with eastern Kansas. That said, Chanute and Parsons are very nice towns as well. Fort Scott, Iola, and Baxter Springs are nice but feel too small. Coffeyville is dirty and surrendered its soul to highway development. Ottawa and Paola I'm mostly unfamiliar with.

Pittsburg is odd though. It should be so much nicer considering it has a decent-sized university.
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Old 02-03-2011, 07:23 AM
 
Location: Kansas
25,571 posts, read 21,747,086 times
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That's a tough list and offhand, I could not think of any city that could meet the criteria. If I could live in any city in KS and we have lived in a few, I would choose Salina although the population is around 50,000 now I believe and generally, I prefer smaller communities.
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Old 02-03-2011, 10:21 AM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,696,479 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MOKAN View Post
Okay. My above post seems obnoxiously long. But I have an emotional attachment to the place. I lived and went to high school in Independence, KS, which was much to my relief and enlightenment at the time having lived in KCK all of my life prior to that.

Something that I think separates Independence from other towns is the fact a highway bypass was never built, so traffic is still funneled through the original town. To provide contrast, you can look at nearby Coffeyville, where the vast majority of the businesses relocated from the original town to the outskirts to cater to highway traffic.

Also, and this applies to many other small towns, Independence feels very self-sustaining and lived in, whereas certain small towns, like Atchison, for example, have cool historic architecture and scenery, but feel desolate and left behind, probably because of proximity to much larger cities.

I'm only familiar with eastern Kansas. That said, Chanute and Parsons are very nice towns as well. Fort Scott, Iola, and Baxter Springs are nice but feel too small. Coffeyville is dirty and surrendered its soul to highway development. Ottawa and Paola I'm mostly unfamiliar with.

Pittsburg is odd though. It should be so much nicer considering it has a decent-sized university.
I have spent a fair amount of time in Independence (as well as much of outstate KS) via my last job and I would have to agree. Independence, KS is a pretty neat little town. I think Arkansas City is similar, but it's been a while since I have been there. Just don't pronounce Arkansas like the state. It's Ar "Kansas". The locals don't like it when you say it wrong haha.

And why is Pittburg (no h!) so dumpy? I was expecting something like a Warrensburg, MO and it's nothing like Warrensburg.

Other KS small town tidbits.

While in Great Bend I learned a lesson the hard way. Don't sit at a stop light with your windows down next to a livestock semi. This city boy did that and whatever was in there stomped around and splattered crap into my car and all over my freaking dash. Great Bend does have a tall building downtown! Well not tall, but it looked tall out there.

I spent some time in Oswego and places like are just so interesting to me. I could never live there, but just being in such a remote, tiny town like that really makes you step back and think about how things used to be.

Wamego was similar. Very bizarre in a way. There was nobody there. But they were playing music through loudspeakers through downtown. Interesting places to say the least.
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Old 02-03-2011, 11:28 AM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
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I romanticized living in Independence again for a long time, only ultimately to realize, while it is a nice town, my attachment was primarily emotional and the dynamic that existed at that time in my life can't be replicated. It seems like it would be hard to transition to a place like that when you didn't grow up there and don't have family there. If I ever moved to a smaller town, I think St. Joe provides a pretty good balance of everyday needs, proximity to the city, and being big enough to not feel so much like an outsider.
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Old 02-03-2011, 01:37 PM
Status: "108 N/A" (set 9 days ago)
 
12,881 posts, read 13,544,694 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MOKAN View Post
I romanticized living in Independence again for a long time, only ultimately to realize, while it is a nice town, my attachment was primarily emotional and the dynamic that existed at that time in my life can't be replicated. It seems like it would be hard to transition to a place like that when you didn't grow up there and don't have family there. If I ever moved to a smaller town, I think St. Joe provides a pretty good balance of everyday needs, proximity to the city, and being big enough to not feel so much like an outsider.
I would probally vote Indy for best town of the southeast Kansas region too. I think Pittsburg is rather odd being the biggest city, with more amenities than any other regional city, but at the same time have the lowest income and highest crime.
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Old 02-03-2011, 03:07 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
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Is crime seriously an issue in Pittsburg? I keep hearing of crime in these small towns and I'm like WTF. Some of the Country Club (suburban) crowd in Independence, KS think the original town is the "ghetto". I always thought that was weird. Some of them also seem to lack an appreciation for the historic architecture. For kicks, I thought of it as them being culturally inept in a sense. There really isn't any serious crime in Indy and if certain people didn't have a delusional attitude about the town and invested in it, any issues that do exist would probably go away.
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Old 02-03-2011, 03:42 PM
 
Location: Washington, DC area
11,108 posts, read 23,696,479 times
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Well, apparently Dodge City of all places has a gang problem. But a gang problem in Dodge City, KS might be a little different that a gang problem in Kansas City, MO.
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Old 02-03-2011, 04:47 PM
Status: "108 N/A" (set 9 days ago)
 
12,881 posts, read 13,544,694 times
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You really have to look beneath the surface of rural America these days due to meth , The isolation of small rural towns attracts people who need to cook up the stuff. Pittsburg has had enough Murders over the past ten years its not rare anymore, You can go to the data side of this site to get current figures.
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Old 02-03-2011, 08:44 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo View Post
Well, apparently Dodge City of all places has a gang problem. But a gang problem in Dodge City, KS might be a little different that a gang problem in Kansas City, MO.
I saw that thread on here. I thought it was pure ignorance. I mean, come on, some idiot asking about gangs on here. Perhaps there are some problems carried over from Mexico or wherever in some of those towns that have become heavily populated by immigrants, but southeast Kansas is not like southwest Kansas, at least not yet.

thriftylefty, I had no idea Pittsburg was having a murder epidemic, even if it is relative. I'm curious, so I'll check it out. I would have assumed Pittsburg's biggest problem would be petty drug dealers serving the college students. Edit: Okay, so I went ahead and looked at the data on this site. I'm not really seeing a trend, at least not in the years shown. 8 murders in Pittsburg in 2003 though, wow, that crazy. Seems like a coincidence. Looked at the data again for Garden City, Dodge City and Liberal, the three largest towns in Kansas that are around half or majority Hispanic now and am pleased to see they've not seen a spike in murders that correlate with that. It doesn't appear they have much of a gang problem, at least not if murders are indicative of such a problem.

About the meth, that's a terrible epidemic. I get the idea meth dealers and users alike are very guarded and paranoid and obviously that's a dangerous scenario. And supposedly its use is spreading to new demographics. I've heard it's become popular amongst gays and even housewives. It makes the days when Walmart was the biggest threat to rural communites seem bourgie. Haha.

Last edited by MOKAN; 02-03-2011 at 09:20 PM..
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Old 02-04-2011, 08:17 AM
 
Location: Kansas
25,571 posts, read 21,747,086 times
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I recently saw a map of crimes for Pittsburg and I was shocked! http://maps.morningsun.net/crime/ I don't care for southeast Kansas at all. I have lived in Manhattan, Junction City, Salina, Wilson and here, Fort Scott. I have a strong preference for I-70 north.

Last edited by AnywhereElse; 02-04-2011 at 08:20 AM.. Reason: adding link
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