Help us pick the right town to move to in Kansas

[cp1969]

Originally Posted by tinkmom3

... I agree with an above statement that small Kansas towns are great to visit and stop by when traveling but can be extremely hard to move into and be included. They can be VERY tight knit and do not readily welcome anyone in who doesn't have the correct last name or family in that town. I have experienced exactly this and know it to be true of all small towns around the area, too. ...

The flip side of this is to be a third or fourth generation resident of a small town and have outsiders move in and attempt to make the place exactly like the town they left. They come in, run for school board, run for town council, get some big bond issue passed, then--Poof! The next thing you know, they move away and are replaced by yet another set of newbies who are determined to be the big fish in a little pond, bringing their big-city ways with them, all to show the rubes 'how it's done'.

In my little town (where I'm at least 4th generation, but will be the last) the most affluent portion of town is, not surprisingly, the most newly constructed. Yet, it is like a gypsy camp with, at any given time, a For Sale sign in one third to one half of the ritzy homes' yards. These people are migrants....here today, gone tomorrow, no roots anywhere. How do you get to know people like that? I have no objection to getting to know the newcomers but there is little permanency in these relationships. You yourself state that you are heading out after 12 years, which is a lot longer than some I've known, but in the overall scheme of things, it isn't much.