Looking to move to Kansas from Connecticut. (Wichita, Topeka: transfer, schools)

[city_data_poster]

Several posters have said this already...and I'll say it too....just because Kansas is a cheaper place to live than Connecticut (not counting, say, Douglas County and, say, JoCo).....please OP, don't base your decision to move to Kansas based solely upon that criteria!

I have lived in Connecticut..and Kansas.

In many ways they are like two different worlds! In oh-so-many ways!

I would advise you, OP, to really, really look around Kansas (by way of a week-long vacation) before making the "big leap"...from Connecticut to Kansas.

Oh boy!, would I ever advise you to do that (look before you leap).....you won't regret it, believe me! LOL!!

[bgandl2]

Okay--I lived in Overland Park Kansas for five years. And just got back from Connecticut, where I may now be moving. It is cheaper in Kansas--and there is a fair amount to do in Kansas City. But the PEOPLE... Let's just say Auntie Em was not an empty stereotype. Conformity and familiarity are the two most sought after qualities in the suburban Kansas City area. The people can be tough to take. BO-ring. I was REALLY impressed with Hartford folks on my recent visit. Urbane yet down to earth. You may be disappointed. Watch the movie (with Jack Nicholson) "About Schmidt." It's about Omaha but has that part of the country pegged.

[FISHSOX]

I lived in Topeka for a couple of years and you the MOST for you money there. There are plently of nice homes in nice areas for $150,000. It is convenient to KC (60 miles) and Lawrence. Topeka job market is okay - but not great.

[cp1969]

Originally Posted by bgandl2

Okay--I lived in Overland Park Kansas for five years. And just got back from Connecticut, where I may now be moving. It is cheaper in Kansas--and there is a fair amount to do in Kansas City. But the PEOPLE... Let's just say Auntie Em was not an empty stereotype. Conformity and familiarity are the two most sought after qualities in the suburban Kansas City area. The people can be tough to take. BO-ring. I was REALLY impressed with Hartford folks on my recent visit. Urbane yet down to earth. You may be disappointed. Watch the movie (with Jack Nicholson) "About Schmidt." It's about Omaha but has that part of the country pegged.

Well, it's a shame that someone with your sparkling personality could not sweep into town and in five years have taken the city by storm.

Maybe it says more about you than other people when you make the sweeping generalization that other people are "BO-ring". Do you need to be continuously entertained...by others? If so, that is your personality defect, not theirs. But maybe when you get back to the urbane, down-to-earth east coast, there will be enough jugglers, clowns, and jesters to keep you amused.

Don't forget the fact that someone from the east coast who met YOU, even though you're a five-year gypsy, would probably have the take-away that "Kansans can't entertain themselves"

We'll miss you....Hope you like Hartford enough to stay...permanently.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by bgandl2

Okay--I lived in Overland Park Kansas for five years. And just got back from Connecticut, where I may now be moving. It is cheaper in Kansas--and there is a fair amount to do in Kansas City. But the PEOPLE... Let's just say Auntie Em was not an empty stereotype. Conformity and familiarity are the two most sought after qualities in the suburban Kansas City area. The people can be tough to take. BO-ring. I was REALLY impressed with Hartford folks on my recent visit. Urbane yet down to earth. You may be disappointed. Watch the movie (with Jack Nicholson) "About Schmidt." It's about Omaha but has that part of the country pegged.

Should have lived in urban KCMO. What did you expect from a midwestern suburb???

[cp1969]

As if a couple of miles would make a difference to someone who says 'Auntie Em is not an empty stereotype.'

Don't you suppose he was capable of wandering into the urban core of KCMO at least once in five years? And if he found it to be that much different, he would have moved??

Face it--Kansas City and ALL of its surrounding communities are considered to be one big 'hick' town on the coasts. Always have been; always will be.

[GraniteStater]

Don't lump the I-95 corridor of the East Coast in with the interior areas. The rural interior areas away from the coast are entirely different in flavor, pace, culture, and lifestyle. I live in a rural area of the Appalachians in NH and it is very peaceful with very friendly people.

[bgandl2]

It would seem strange anywhere else if someone called me "a gypsy" for having lived in a place for "only" five years...but not in suburban Kansas. Your profile picture has Charlton Heston declaring "Speak English." Speaks volumes. Conformity rules in suburban Kansas.

My theory is that survival on the prairie was in part dependent on everybody working as a unit--and anyone who didn't conform was driven out.

I remember my first day in KC--asked the supermarket butcher where the lamb was. "We don't eat GOAT around here, BOY..." When I looked confused, he said the range wars were won by the cattlemen. When I reminded him that was 100 years ago, he proudly told me how his grandpappy had killed him some sheephearders. Guess they were different.

For starters, it is illegal to JOG in Leawood (off a sidewalk, which means everywhere) because it's...well...different. And in Desoto, you cannot CYCLE across the city line (keep out those different cyclists from Lawrence, doncha know). And there's the Piper School District, where teachers and administrators who enforced anti-cheating rules were driven out of town by the good old boys with cheating kids...Phill Kline's crusades against women...Fred Phelps...the Olathe woman state senator who said women shouldn't have the right to vote...regular attacks on mainstream science in schools...

Went to a funeral of a neighbor who unexpectedly died of a heart attack and the ministers viciously attacked the elderly grieving parents for not being part of their large, popular extremist church...

My one Latino neighbor kept to himself and stayed indoors when the neighbors held street parties. He was smart to avoid their glares and venom--too different.

My six year old daughter was banned from the school talent show because she wrote her own original song--the teacher was offended that someone that young did such a different thing.

Took her to the daddy daughter dance in Leawood--I was the only man at the table (average age 40) who grew up with indoor plumbing.

Yes, urban KC is pretty cool...but the schools aren't. The suburbs have safe schools but numbing conformity rules there. And then Charlton Heston wants you to speak English.

[thriftylefty]

I think outsiders over romanticize about what it would be like to live in Kansas. TV, advertising or the media have painted Kansas with a broad brush. You get what you pay for. Cheap houses and land can get you expensive year round utility bills and taxes. It may also mean you have a long commute to work. People in Southeast Kansas will commute to Kansas City (100+ miles) for work in order to get the best of both worlds. Residents in college towns are by far the best to get along with because they are used to seeing people they don’t know. As for the open spaces, they are all owned by someone no matter how pastoral and abandoned they might seem. If you wander in too far with a dog or to gather wild flowers you could get the sheriff called on you. I have found that Kansans are less friendly to outsiders especially if your last name doesn’t have a Germanic or Nordic ring to it. The shame is that Kansas was known for some extraordinary acts of kindness towards immigrants and refugees in its past history. Kansas was known as more Populist, Liberal and socialist with the newspaper “Appeal to Reason” being published in Kansas along with Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle.”

[city_data_poster]

Well, it's like I've always said....when it comes to the State of Kansas....there's Lawrence, there's JoCo, there's Manhattan, there's Wichita.....and....well....I suppose there's Topeka too (Ahem!)

....and then...and then......and then....well....I suppose that there's the rest of Kansas. LOL!

I would think that any one person's "Kansas experience" would depend largely (if not entirely) on just exactly what part of Kansas that person happens to be living in.

Your "Kansas experience" is going to be vastly different living in a place like Scott City (waaaay out there western Kansas) than, say, it would be living in a place like Lawrence...that's for sure!