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Shopping: Tie. Neither are shopping destinations, but both have enough options to keep residents happy.
Economy: KC. It definitely seems to be in better shape than Sacramento.
Downtown Area: KC. Sacramento's downtown has its potential and seems denser, but I kind of got bored there. I found there to be more interesting stuff to see and do in downtown KC.
Schools: I don't know much about the schools in these two cities, but I never hear anything bad about them so I'd imagine they're both fine. I could be wrong though.
Housing Prices: KC. Sacramento seems overpriced in comparison to similar cities. KC seems to be cheaper than many of its peers.
Universities: Sacramento. Both seem to have a pretty typical overall selection of colleges. So going by each metros best school, UC-Davis seems to be better than KU, so I'll give Sacramento the edge here.
Climate/Weather: Sacramento. KC weather can be very extreme, while Sacramento's weather is pretty nice and comfortable.
Public Transit: Honestly, not sure about this one. Both are very heavily car-oriented. From my experience, these are not cities I would never consider living in or visiting without a car.
Better Traffic: KC. I'm sure they're fairly similar on normal days, but as a former SF resident, I know traffic can get ridiculously bad around Sacramento due to being enroute to/from SF and Tahoe/Reno. I can't imagine KC getting anything as bad since it's not in between any two major tourist points.
Scenery: Tie. KC has more architectural beauty, and Sacramento has more natural beauty.
Better Vibe: KC. It seemed to have more going on and felt a lot livelier. Sacramento isn't really far behind, though.
I like Kansas City better, it's just a more interesting city and has amazing barbecue, more professional sports, better museums, and more local flair. Sacramento is significantly more racially and ethnically diverse, has better weather, is closer to a lot of great places so it definitely has it's advantages as well.
My best friend graduated from KU. I'm pretty sure Lawrence is the only place in that part of the planet that I could live.
Sacramento has nearly 3x the density of Kansas City, a higher rate of bicycle commuters, a light rail, and a heavy rail that goes from the sac metro to the bay. KC just has a bus system.
Sacramento has a more walkable core and a larger population living in its core(20,000 in sac, 4000 in KC).
Sac has a median family income around the national average and a housing cost around the national average. Kansas City is cheaper but median family incomes are lower as well.
Over all I prefer Sac. KC may have us beat on the sports, BBQ, and the corporate skyline and what not but Sac has a much more vibrant and lively core. KC's core really shuts down at night as it is basically a central business district . SAC strikes me as slightly more urban and noticeably more diverse and integrated. A lot of KC's night life and vibrancy seems to be in neighborhoods a couple of miles from downtown (old westport, volker, etc.).
KC overall has a lot of dangerous and ghetto areas too. KC MO had 114 homicides in 2011. Sacramento had 39. Both cities a have the same population(460,000). All total Sacramento county had 91, at a population of 1,400,000. Sac is a lot safer, less segregated, with a laid back California attitude, and no where near as gangster as KC.
Last edited by NorCal Dude; 01-26-2012 at 05:53 PM..
Housing costs are actually quite reasonable in Sacramento considering the location. Don't know much about KC's K-12 scene but average education levels in greater Sacramento are higher.
Housing costs are actually quite reasonable in Sacramento considering the location. Don't know much about KC's K-12 scene but average education levels in greater Sacramento are higher.
I don't know much about Kansas K-12 but I'm sure it's good. As far as the Sacramento region goes, areas with top rated school districts(relative to the state of california) are extremely affordable.
My best friend graduated from KU. I'm pretty sure Lawrence is the only place in that part of the planet that I could live.
Sacramento has nearly 3x the density of Kansas City, a higher rate of bicycle commuters, a light rail, and a heavy rail that goes from the sac metro to the bay. KC just has a bus system.
Sacramento has a more walkable core and a larger population living in its core(20,000 in sac, 4000 in KC).
Sac has a median family income around the national average and a housing cost around the national average. Kansas City is cheaper but median family incomes are lower as well.
Over all I prefer Sac. KC may have us beat on the sports, BBQ, and the corporate skyline and what not but Sac has a much more vibrant and lively core. KC's core really shuts down at night as it is basically a central business district . SAC strikes me as slightly more urban and noticeably more diverse and integrated. A lot of KC's night life and vibrancy seems to be in neighborhoods a couple of miles from downtown (old westport, volker, etc.).
KC overall has a lot of dangerous and ghetto areas too. KC MO had 114 homicides in 2011. Sacramento had 39. Both cities a have the same population(460,000). All total Sacramento county had 91, at a population of 1,400,000. Sac is a lot safer, less segregated, with a laid back California attitude, and no where near as gangster as KC.
You are way off.
I like both cities, but your stats are crazy.
Sac is not three times as dense as KC. The city of KCMO has a bunch of annexed land north of the Missouri river near the airport that is rural and it throws off the stats of the city. Now I know that KC is not dense city like philly or something, but the core of the city has a respectable density and the footprint of the metro is average and very comparable to Sac.
Kansas City has an urban footprint of 1,361,744 and a density of 2330 per square mile
Sacramento has an urban footprint of 1,393,498 and a density of 3776 per square mile
So while Sac is more dense than KC, it’s not three times more dense and if you have been to both cities, it’s quite obvious and they actually feel about the same.
Downtown has far more than 4000 residents unless you are just looking at the CBD. The Downtown area has closer to 20,000 residents and as you probably know, KC has some rather large high density urban districts like the Plaza where there are dozens of high rise condo towers etc. KC’s urban core is much more than the CBD, but even the CBD gives downtown Sac some solid competition.
I also just think there is more to do in KC. KC is a stand alone city and a destination for a large region that has a sizable population and includes many small metros like Omaha and Des Moines while Sac is in the shadow of the Bay area. KC beats Sac on art museums, performing arts, amusement parks, pro sports, architecture and general tourist attractions.
It's probably a tie with universities. KC has Lawrence attached to it at the hip (Lawrence is not part of KC's MSA although it should be), but no big time urban universities. I think Sac is opposite of that.
Having said that, you are right about the crime in KC. KC has lots of blight and ghetto. The city has a terrible transit system (although street cars and commuter rail are finally looking like they are coming soon).
The scenery around Sac is better and Sac is close to a very large metro area. (although KC is a quick flight to any city in the country).
So I’m not sure which one wins. I’m not even going to choose. But KC deserves to at least be compared in a fair way and I think the two cities are pretty even matches.
I would would much rather live in urban kcmo or urban StL city or chicago or minneapolis or denver etc. If Lawrence is the only place in that part of the planet you would live, then I'm pretty confused on what you want. Lawrence is probably the best place in Kansas, but Missouri has two large urban centers and there are many other cities in the midwest that would easily compete with Sacramento.
Nice try, but urbanized area from 12 years ago (sac was one of the fastest growing metros from 2000- 2010) is not the same thing as a cities density in 2012. Sacramento msa has swaths of rural unused land as well, by our airport.
Urbanized area mainly looks at contiguous development. Sac metro does not have uniform contiguous development . With rivers, flood plains, green belts, and mountains breaking up development the urban area tends to under count the Sac metro like it does the SF bay area.
Sacramento-has a density of 4660 people per square mile population 466,000 in 100.1 square miles
Kansas City has a density of 1630 people per square mile. population 510,000 in 318.0 square miles
Sorry dude, no matter how you slice it- that's pretty different. And as you can see that is almost 3 times as dense. I don't know how you could visit either city and miss that, but that is just me.
Kansas cities most dense and walkable neighborhoods are the central business district and and the area immediately to the south, both of which have no population. You can see with this link that those areas of Kansas city have very little population. http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer
The area immediately south of the CBD looks like more like a decaying industrial area like you see in Detroit.
You can see from this link that most of KC's most dense residential neighborhoods are separated from the CBD and downtown Civic district. Most of the density is along several arterial roads. KC's core is clearly more decentralized and its denser nightlife and residential districts are more spread out and it is much more auto centric. That 20k population you have in your core is much more spread out than Sacs. http://www.walkscore.com/MO/Kansas_City/South_Plaza
Sacramento's core is 4 square miles and has 20k population right in the heart of the city. With all of its nightlife, dining, bars, and entertainment right there. Complimented by bicycle friendly roads and public transit. It's just way more centralized with way more going on as far as the core of the city is concerned.
Sac is in the shadow of the bay. It's kind of hard not to be when there is only 20 miles between the two metros.
But that being said your attempt to insinuate that sac is not a regional tourist draw is false. This California gov't study pretty much proves that wrong. In terms of revenue generated from visitors in they're fair with counties like San Mateo and Santa Clara in the bay area . Start at page 35 here and skim thru for a county by county break down. http://www.deanrunyan.com/doc_library/CAImp.pdf
Sacramento County pulls in quite a lot of money from visitors, the bulk of which goes to hotel and accommodations according to the study, so my guess is its more than people stopping by to fill up the gas or grab some fast food. .
KCI airport had 10.1 million passengers a to Sacs 8.8, so the I don't really see that much in a difference as far as air traffic.
As for more to do, outside of pro sports I highly doubt that. You claim KC has better museums and performing arts, and tourism attractions, based on what exactly? What data do you have to support that claim? I looked up both cities leading art museums and they both have similar ticket sales, Sacs 300k to KC's 400k. I thought I read that KC's art museum was free, that is very cool. But that would mean Sac's museum draws more revenue.
Universities is not even close. UC Davis is ranked 38th in the country and is one of the best public schools in the nation. It out ranks many states flagship schools, including Kansas University. The only list KU has ever made was top 10 party schools. UC Davis has a fairly high rejection rate for those who apply, where as KU lets almost anyone in and actively tries to court out of state students to swell its ranks...to make up for a massive drop out rate. http://kansaseducation.wordpress.com/2006/09/11/18-percent-dropout-rate-of-ku-freshmen/
I was born in Chicago and raised in the Chicago area until 13. My mom still lives there as do many of my friends. I know the midwest well and outside of Chicagoland and parts of Ohio, I would not choose anywhere in the midwest over Sac. That's not to say I don't like Kansas City, it's a good town, and me and my best friend visited each other back and forth from Berkeley to Lawrence every year we were in college.KC has a lot of similarities to Sac (educational attainment, GDP, population, etc.).
But over all I prefer Sacramento. It's just more dense, has a more centralized core, better public transit, is more bicycle friendly, more walkable, better weather, is more diverse, less segregated, and has less crime.
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