The underrated urbanity of Great Plains cities (houses, living)
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In terms of urbanity and overall decent lifestyle, they're probably underrated. I live in Des Moines for a year. Good place, except for the miserable weather and topography, and it's so isolated. I wouldn't want to live there again.
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This new video shows the urban density and core of my city, Omaha, in a very impressive way. Consider this, along with other Great Plains cities, if your looking to explore urban density outside of the usual-
Taking a step back from the large cities, the small and medium cities of the plains are much more urban than their western counterparts. Downtown Cedar Rapids almost competes with downtown Colorado Springs even though it's 1/3 the size. I think there's 2 factors for this, 1. it's a lot easier develop on a prairie and 2. People aren't craving their 'house in the woods'. If you look at cities in the west, a large chunk of the population is in these rather spread out housing developments up in the hills / mountainsides. They are often beautiful, but they aren't urban. Also, one of the best things about cities on the Plains is they are much cleaner than cities further south or west.
Somewhat unrelated, why do so many cities on the plains like Grand Island and Wichita have these weird small polygonal lakes? Do they just appear from digging a hole in the ground so developers create them to make a sort of water park for their subdivision?
Taking a step back from the large cities, the small and medium cities of the plains are much more urban than their western counterparts. Downtown Cedar Rapids almost competes with downtown Colorado Springs even though it's 1/3 the size. I think there's 2 factors for this, 1. it's a lot easier develop on a prairie and 2. People aren't craving their 'house in the woods'. If you look at cities in the west, a large chunk of the population is in these rather spread out housing developments up in the hills / mountainsides. They are often beautiful, but they aren't urban. Also, one of the best things about cities on the Plains is they are much cleaner than cities further south or west.
Somewhat unrelated, why do so many cities on the plains like Grand Island and Wichita have these weird small polygonal lakes? Do they just appear from digging a hole in the ground so developers create them to make a sort of water park for their subdivision?
They're borrow pits. They dug dirt out of the ground to build up the interstate ramps, and then turned the pit into man made lake.
Taking a step back from the large cities, the small and medium cities of the plains are much more urban than their western counterparts. Downtown Cedar Rapids almost competes with downtown Colorado Springs even though it's 1/3 the size. I think there's 2 factors for this, 1. it's a lot easier develop on a prairie and 2. People aren't craving their 'house in the woods'. If you look at cities in the west, a large chunk of the population is in these rather spread out housing developments up in the hills / mountainsides. They are often beautiful, but they aren't urban. Also, one of the best things about cities on the Plains is they are much cleaner than cities further south or west.
Somewhat unrelated, why do so many cities on the plains like Grand Island and Wichita have these weird small polygonal lakes? Do they just appear from digging a hole in the ground so developers create them to make a sort of water park for their subdivision?
Before I saw your comment I was thinking how Colorado Springs isn't considered a plains city but Denver is even though CS is slightly more east and annexed parts of the city are in the plains.
I agree many are underrated. Besides Omaha and those cities already mentioned you also have Des Moines and Wichita.
Is Des Moines on the great plains? Just visited recently. It certainly is on the prairie but it didn't seem as "western" as Omaha or KC. More related to places east. But it also has a different history. Des Moines is more the center of Iowa. State capitol, largest city, the big economic hub. Built more on insurance and state government where as Omaha and KC were meatpacking centers and also served an area that went quite further west.
A simple but limited way to gauge urbanity is by how much people drive their own cars. A highly urban area will always have much less personal car use. but, as it is, there's not really good statistics on this and you pretty much have to go by anecdotal evidence still, I think
In that case then, Omaha isn't very urban. You need a car to get anywhere in town. Same with KC, Des Moines, even the twin cities.
Is Des Moines on the great plains? Just visited recently. It certainly is on the prairie but it didn't seem as "western" as Omaha or KC. More related to places east. But it also has a different history. Des Moines is more the center of Iowa. State capitol, largest city, the big economic hub. Built more on insurance and state government where as Omaha and KC were meatpacking centers and also served an area that went quite further west.
Des Moines is much more linked to Omaha and KC than Chicago or Minneapolis. Des Moines and Omaha are as similar as two separate metros can get. There's a large meat packing facility in east Des Moines. Omaha has a lot of finance and insurance. Similar size. Both have growing tech sectors. Just a lot of similarities. Kansas City is easily the closest large metro. Twice as close Minneapolis, and Chicago is farther than that. When I lived in Des Moines (08-12), there was a lot of people going back and forth between it, KC, and Omaha. The Silicon Prairie explosion is further tying them together. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/silicon...entrepreneurs/
And using the EPA definition, its on the Plains. Some people say the 100th Meridian is where the Plains starts, and that would put none of the 3 on the Great Plains.
They're borrow pits. They dug dirt out of the ground to build up the interstate ramps, and then turned the pit into man made lake.
Ah, that makes sense. Kind of interesting how you can dig a hole and a lake forms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyoung
Before I saw your comment I was thinking how Colorado Springs isn't considered a plains city but Denver is even though CS is slightly more east and annexed parts of the city are in the plains.
It is further east, but it's actually closer to the mountains than Denver is, as the Rockies kind of move northwest through Colorado. Denver is more 'plainsy' than COS in that it's further out on the grassland, there's actually farming around it, the oil and gas section is based in the plains... but its still a mountain city, because that's where people spend their time and what people visit for.
As was mentioned upthread, I can't think of a single urban neighborhood anywhere in the Great Plains.
I'll admit that this is in part because of my own feelings regarding what "urbanity" means. Urban to me does not mean tall buildings in a CBD. It means tightly-packed, traditional urban neighborhoods with walkable commercial districts.
Some of the Plains cities have a fair number of historic commercial buildings remaining in their downtown area, and even some small stands of prewar commercial buildings outside of their CBD. However, for the most part these areas are surrounded by seas of parking lots, and basically every residential neighborhood (even those closest to downtown) are dominated by detached single-family homes with yards, relatively generously spaced, making them functionally speaking suburban.
There are a handful of exceptions of course - places like Westside North in Kansas City. But they are few and far between.
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Be surprised by Omaha and the Great Plains no more!
