What Do You Hate About Kansas City (St. Louis, Lee's Summit: 2014, subdivisions)

[kcmo]

I always thought having bad (or at least out of date) roads and poorly funded transit was the price MO paid for having such a low gas tax. Doesn't the personal property tax mostly fund local stuff like schools, libraries, public safety and public hospitals? I'm not sure the state has much say in it or spends any of it.

MO has a low gas tax and low income tax, so that forces the local jurisdictions to pick up the slack that's one reason why the KC area has high local taxes (sales, property, etax etc).

[aragx6]

KC has high property taxes? That's news to me!

I also wouldn't call the 6% that the vast majority of Missourians pay particularly low though the argument can likely be made that a progressive tax structure would make more sense and better generate revenues.

[kcmo]

Well, I was mostly speaking of pers prop taxes on cars and am comparing KC and Missouri to other places that may have lower sales taxes and not pers prop taxes (such as Maryland), but higher state income taxes and gas taxes.

It seems like MO makes the local areas come up with more revenue than many states which collect more state wide and then distribute it.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by aragx6

KC has high property taxes? That's news to me!

I also wouldn't call the 6% that the vast majority of Missourians pay particularly low though the argument can likely be made that a progressive tax structure would make more sense and better generate revenues.

KS side certainly does not have lower property taxes. This is particularly true for the established cities that do not have the huge tax base like Overland Park. Roeland Park has a high rate as does Fairway and Westwood. Olathe isn't really that low either.


Local sales taxes are now around 10% in the area as well according to my aunt.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by xenokc

MO roads and bridges need improvement though and best way is to fund is raise gas tax. Most anti-tax people at least favor a 'use tax' over a general tax.

As far as I know, Missouri has vastly improved its roads and reconstructed many bridges, at least in the St. Louis area. And no, not all of these are due to Interstate 64 being rebuilt. Compared to many other states in this country, Missouri's roads have always either in been in ok or better shape.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by stlouisan

As far as I know, Missouri has vastly improved its roads and reconstructed many bridges, at least in the St. Louis area. And no, not all of these are due to Interstate 64 being rebuilt. Compared to many other states in this country, Missouri's roads have always either in been in ok or better shape.

MoDot has drastically improved the roads in MO over the past 5-10 years. But most of it has been funded by mortgaging the future of Modot. They basically took out a huge loan to do all that and now will have nothing to fund but the debt service on that loan.

The reason Modot did this was to try to win support of a future gas tax increase because MO voters no longer trusted modot after they overpromised on the last gas tax increase.

Hopefully it will work and they will find new revenue, otherwise it won't take long for the roads of MO to fall into disrepair because as of now, MoDot doesn't even have the money to pay its employees or basic maintenance.

BTW, not only does Modot have one of the lowest gas taxes in the country, it also has one of the largest road systems in the country. MoDot controls a LOT of roads that would be under local jurisdiction control and funding in most states. I think MoDot has the 7th largest state system of roads with like the 5th lowest gas tax and Missouri has a lot of bridges and deals with extreme weather too. It's amazing the roads in MO are as good as they are.

[MurphyHog1977]

Below I have selected your rant against Rednecks. Meth heads are not Rednecks. Meth heads are Meth heads. They are also sometimes called Crack heads. That is an insult against Red necks. Do you even know where the phrase Red neck came from? It actually came from the miners in Virginia. They would wear red rags around their neck to symbolize their status. So there ya have it Rednecks,hicks,cowboys whatever you may call us. But please do not associate us with Crack heads.

GO HOGS WOOOOO PIG SOOOOOOIE !!!!!

Originally Posted by northbound74

^I'll agree that there's an overabundance of rude people, but I wouldn't say they're blow-up worthy.

Anyway, I'll say bad drivers. We all seem to agree on that. Whether we think they drive too fast or too slow or just too generally stupid, they're bad. No way around it. Yes, other places are just as bad, and maybe even worse, but we're pretty bad.

Strange how the people seem rude, but for the most part, service usually seems pretty friendly, whether it be at the drive-through at the local fast-food joint, or the guy selling you you're new roof. They're pretty good at customer service around here. I've mostly just got Arkansas to compare it to, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

I hate the division. The Dog River-Wullerton crap gets old. I obviously get caught up in it.
I liked JoCo when I moved here, but after we started meeting people from there, we got these awful looks when we mentioned we lived in Independence... and we lived there............ON PURPOSE! Holy Cow! What were we thinking? Oh my! Didn't we know it was just an extension of East KC? Didn't we know it was just a white-trash cesspool, and that our children were doomed to become redneck meth-heads? Oh my!
Either that, or they treated us like we were charity cases. Uhhh.. 'k.
Forget about having anybody over to your house if you live in Independence. You're company will surely be dodging bullets, pit bulls, jacked-up 4X4's, and meth fumes to get here.

I hate that the Royals stink.

I hate that we don't have a National Hockey League team. The newly founded Missouri Mavericks in Independence should comfort me a little...
UNTIL THEY ALL GET HOOKED ON METH, AND END UP IN REHAB!!! OH MY!

I hate that the Chiefs haven't been to a Super Bowl in my lifetime.

Sprawl. Say what you want, but in my opinion, it's crap. I think most would agree, but a large percentage of those either don't think about it much, or don't care enough to complain. But I'm certain they'd rather things not be so far away. I'm not against suburbs, but why on earth far-flung Olathe has 100k residents is anybody's guess. They like to be that much closer to back home, perhaps.

Kansas City's government. It's a big reason for that-there sprawl. It also would be nice if they would prioritize things. Sports arenas are cool, but there's sewers and water mains and potholes and police forces to tend to. That's the kind of stuff prospective residents look at, not how nice and fancy your no-tenant arena is.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Sprint Center, and for the most part, it's been good for the city.

KCK. Not sure why, but I just don't like it.

I don't particularly care for the proximity to Arkansas, Texas, or Oklahoma.

The climate here is just too hot. Also, the lack of snow is saddening. But hey, in JoCo, they'll clear that dusting off in no time flat! Woo Hoo! You can go 90 in a 60 after all! YAY! You're 2 1/2 minutes earlier for work than you would have been otherwise! Yippee! Take that, Bossman!

I hate the crime. I don't care the thuggish/trashy/abrasive-redneck culture. It's everywhere you go, in every part of the metro. Worse in some places than others.

Most importantly, I absolutely CANNOT STAND the FM radio stations around here. They are a new level of awful.
Hideously mainstream, with untalented personalities, they offer nothing for me to listen to.
97.3 The Planet played great music, even if they're DJ's were corny. Then it switched to playing hard rock (what else in this town?), and now, it's a K-Love station, which is still better than that '80's hair band crap that was on for a brief time after the Planet went away.
Don't even get me started on 96.5, with their 12-year-old-brained goof-balls, who pathetically try to be political, and still think the shock-jock thing is cool. How '90's of them.

I hate that I have to drive all the way up to Zona Rosa just to eat at Noodles & Company. Okay, there's the ones in JoCo, but it's all the same distance from me. Grrrrr.

I hate that the only Chipotle in Independence is tiny, and always busy... and still too far from my house. Ditto with Popeye's. Grrrrr.

I hate that I'm closer to K-Mart and Wal-Mart than I am to Target. Grrrr.

I hate that there's no Mexican restaurant on the Independence Square. Good grief, it's about the only thing they don't have yet... that and a Chinese place. The Square is a fantastic place for a date, by the way.

I hate that I hate so much about it, but really, I still like KC..... mostly...... for now........................

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by MurphyHog1977

Below I have selected your rant against Rednecks. Meth heads are not Rednecks. Meth heads are Meth heads. They are also sometimes called Crack heads. That is an insult against Red necks. Do you even know where the phrase Red neck came from? It actually came from the miners in Virginia. They would wear red rags around their neck to symbolize their status. So there ya have it Rednecks,hicks,cowboys whatever you may call us. But please do not associate us with Crack heads.

GO HOGS WOOOOO PIG SOOOOOOIE !!!!!

If you had read carefully you'd have seen that they were complaining about others in the metro who said that about where they lived.

[northbound74]

Thanks, aragx6.

Um, I'm almost afraid to respond to all that. My post was written in what seems like a forever ago, during what surely was a frustrating time in my life, and in all honesty, it was largely meant to be tongue-in-cheek... even though it had a harsh tone. So I was trying to find humor out of some anger in a twisted kind of way.
I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by it-any of it.

As far as the term redneck is concerned, I've always associated it with too-tanned farmers especially in the hot south, some of whom I am related to and descended from, and not ashamed one bit by it.
In popular culture, the meaning has gone far beyond that.
Of course it means different things to different people. It's derogatory, humorous, offensive, proud, and used flippantly.
Yes, I was describing stereotypes of a place I chose to live in, using the same vocabulary that the people who spread those stereotypes use.

[scimitar12]

Originally Posted by KC_Sleuth

Amazing that, for being such a college-fan town, there are not a lot of great private colleges in this area. Avila, Park, and other locals barely crack Tier III...and our only public institution in KCMO is also not a top-100. I wish we had a WashU caliber university here. I love cities with thriving college scenes...the school I went to in Boston was just always full of activity.

Interesting. I have worked in higher ed in the past and have lived in the KCMO area for many years. I have never felt that any of colleges and universities were considered by anyone to be of high academic caliber. As a group that are okay but nothing great.