Kansas City, An Analysis.
Written: Sep 21 '04 (Updated Sep 21 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Pollution, decent suburbs, shopping, restaurants, cheap real estate, and cost of living.
Cons: Airport, drivers, mass transit, nightlife, dating scene, too spread out, culture, downtown.
The Bottom Line: The low cost of living and great restaurants are offset by terrible drivers, a pathetic nightlife, rude people, and a lack of culture.
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| napoleon123's Full Review: Kansas City |
I have lived in Kansas City for the past 3 years. I work in Leavenworth, but I reside in North Kansas City.
A short background: Compared to many other American cities on the east cost, Kansas City is relatively new. Though Kansa Native Americans occupied the area well before the 1600s, it didn’t become an American city until the mid 1800s. The city has a rich history of jazz and of course, barbeque. Kansas City's population is 442,768 with an additional 1.4 million people that live in the surrounding counties and towns. The local economy is based on a combination of agriculture, transportation, engineering, technology, telecommunications, and manufacturing. Unemployment is below national averages. Crime is below national averages but has seen a recent spike due to gang violence.
Lets get down to the Great, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about Kansas City.
GETTING AROUND:
The Great: Navigation gets easy once you get the roads and highways down.
The Good: Decent train station. Cheap parking.
The Bad: Everything is very spread out. To go anywhere outside of your neighborhood, look to be on the road for a minimum of 15 minutes. Not having a car can make life quite hard living in KC. Traffic in some areas is bad, but ok in others.
The Ugly: Oh, where to begin?
1. I'm convinced Kansas City has the dumbest drivers in the continental US. What’s up with people in this city that CAMP in the left lane on the highways; oblivious to the people behind them that needs to pass??? Is using the left lane as a passing lane not taught in State driving exams here? The fact that everyone here seems to drive 5 below the speed limit is also quite annoying. Oh, and one more thing, is it against the religion of Kansas City locals to use TURNING SIGNALS??? To no surprise, car accidents here are a common problem.
2. The mass transit system is a joke at best. No subway system. The buses are terrible (in some places they run once an hour....if your lucky) and they often stop running at 5-6 PM. Taxis are a rip-off; use them only if you're tanked.
3. The airport is low budget and tiny considering the heavy traffic of planes they get there. The condition and size of the airport terminals at KCI is laughable compared to many other small cities, yet alone cities of KCs size.
4. The Grandview triangle area is a traffic nightmare. They have been working on that area since I showed up here 3 years ago and they don’t seem to be getting much done.
5. The conditions of the streets and roads is among the worst I have seen anywhere so far. From huge potholes to blaring cracks on the roads, you can be rest assured that you will visit your mechanic often for wheel alignments, tire balancing, and even suspension work due to the punishment Kansas City roads inflict on your vehicle.
6. Too many two-lane roads, which all too often become deathtraps the moment a drunk, or a distracted driver makes a mistake.
SHOPPING:
The Great: Overland Park mall is very large and classy. Outdoor plazas like the Plaza and Zona Rosa are wonderful for outdoor shopping.
The Good: Sales tax on items is generally reasonable.
The Bad: Apparently, there used to be places to shop downtown. A handful are still there if you look hard enough, so I've heard. Most of the better indoor malls are a good distance away. The Market, where they sell produce and farmers market variety items, at one point must have been larger. Currently, that’s not the case.
The Ugly: The fact that the Indian Springs mall is even open. That mall needs to be put out of its misery. Ditto for the Bannister Road mall. The Great Plains mall in Olathe has taken a rapid turn for the worse; I'm actually surprised by this.
RESTAURANTS:
The Great: KC masterpiece, smokehouse BBQ, and Gates barbeque is legendary for great BBQ food. Prices for the food is surprisingly modest. El Maguey is a little known Mexican food place in Kansas City that offers incredible Mexican food that is a steal for what you get.
The Good: Impressive restaurants found throughout the plaza like the melting pot and the Hibachi.
The Bad: Some tend to be pricey.
The Ugly: Cant think of anything this bad to say about any of the places in KC I ate.
GEOGRAPHY/AREA:
The Great: Overland Park.
The Good: Plaza Area. Parts of North Kansas City (some parts are a tad trashy though)
The Bad: Not many places to get a good view of the city.
The Ugly: Parts of KC like troost, paseo, and the 22-29th street areas are quite run down and crime infested. In fact, most of the east side of Kansas City is quite bad. Kansas City, Kansas also leaves a lot to be desired (There is a Kansas City, MO and a smaller Kansas City, KS, two different cities). The downtown area is shamefully small and becomes a ghost town after 6PM, even on the weekends. Outside of a handful of bars, hotels, and vacant buildings, it’s obvious the downtown area is a sad shell of its former self. In fact most of the hotels have moved to better areas.
RECREATION/CULTURE/ARTS:
The Great: Jazz bars. Stanford & Sons comedy club
The Good: The Casinos, which I like to frequent not because of gambling, but good restaurants and cheap booze.
Westport, to a certain small degree. Union station/science city.
The Bad:
1. Westport, the crappy parts where sometimes people get robbed. Westport is supposed to be the nightspot of town. Put it this way, I'm much less then impressed. There are about 2 clubs and about 5 bars in the area, which frankly aren’t all that nice despite having several colleges nearby.
2.Radio stations are sub par. The 2 top-40 stations play the same songs often twice or even 3 times an hour. The rest of the radio stations? You guessed it, country stations. They recently replaced their only smooth jazz station with yet another country station. KC has a long history of jazz, yet they canned their only jazz station to make room for the 8th (or 9th, there are too many to count) country station on the radio. Shame. Outside of the one or 2 oldies stations, listening to the radio in Kansas City is often a painful experience.
3. KCs love of the arts and is obviously small judging by the one halfway decent art museum. The other one is tiny, but in its defense it is free.
4. No natural history museums.
5. The Jazz museum was really late to the party; it just opened a few years ago. The hours are quite weird.
The Ugly:
1. A funeral is more entertaining then KC's nightlife. The people I met while out when I was single were often rude and unapproachable. The people that I did meet and had a good time with were not from the KC area. That’s just sad. I don’t know what it is, but the dating scene in Kansas City is horrific. From what I have heard from some of the locals, is that the people in the Kansas City area tend to get married fairly young, which means most of the rejects and psychotics frequent the clubs and bars. That could explain some things if its true.
2. A lot of the clubs here shut down at 1 AM or even before. What's up with that? And the very few that do stay open until 2 AM are the shabby hole-in-the-wall type clubs like 151 or club uptown (which I think was shut down) in which you risk gunfire after leaving.
3. Outside of the jazz bars, the regular bars are nothing to write home about. All to often, they have overpriced beer, a quiet and anti-social crowd, and a very limited selection of beer. People only seem to be social in the bars when there is a Chiefs game on. Again, the friendliest people I met while out in Kansas City were not from Kansas City. I think that alone speaks volumes.
CRIME:
The Great: Some places in KC don’t have any problems with crime.
The Good: Despite a rise in crime, crimes like rape and murder is still below national averages. Property theft is fairly low.
The Bad: In the areas where there is little crime, the cops are bored and pull people over for stupid infractions. Funny thing is, they never pull people over for changing lanes without signaling, camping in the left lane, or talking on the cell phone behind the wheel. Overall crime has seen a steady increase. Unlike some other cities, the criminals aren’t just preying on other criminals.
The Ugly: There was a serial killer at work on the east side who apparently was recently caught. The criminals are quite reckless and stupid. Westport has had an ongoing problem with muggings. Criminals will sometimes venture into better areas to commit crimes. Robbery seems to be quite a problem considering the size of Kansas City.
EDUCATION/HEALTHCARE:
The Great: University of Mo and KU medical school has a decent reputation here.
The Good: North Kansas City Hospital is well known for its very friendly staff.
The Bad: None of the colleges nearby are particularly special in any areas, and are not renowned outside of the local areas.
The local public secondary and primary schools in KC are taking steps in the right direction, but still need improvements. Some of the schools in the area got so bad at one point they lost accreditations. I have never heard of such a thing until I saw it here.
The Ugly: Outside of North KC hospital, and the KU med center, the hospitals in the Kansas City area are quite mediocre, and that’s being nice.
THE ECONOMY:
The Great: Unemployment is below national averages. Automakers provide good paying manufacturing jobs in the area.
The Good: Decent jobs are around if you look hard enough in overland park. Cheap real estate and low cost of living.
The Bad: Commuting to your job may take a while. The better jobs tend to be some distance on the outskirts of the city.
The ugly: Sprint, KCs biggest employer downsizes at an alarming rate randomly, despite just building a behemoth headquarters in KC. Getting a decent job is difficult here if you haven’t been in the workforce for a while such as divorcees who were stay at home parents.
WEATHER/ENVIRONMENT:
The Great: 4 distinct seasons. Sunny often. Low pollution (at least not near the manufacturing areas).
The Good: The extremes of summer and winter aren’t usually dramatic.
The Bad: Weather is difficult to predict at times. I don’t know if this is due to the area or simply useless weathermen.
The Ugly: Tornadoes have been known to make special guest appearances. Flooding is a problem in the lower areas if it rains too much.
CONCLUSION:
Kansas City is a city that has a lot of promise. The economy is decent, cost of living is low, and the real estate you get there for your buck is outstanding. But Kansas City falls well short compared to many other cities of its size and smaller. The city has a profound lack of culture and identity, coupled with the fact that it has a non-existent nightlife and a poor dating scene for younger singles. Even for younger couples, there isn’t much to do in KC. The people here aren’t particularly friendly, which in my mind, has a lot to do with how the city is spread out so much. I've learned that people who live in closer proximities tend to be a bit friendlier because they have little choice. I myself live in one of the better suburbs of north Kansas City, and even out here, no one seems to socialize much or even care to say hi to each other. We had a recent neighborhood get-together on a Saturday, and a handful of people out of the hundreds of residents showed up. People can make or break a city, and from what I have seen here, there is a lot that needs to be fixed. The rude and bad drivers alone would make me think twice about living here permanently, yet alone the increasing crime, and poor nightlife. If your sole purpose here is a job, then living here shouldn’t be too bad. But for anything more, you may want to look at another city. I would have given it three stars, but since the crime has risen recently, it gets 2 stars.
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Seniors
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
napoleon123
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Member: Uriel
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Born and raised in Pittsburgh PA. History Degree from Niagara U. Aged 30.
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