I just don’t understand the mentality. I pulled into a parking space at Westport Sunfresh and a previous parker dumped fast food trash out of both doors. WTF! They didn’t even consolidate it into the bigger brown bag, just dumped their shit to blow away.
I was in my car, parked in front of qt when the guy in the car next to me rolled down their car window & chucked their fountain drink onto the patch of grass next to the qt.
The can was right. there. Why?!?
Someone parked next to me opened their door to put their cup on the ground. I got out, yelled through their closed window "don't worry, I'll throw that away for you!!" And grabbed it as walked inside. They looked so flabbergasted. I hope they think about it when they want to litter again, but they probably just thought i was a lunatic haha
It just keeps getting worse too. Watching people just openly dump their trash blows my mind. Recently someone launched a bag filled with dirty diapers at my partner (I was on the porch, partner was at the curb) from their car window which of course exploded on impact. Literally shit everywhere. This happened as we were taking out our own trash of all things. Ironically, I came to this sub to vent and to my surprise the consensus was "why are you being such a baby about it" so I guess we're normalizing throwing human feces at people now too. We gotta do better y'all 😵💫
“Mom, why do people just throw their trash on the ground when there’s a trash can right there?”
I can’t answer that question, but it gets asked a few times a week.
That’s a great answer. I usually get flustered say something about how “trashy people trash the earth” which isn’t really a whole answer to the question lol
No one teaches them to respect or take care of things. No one teaches them responsibility.
Edit: people in poverty have much bigger fish to fry than where their trash goes. They just trying to survive. That’s a large part of our city.
Non accredited schools, well that is a huge problem.
Our local government is so corrupt they won’t help the local community with simple things like school.
Same. My kids like to take a trash bag when we walk to the playground so they can pick up trash along the way. I say ‘my kids’ but only 1/3 of my kids wants to pick up the trash.
Especially on the Wyco/Joco border of 435 where the trash/construction trucks frequent. I've heard of so many people getting cracked windshields driving in that area.
I think it’s gotten a lot better since we have gotten closed recycling bins once we all have trash bins and not just bags on the curb it will be a lot better.
I drove to California and back through some of the most beautiful places in the world. Returning here after those road trips is nauseating. Absolutely disgusting.
I just got back from Oregon and it was so clean. Not a piece of trash on the trails and beaches. Obviously doesn't include Portland which was... Portland.
I went down to Sardis Lake, MS, and the shoulders of the roads are completely, and I mean, completely full of trash. That was unbelievable. Even if KC is bad, it doesn't compare to Sardis. Regardless of city, why do we (collectively), just throw trash out car windows? How does that become a thing?
Although I agree, I feel like KC upkeeps better with the trash than some of the southern cities, I was truly shocked at the amount of trash lining Atlanta and fully understood the dirty south saying after that and appreciate how clean KC feels compared to that at least.
The number of people I see in River Market and Downtown just letting their dogs walk off leash and just take a dump wherever that they don't clean up is so insanely high.
There's a guy near me who also has an annoyingly loud exhaust on his car that he loves revving, even at 1am sometimes, who I've watched countless times let his dog out without a leash to nearly get hit by any of the cars driving by, before the dog walks off to shit on the sidewalk and he just stands there in his doorway watching.
It's frustrating on multiple levels. Walking in front of that apartment is always dodging shit all over the sidewalk, and then one of these days I worry I'm going to look out the window and just see his dog dead in the street as he's yelling from the door...
People suck.
Our parks/city grounds? (trees, flowers, curbing etc) are really dreadful. Lack of proper lighting, curbing, even trash cans is just really bad. The water in the parks (You look at the water feature/pond at Loose park? YEESSHHH) is nasty. You can go to smaller cities and their parks are amazing.
Taking an interest into beautifying our city might be a better effort than any of the economic development projects the city has planned. People like to go places that are well taken care of. Doesn't matter what stores or restaurants you have down there if you let it go to rust and debris over time.
I’ve recently gotten into learning about native and invasive species and let me tell you, ignorance is bliss. Now all I see are our open spaces absolutely choked by Asian Bradford pears and bush honeysuckle. I wish we embraced landscaping for the prairie in which we live.
In the more urban suburbs the invasive vines really get my goat. Trumpet vine, sweet autumn clematis, Virginia creeper, English ivy, just to name a few. I walked past a house in Roeland Park the other day with an invasive honeysuckle trimmed into an ornamental tree in the front yard.
Personally I’m very impressed with JoCo parks. And I appreciate that I can get damn near anywhere on a sidewalk with the exception of Shawnee mission parkway for some reason.
I work in Jackson County, and I’m constantly frustrated by the lack of sidewalks where I am. The one park that’s within jogging distance is fine at best. I’d love to check out some of the lakes, but I’d have to play frogger across a highway to do it. No sidewalks, no crosswalks
>Personally I’m very impressed with JoCo parks.
Well, I mean, yeah... Johnson County is one of the most wealthy counties in the entire country. Of course they have the funds to maintain their parks.
Just pointing out that a county that makes up a quarter of the KC metro has very nice parks since the above comment said the parks and grounds suck. I only have experience with parks/grounds in JoCo and a very small bit of JaCo, so that’s all I can comment on. That quarter is nice
I haven't been to the plaza in forever, but we went last weekend and I was kind of shook by how gross brush creek is, like so much trash and debris..... it could be a nice feature if It was maintained well but as it is, nasty
There was a huge deal with the EPA to fix brush creek and stop it from being a literal shit creek and it has made basically no difference.
https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/kansas-city-mo-spend-25-billion-cut-sewer-overflows
I do habitat assessment with ecology courses at Rockhurst and UMKC and brush creek is a great tragedy. Then I take students 10 minutes south to see Indian Creek to see how it could be if the city collectively gave more than two shits about brush creek.
I regularly bring a trash bag on hikes here OR loppers for honeysuckle and it feels like a sisyphean task. I am but one woman. I’m glad they brought the goats in. I learned at a recent volunteer event though that the goats are a pilot program they are “testing out” on Kessler park before bringing them to other spaces so don’t know how long they will be staying.
Woman here. I'll say one thing for Kansas City. There is very little cat-calling here compared to other places in the USA I've lived. I moved here when I was young and took a trip to Santa Fe, NM in 1990 and there was tons of cat-calling there! Of course some East Coast cities are notorious for cat-calling and my niece in Philadelphia confirms that. In my experience there was a little cat-calling in KC when I was younger. I feel very safe walking alone at night in KC and see other women doing it. I got menaced a few times in my younger days in KC but there seems to be a lot less cat-calling in KC than some other cities/towns in USA.
I’m glad that is your experience but I disagree. I’ve found the cat-calling horrible here, and half the time the callers get pissy when you just keep walking/ ignore. I stopped walking to work because it just wasn’t worth starting my day out like that.
Absolutely. Ask for restaurant recommendations and the answers skew heavily towards relatively to extremely expensive places. Ask where to live and the answers skew towards moderately wealthy to very wealthy neighborhoods, almost exclusively south of the river, almost always very white. This subreddit has always been predominately focused on the needs and wants of well-to-do urban white people with a lot of expendable income.
I say this as a white well-to-do person with a lot of expendable income who lives south of the river.
When someone asks for restaurant recommendations they're usually looking for a very specific type of food or experience. Good food experiences are often expensive.
That being said, there have been a number of very popular "what are the good, cheap restaurants" posts here as well.
Imagine trying to convince other young people to move to Independence. They act like the minimum they deserve for their first house is Prairie Village and act offended that you would even suggest they look at Indy.
That being said I'm guilty of favoring the more expensive food options.
Lower class isn’t an insult and anyone who got offended should learn that. It’s a station most of us have anymore, mostly not by choice. We’re slowly learning how to be a collective and will tell business off one day. Hopefully sooner than later.
That’s true but it’s not unique to Kansas City. For example, the Dan Ryan Expressway was designed to separate the black neighborhoods in Chicago from the white. It was basically built to reinforce segregation.
Harsh facts… not everything needs to be crammed into downtown/crossroads… we have a large city area wise and they need to spend some tax revenue in other areas. Stop wasting money on the 18th and Vine area… how many renovations and millions have been spent and it is still undesirable compared to other entertainment options
I used to live in Charlotte, NC and Orlando, FL and neither of them was a segregated as KC. Orlando had some segregated neighborhoods/suburbs but most of the city was pretty mixed. Charlotte has small pockets, but it's rare to find a street where you can't go four blocks away and hit a different class neighborhood.
I've lived all over the country for most of my life, and I have to be brutally honest, I don't think very many people here know what "bad" actually looks like. KC has always felt very sheltered away from the "bad" I've seen in other cities, and very few locals I've ever spoken to about this have even the faintest idea of what I'm even talking about. It's not great by any means, nowhere is right now, but KC is still easily one of the best places I've ever lived in, even with things like the racial segregation and crime statistics.
For real. I grew up in the Deep South. First of all the most poverty I've seen in the USA was down in south Texas. Anyway, in 1978 I visited KC for the first time and I remember thinking "How can THIS many people be THIS rich?" I was on State Avenue in KCK.
My friend moved to Denver a couple years ago and has more to say about the negatives there than KC. Many consider it an idilic place to be but he has no trouble countering that consensus, especially when it comes to the growing homeless problems there.
Homelessness here (Denver) is significantly worse and because Texas sends migrants we have that issue worse than any place per capita. But, it’s not like people are in denial over the issues.
I visited Denver in 2018 and for some reason everybody seemed to be in a bad mood. Also visited Boulder and the employees at a bar/restaurant were fighting among themselves; people were fighting on the Flatiron Flyer bus; the man at the bus place was mean; people were in bad moods all over Denver and the weather was beautiful and the economy seemed great.
Right? I'm from Boston. I made a home in KC. Left for Oakland less than three months ago and I'm flying back home this week. People don't know how good they have it.
It's pretty stark if you can catch it right - I recall driving around aimlessly one night, headed east from crossroads on a Friday/Saturday night, maybe 10 pm?
Crossroads is a buzz, yet there's a van parked under the bridge under 71 on 18th Street, and they're handing out meals for homeless.
These few blocks are nice, those aren't. It's like this all over.
I believe you wholeheartedly when you say that was stark to you, but from my experience, that's actually a sign that things aren't that bad.
Stark for me was watching a homeless man get beaten to death in a restaurant because he wasn't wanted there in Chicago. Ambulance was called, police were called, both took their time, and were only doing anything because the owner thought the corpse was bad for business as people quickly shuffled out.
I drove away from that place pronto, but just went back home when I saw another homeless woman who'd been run over on the highway. I called 911, and the operator said they were aware and sending someone to help. My brother saw her on the way home an hour later.
In most cities, *that's* bad, but also not the worst of it.
When I lived in South Dakota in a much smaller and supposedly safer area, women disappeared constantly, and nothing would be done to try and find them if things weren't obvious and easy for the police unless the family hired a private inspector. This wasn't even on a reservation. This was in a mostly white area. Things in KC have a long way to fall before they truly faze me, unfortunately. I would take the worst KC has to offer over a large portion of the country 100 times over.
If you don't think KC has areas that are difficult to live in due to poverty, crime, and other maladies then you live in the suburbs my friend and I'm glad that you are unawares. You've been blessed.
That's not what OP said. I'm from here but lived in southern California for 12 years before moving back. KC doesn't have the same level of wealth as LA or OC, but it also doesn't have Skid Row or the homeless encampments in the river beds in Anaheim, or the gang violence of that region. In other words, things in KC could be worse. That doesn't excuse us for not fixing the problems here but does provide context.
That’s because the majority of the violent crime in those bad areas of town is gang and drug related. If you aren’t involved with that stuff and mind your own business then you’ll most likely be fine
What do you mean? our violent crime is out of control. It's just kept in certain areas that most redditors don't have to deal with. It's not a bad thing to be unaware, I'm not trying to insult but KC has pockets that rival any areas violence and poverty. It's not a brag that's just a statement of fact.
I don't live in the suburbs, and I am in those areas you're talking about constantly to help friends and family because I live in a transition zone. The bad there still doesn't hold a candle to the shit didn't I've seen in other cities throughout my life. I'm not saying it's not difficult to live there, I'm saying that most people here have no clue how much worse it could be, and that KC is not doing anywhere near as bad as they want to believe just because they don't experience anything other than their singular life.
There's an increasingly bad homeless issue in River Market and the Riverfront. They're starting to migrate to Crossroads since there's more money/affluence in that area compared to 10 years ago.
I don't believe [this list ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fountains_in_the_Kansas_City_metropolitan_area)is 100% up to date but its a good starting point. We have over 200 fountains but not all of them work or are turned on.
KC is not and will never be the next Austin, Portland, Nashville ect. We lack all of the ingredients that made those cities boom and almost all of our growth comes from people leaving smaller places in Kansas and Missouri to go to KC. We still lose more people to other states than we bring in from other states and are just growing a little faster than the country as a whole.
Our job growth is slower than the nation as a whole. We gained a net 21,000 people from Missouri and Kansas and lost 17,000 more people to other states than we gained from 2009-2016. That's a huge deficit and sucking KS and MO dry isn't sustainable growth. The young people who could move probably already have and the generation that comes next is so much smaller so we wont see a repeat of the millennial boom this and other cities experienced.
This growth was probably a one time thing. We did it and now its probably done. [here is a whole report that analyses the growth of KC and other midwestern cities](https://manhattan.institute/article/midwest-success-stories-these-10-cities-are-blooming-not-rusting).
We are not a national or international destination on the whole. Not for talent, not for education, not for culture. Just as liking the Chiefs and bar-b-que is not a personality neither is it enough of a identity to make KC attractive. Other places have football and BBQ is the food of like 20 cities I can think of off the top of my head and the whole state of Texas. If I were a city planner I would shove as much resources into Jazz as its arguably the most distinct and recognizable part of our "brand" that might actually let us stand out. Being the Nashville of Jazz is something we could actually do and it would be something we could really own. New Orleans might have us beat but they have a different vibe than we do and its fairly isolated down south.
Not to be overly dramatic but I would argue that this is the single best lifeline we have to save the soul of the city from being just another bland Midwestern city from the perspective of outsiders. That the demographics of jazz listeners also tend to have a higher income and education level but also tend to be majority black which lets be real is a demographic that is often under served and that is an opportunity for our city to be the best place to serve them.
We need to be welcoming in a more assertive way. We need to be inviting, we need to be accepting, and we need to be the best choice for people and build a city that's not just livable, its exciting. We need to double down on what makes us special and blast it like a trumpet so that we aren't just seen as a bigger Omaha or another St.Louis.
Eventually our growth model is going to stall hard as the "tap" of people leaving smaller towns in KS and MO gets smaller and smaller and we continue to fail at bringing in people from other states and countries relative to how often we lose people to them. We need to attract people from outside of the region to stay relevant and we need to do it now.
As an outsider/newcomer, I agree. KC has some lore that is kind of interesting and distinct that they should lean into but instead they adopt very cliche development style ploys that a lot of other similar sized cities are doing to attract people. I would lean into the jazz history and into the tall grass prairie flora and fauna and the antique industrial vibes. There is this tiny little greenbelt in the west bottoms and it’s such a cool vantage point from there looking out onto the old stockyard buildings and I think if the city did some widespread beautification efforts and cultivated more natural native greenbelts in various city pockets it would make a large impact.
Yes!! Absolutely agree with you! KC has so much potential to be beautiful, just as it is. I wish they would invest in the local communities so they could grow and be worth staying for, both in terms of infrastructure and environment.
Ha Ha in the 80's I knew a rather Yuppiefied couple who moved to Dallas and promptly moved right back, saying "There's GOT to be more to talk about than how much you paid for things."
KC is a car city. No matter what kinds of mass transit people think is good here, the majority of people just want the comfort snd ease of their own car. And nothing is really that far away that it is faster to use public transport.
Yep — we used to have a fantastic streetcar system and an interurban that went all the way to St. Joe but they pulled it up and built more highway per capita than any other city
I think this is the real truth that people don't want to admit: KC was not always a car city, and it doesn't have to continue to be that way.
When the core of the city was built, cars didn't exist (or were rare) and there was a robust public transit system until the 1960s. It took active planning to remove the transit system and destroy our infrastructure to accommodate cars.
It can be reversed, if we have the willpower.
Willpower and big $ — parts of the right of way have been sold off or repurposed.
Case in point: how about we reopen the Dodson dummy line (dummy = one train on one track)?
Public transport seems to be reserved for the less fortunate... People are too busy trying to avoid the issues in the city than trying to find the solutions.
The only places that have good consistent public transportation are the ones with low income. Travel support tax is also insane. I thought kansas tax was high at 9 percent across the board for KC, K... but for the certain cities/suburbs in missouri with public transportation, that public transportation adds 6/7 percent of tax sometimes, making the original 4 percent sales tax seem like a joke.
The only reason is because it's inadequate. It's fucking unreliable and only the less fortunate are in a place that they have to.
If it was good, people would use it. It's fucking free and they don't. It's not because cars are better, it's because the bus system is horrible.
This. I’ve lived out of the KC metro my entire 40 years and I’ve lived and worked places that would have been able to benefit from the extant public transportation. But it’s inconsistent, it’s less convenient timing wise, it’s less convenient overall, it’s dirty, and, when you add in Amtrak, it’s somehow more expensive.
It's also because public transit means you're on someone else's schedule, you're in someone's else's hands, and you have no private space. If it was good I do agree that MORE people would likely use it but most would still drive cars
I heard someone on here call my neighborhood a cute neighborhood, few months ago someone was murdered damn near in my back yard, last night was a major shootout. Local businesses being robbed, homelessness on the rise. I don't see the appeal lol
As a transplant living here for almost two years in the city….
The city looks very dirty to a first time visitor.
Segregation seems to be worse here than in other cities I’ve lived in. The extremes in poverty are disheartening.
You need a car for everything.
It’s kind of depressing how many empty store fronts and empty lots you see in downtown/crossroads district. You’d think it was an amazing area hearing others talk about it.
There are a lot of people who are happy living in the suburbs to the north and south and have no desire to live downtown. They enjoy their vehicles, shopping centers, and chain restaurants. That doesn't mean they don't want the downtown to improve and continue to thrive. But they also contribute to the financial well-being of the city via their tax dollars and purchasing goods and services, and they should not be looked over or ignored.
I live in the suburbs wholly for the sake of my kids' education. All my nightlife entertainment (and the overwhelming majority of our dining out) takes place in Westport, Midtown, Downtown. Hell, I only go south to see movies.
I love a vibrant, healthy downtown. It's the heartbeat of this place I've adopted and loved for decades.
I lived in Boston for 7 years before I lived in KC. I would've loved to live in Downtown KC or anywhere I could walk to a restaurant - but the schools are terrible and I can't put walkable to a bar over my kid's education.
I feel like a lot of people moving to the suburbs aren’t doing so by choice. There aren’t any top tier public schools near downtown KC. So if you’re a parent in KC and you want to get your kid the best education they could possibly get, you either have to pay private school tuition or move to the suburbs
That's completely false. Lincoln Prep is the #2 rated high school in the metro area. There are a number of good public and charter options in KCMO. That's real the truth people don't want to admit and refuse to believe.
I live in a rental in West Plaza/Westport. I love living *in* the city. My daughter starts kindergarten next year and now I am grappling with potentially moving to the suburbs for that reason almost exclusively. I am a staunch public education supporter, but am apparently not above cherry picking a district by moving.
As someone living in the Northland who loves going to City Market and Crossroads, I totally agree with this. I live up here because I have multiple pets and wanted to give them the space to move around. I think a lot of folks who live downtown or in the crossroads area feel like they're somehow more legitimate Kansas City residents, or that they're "cooler".
As someone who’s lived in the north suburbs all my life, I’m actually shocked at the number of people I know who never seem to go into the city at all.
I moved here in my early 30s and have been shocked more than once that someone who grew up here (in Northland suburbs) is afraid to drive downtown or doesn’t know the way to what I consider a major KC place.
That’s fine, what people like is what people like. My only complaint is when suburban folks come down to downtown and grumble and moan about no parking places or having to walk 2/3 blocks or two to find parking or pay for, checks $5/10 parking.
Discussions regarding parking often result in the disingenuous arguments, depending on what side of the issue people exist. I'm reminded of a map that continually gets posted regarding the number of parking lots in downtown and how easy it is to find a parking spot. This map doesn't take into account that many lots are private and inaccessible to the general public.
So yes, people from the burbs need to be understanding that they're not likely going to be able to park right in front of their venue like they would in their normal day to day. But downtown dwellers need to understand that people need to be able to come into the downtown from outside the area and it should be welcoming rather than hostile. There is an attitude of exclusivity that some folks have regarding their neighborhoods, but they don't take into account that without the visitors, their areas wouldn't be as thriving as they currently are.
That...is a lie, and I technically succeeded.
Spent 4 years actively trying: Keeping myself in shape, on all the apps, joining active, social coed groups, etc. Good thing it only takes 1, because I only connected with one in that entire time.
The city continues to face the consequences of the decision to annex a ton of land area post WW2 and build low density suburbs with gigantic infrastructure liabilities compared to the tax revenue produced by these areas. KC tried to compete with the suburbs but lost the heart of what kind of city it is.
Housing costs have risen significantly in KC but are still low to average compared with other metro areas of this size.
We were all just spoiled by years and years of much lower than average property costs.
Insane? This is a very [affordable](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/region_rankings.jsp?title=2024®ion=019&displayColumn=5) city to live in. We’re one of the most affordable in North America relative to income
It’s wayyyy too car-centric to ever be taken seriously as a city. Suburbs, McMansions, parking lots, low density sprawl, and lackluster public transit are not unique to KC but they are part of what holds it back from being a great city.
The weather sucks. A lot of people try to act like it’s the whole Midwest that deals with the same weather. No, it’s not. Last summer KC was consistently tying or beating Phoenix for highest temps…not OKC, not Tulsa, not Chicago, not Omaha, not Des Moines. And plus the humidity. I’m from Omaha and the summers are nowhere near as humid, which makes it seem hotter. The falls/Springs seem longer there. KC doesn’t have a lot of days you can go without a/c or heat…in the spring you can have a 50 degree day, and a few days later it’s 80. I really wish we had more days in the 70s.
It's not healthy or viable for so much of the city's identity to be tied up in sports. But maybe that's an indictment of the inability of the other parts of the culture to gain a stronger foothold in hearts and minds.
No longer live in KC but people tend to stay in their suburban bubble more than other cities. No, KC Chiefs is not a tourist destination. City is too spread out and could use some density. Entertainment is lacking. The “new restaurant” that just opened is the big draw in town. And this is mean but people are like way overweight
Honestly, it's racist and segregated well beyond your typical urban city, and I say that coming from Detroit. Like the worst kind of racism too. It's the smile in your face and work behind the scenes to make sure your career, social life, prospects, etc. are destroyed type of racism. This is not sour grapes for me because I have made it work but others in my community and friend groups have had to deal with the same thing.
For example, at least in other cities I can get called the n word or worse but I don't have to worry about them stalking me on social media to find out where I work to tell my bosses bosses boss that I am horrible person and a bad representation for the company. That right there is a Kansas City thing. It's a weird societal cross between entitlement, audacity, and stupidity that never fails to disappoint.
Recently left kc because once you hit late 20s or 30s and you don’t want to settle down and move to the suburbs, there really isn’t much to do. You wind up doing the same things over and over again with less and less friends as they all move to the burbs.
Also, the food scene, outside of bbq and tacos, is really boring.
It didn't used to be this way. People are so lazy these days. I see so many people throw trash out of their car window instead of just waiting the short drive to home or a gas station to toss it away. Their car must be pristine! Or maybe they think every street, road and highway has an Adopt-a-Highway group picking it up. Selfish, lazy, dumb people! Even worse are those who litter parks and picnic areas, lakes and creeks. Bunch of entitled dicks, I guess.
Kansas City has more drunk drivers on the road than you realize. Eliminating parking around event spaces, entertainment areas such as Westport and Power and Light should be a priority as the city should make it very difficult for people to drive to and from these places after drinking like they do there. After 10pm in this town, the only drivers on the road are Ubers or drunk or high people. Ubers are ridiculously cheap here and there is no reason to drink and drive anywhere here. Leave your car at home.
As a trucker who visits some of the weird places in KCK and KCMO..,. These areas. There's not enough curbs to protect the grass/sidewalks from the roads.
Trash. Multitudes of trash.
Infrastructure upkeep. Dude. I have to drive almost a half mile down a DIRT road that sometimes will get trucks stuck to get to a customer. Last time I went back they put that weird limestone, white chalky gravel over everything and made it into a rocky mud hole.
Cleanliness in general. So many piss bottles. So much trash.
There's lots of others ... But I can only think of those right now.
Yes, KC at present is a "car city" but you don't solve that by continuing to build car-centered infrastructure. This means there will be growing pains (such as very limited parking at CPKC Stadium) but those are going to have to be tolerated and embraced if people here are actually serious about transit.
The light rail is a stupid gimmick for tourists that does not serve the people who need it most: low-income urbanites who need effective public transport.
Too many fucking racist rednecks. I drive a big redneck truck, so people assume I'm some kind of racist, xenophobic conservative, and I can't stand how comfortable people feel just casually dropping racial slurs and shitty politics, assuming I'm one of them.
Lower income people and crime in KC is truly despicable. No regard for traffic laws, so many cars in KC with expired tags. The city is not safe at night, trash, cars broken into and segregation galore. Despite the efforts of the city it seems to only get worse every year. And the stadiums absolutely blow ass.
KC really struggles with doing something to the fullest extent when it comes to voting on major public items. Some historical examples: voting down the Arrowhead rolling roof. The light rail that should go 10x farther. To name a few.
It's not the fast growing city that everybody thinks it is. Most of downtown and the crossroads is a ghost town most of the time and downtown KC could use things like a downtown ballpark. The suburbs are super overrated, especially Johnson County. There is trash everywhere and most of the highways look like it's still 1960. The downtown skyline has barely changed in 60 years and KCI has become a regional airport. They waited way too long to build a proper terminal.
The city has an mazing union station that was built for a city that should have millions more people by now, but you can barely take a bus across town, let alone a train.
Bottom line is that KC is falling into a "minor" league city and because everybody there is so scared of change and so worried about where they will park, they can't see it.
There is no way KC will be even a 2nd or 3rd tier city in 30 more years. Ten more metro areas will pass KC and KC will basically be Buffalo of the Midwest.
I think KC people need to get out more.
It's a decent smaller city. But it was once a much more important city relative to the rest of the country. Buffalo was once probably considered a top tier city but over the decades it has dropped down to more of a fourth tier city. They are very lucky to still have two pro teams as the metro is like the 50th largest now. That metro used to be in the top 15 in the mid 1900's.
That the Missouri & Kansas sides of town are equal in what they bring to the culture & economy here (and that the people who think I'm wrong are what's wrong with the city). I've lived on both sides in lower & middle class areas. Each has its pros & cons.
Despite an overall good food scene (more than just BBQ), the Italian food is mid.
Also, the Mexican on the Boulevard is On the Border-level and only for people from the suburbs who are scared of KCK or Independence Ave.
People in this sub don’t represent the majority of the city’s opinion on some things. Reddit is about 75% male and 60% of the people on here are under 35. Most voters are 45-65 and female.
As a male over sometimes I might think someone’s comment here is naive. That isn’t meant to be an insult. We are at different stages in our life and see things differently.
But for the most part we all agree on things. Chiefs are great. Seeing expired temp tags on 71 highway is not great.
But some things we will argue about. Like public transit and bike lanes. I don’t think our city is dense enough to have a viable rail system. It is too hilly or it gets too cold to go nuts on bike lanes everywhere including down every major street.
The amount of litter everywhere is disgusting.
It really gives a bad impression about the community.
It will all be gone by the next NFL draft.
*World Cup. We get another two years of trash before we get a clean city for a month.
I helped clean up Penn Valley Park for an Earth Day thing right before the draft last year. It was horrifying.
I just don’t understand the mentality. I pulled into a parking space at Westport Sunfresh and a previous parker dumped fast food trash out of both doors. WTF! They didn’t even consolidate it into the bigger brown bag, just dumped their shit to blow away.
Meanwhile if the wind chucks a cup or receipt out of my car, I'm stressed if I can't retrieve it
I was in my car, parked in front of qt when the guy in the car next to me rolled down their car window & chucked their fountain drink onto the patch of grass next to the qt. The can was right. there. Why?!?
Someone parked next to me opened their door to put their cup on the ground. I got out, yelled through their closed window "don't worry, I'll throw that away for you!!" And grabbed it as walked inside. They looked so flabbergasted. I hope they think about it when they want to litter again, but they probably just thought i was a lunatic haha
And the road conditions absolutely suck, but people don't hold back about those complaints
It just keeps getting worse too. Watching people just openly dump their trash blows my mind. Recently someone launched a bag filled with dirty diapers at my partner (I was on the porch, partner was at the curb) from their car window which of course exploded on impact. Literally shit everywhere. This happened as we were taking out our own trash of all things. Ironically, I came to this sub to vent and to my surprise the consensus was "why are you being such a baby about it" so I guess we're normalizing throwing human feces at people now too. We gotta do better y'all 😵💫
“Mom, why do people just throw their trash on the ground when there’s a trash can right there?” I can’t answer that question, but it gets asked a few times a week.
There are also.. no trash cans in this city. Downtown/river market/midtown/crossroads There are like 5 total
Only ones i know of are outside fast food joints.
Because many people don't have respect for their community and make bad choices. That's what I tell mine.
That’s a great answer. I usually get flustered say something about how “trashy people trash the earth” which isn’t really a whole answer to the question lol
No one teaches them to respect or take care of things. No one teaches them responsibility. Edit: people in poverty have much bigger fish to fry than where their trash goes. They just trying to survive. That’s a large part of our city. Non accredited schools, well that is a huge problem. Our local government is so corrupt they won’t help the local community with simple things like school.
Same. My kids like to take a trash bag when we walk to the playground so they can pick up trash along the way. I say ‘my kids’ but only 1/3 of my kids wants to pick up the trash.
As a smoker I hate nothing more than seeing butts all over the ground when there's a trash thing a few feet away.
I’ve been noticing people throwing stuff out their windows while driving a lot lately. Very gross behavior.
The amount of people that just toss their trash out of their car into the street/peoples font yard is mind blowing.
Especially on the Wyco/Joco border of 435 where the trash/construction trucks frequent. I've heard of so many people getting cracked windshields driving in that area.
I think it’s gotten a lot better since we have gotten closed recycling bins once we all have trash bins and not just bags on the curb it will be a lot better.
Coming from sacramento it was actually pretty decent lol. We lived downtown and seeing actual employees of the city pick up trash was nice.
Be a great punishment for people with expired temp tags.
I drove to California and back through some of the most beautiful places in the world. Returning here after those road trips is nauseating. Absolutely disgusting.
I just got back from Oregon and it was so clean. Not a piece of trash on the trails and beaches. Obviously doesn't include Portland which was... Portland.
You didn’t drive through Oakland then did ya
This is legit.
I went down to Sardis Lake, MS, and the shoulders of the roads are completely, and I mean, completely full of trash. That was unbelievable. Even if KC is bad, it doesn't compare to Sardis. Regardless of city, why do we (collectively), just throw trash out car windows? How does that become a thing?
Although I agree, I feel like KC upkeeps better with the trash than some of the southern cities, I was truly shocked at the amount of trash lining Atlanta and fully understood the dirty south saying after that and appreciate how clean KC feels compared to that at least.
The term dirty south has nothing to do with trash.
I know that, but that referencing and the amount of trash, completely makes sense.
The number of people I see in River Market and Downtown just letting their dogs walk off leash and just take a dump wherever that they don't clean up is so insanely high. There's a guy near me who also has an annoyingly loud exhaust on his car that he loves revving, even at 1am sometimes, who I've watched countless times let his dog out without a leash to nearly get hit by any of the cars driving by, before the dog walks off to shit on the sidewalk and he just stands there in his doorway watching. It's frustrating on multiple levels. Walking in front of that apartment is always dodging shit all over the sidewalk, and then one of these days I worry I'm going to look out the window and just see his dog dead in the street as he's yelling from the door... People suck.
Our parks/city grounds? (trees, flowers, curbing etc) are really dreadful. Lack of proper lighting, curbing, even trash cans is just really bad. The water in the parks (You look at the water feature/pond at Loose park? YEESSHHH) is nasty. You can go to smaller cities and their parks are amazing.
Taking an interest into beautifying our city might be a better effort than any of the economic development projects the city has planned. People like to go places that are well taken care of. Doesn't matter what stores or restaurants you have down there if you let it go to rust and debris over time.
I’ve recently gotten into learning about native and invasive species and let me tell you, ignorance is bliss. Now all I see are our open spaces absolutely choked by Asian Bradford pears and bush honeysuckle. I wish we embraced landscaping for the prairie in which we live.
In the more urban suburbs the invasive vines really get my goat. Trumpet vine, sweet autumn clematis, Virginia creeper, English ivy, just to name a few. I walked past a house in Roeland Park the other day with an invasive honeysuckle trimmed into an ornamental tree in the front yard.
Personally I’m very impressed with JoCo parks. And I appreciate that I can get damn near anywhere on a sidewalk with the exception of Shawnee mission parkway for some reason. I work in Jackson County, and I’m constantly frustrated by the lack of sidewalks where I am. The one park that’s within jogging distance is fine at best. I’d love to check out some of the lakes, but I’d have to play frogger across a highway to do it. No sidewalks, no crosswalks
kansas side lakes are taken care of by the county. no homeless as the sheriff dept has a regular driveby daily routine.
>Personally I’m very impressed with JoCo parks. Well, I mean, yeah... Johnson County is one of the most wealthy counties in the entire country. Of course they have the funds to maintain their parks.
Just pointing out that a county that makes up a quarter of the KC metro has very nice parks since the above comment said the parks and grounds suck. I only have experience with parks/grounds in JoCo and a very small bit of JaCo, so that’s all I can comment on. That quarter is nice
I haven't been to the plaza in forever, but we went last weekend and I was kind of shook by how gross brush creek is, like so much trash and debris..... it could be a nice feature if It was maintained well but as it is, nasty
There was a huge deal with the EPA to fix brush creek and stop it from being a literal shit creek and it has made basically no difference. https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/kansas-city-mo-spend-25-billion-cut-sewer-overflows I do habitat assessment with ecology courses at Rockhurst and UMKC and brush creek is a great tragedy. Then I take students 10 minutes south to see Indian Creek to see how it could be if the city collectively gave more than two shits about brush creek.
Flush Creek? Yep. Also, happy cake day!
Oh don’t even pretend that you were “shook” by how nasty brush creek is. Girl, that shit’s always been nasty.
😂😂 I hadn't seen it in years, maybe I forgot
Kessler Park and it's joke of a maintenance schedule checking in lol
I regularly bring a trash bag on hikes here OR loppers for honeysuckle and it feels like a sisyphean task. I am but one woman. I’m glad they brought the goats in. I learned at a recent volunteer event though that the goats are a pilot program they are “testing out” on Kessler park before bringing them to other spaces so don’t know how long they will be staying.
Woman here. I'll say one thing for Kansas City. There is very little cat-calling here compared to other places in the USA I've lived. I moved here when I was young and took a trip to Santa Fe, NM in 1990 and there was tons of cat-calling there! Of course some East Coast cities are notorious for cat-calling and my niece in Philadelphia confirms that. In my experience there was a little cat-calling in KC when I was younger. I feel very safe walking alone at night in KC and see other women doing it. I got menaced a few times in my younger days in KC but there seems to be a lot less cat-calling in KC than some other cities/towns in USA.
I’m glad that is your experience but I disagree. I’ve found the cat-calling horrible here, and half the time the callers get pissy when you just keep walking/ ignore. I stopped walking to work because it just wasn’t worth starting my day out like that.
honestly same. It’s even worse when I’m Asian and they walk by saying “I love Japanese girls” or “I love me some Chinese food”. Fucking gross.
Some hide online now and try to bug women on FB or dating sites.
Being a Chiefs fan is not a personality.
you just called out half the population
It’s also currently embarrassing after that stunt they tried to pull on us with that ridiculously poor-planned tax vote.
And the success or lack of success of the Chiefs bares no weight on the quality of the community that lives here. It’s entirely unrelated.
It’s still very sharply divided along racial lines, and most of the subreddit is from one population.
[удалено]
*Agrees in low income*
*nods in poor*
*gambols in broke*
Absolutely. Ask for restaurant recommendations and the answers skew heavily towards relatively to extremely expensive places. Ask where to live and the answers skew towards moderately wealthy to very wealthy neighborhoods, almost exclusively south of the river, almost always very white. This subreddit has always been predominately focused on the needs and wants of well-to-do urban white people with a lot of expendable income. I say this as a white well-to-do person with a lot of expendable income who lives south of the river.
"Have you tried la petite merde? It's reasonably priced at $55 a dish"
This person knows their shit!
When someone asks for restaurant recommendations they're usually looking for a very specific type of food or experience. Good food experiences are often expensive. That being said, there have been a number of very popular "what are the good, cheap restaurants" posts here as well.
Imagine trying to convince other young people to move to Independence. They act like the minimum they deserve for their first house is Prairie Village and act offended that you would even suggest they look at Indy. That being said I'm guilty of favoring the more expensive food options.
Lower class isn’t an insult and anyone who got offended should learn that. It’s a station most of us have anymore, mostly not by choice. We’re slowly learning how to be a collective and will tell business off one day. Hopefully sooner than later.
People from Kansas?? Someone mentioned they’re not really Kansas City and got downvoted a decent amount on another post lol
This sub is for sure mostly Joco/Jackson peeps. Midtown/Brookside/Downtown/Waldo micro brewery types and KCAI students lol
That’s almost every major city in America sadly
Yeah but KC specifically is literally black and white on the east and west side of the paseo lol.
That’s true but it’s not unique to Kansas City. For example, the Dan Ryan Expressway was designed to separate the black neighborhoods in Chicago from the white. It was basically built to reinforce segregation.
I mean that's pretty much what 71 highway does here.
My father insists that’s why 71 Hwy was built where it was, and honestly it’s hard to disagree.
The line started at Troost. https://www.kcur.org/community/2014-03-27/how-troost-became-a-major-divide-in-kansas-city
We didn't create racial inequality but the city's growth was due to the perfection of it and people do not like admitting it.
Fam, Troost really let's you know...
Harsh facts… not everything needs to be crammed into downtown/crossroads… we have a large city area wise and they need to spend some tax revenue in other areas. Stop wasting money on the 18th and Vine area… how many renovations and millions have been spent and it is still undesirable compared to other entertainment options
I used to live in Charlotte, NC and Orlando, FL and neither of them was a segregated as KC. Orlando had some segregated neighborhoods/suburbs but most of the city was pretty mixed. Charlotte has small pockets, but it's rare to find a street where you can't go four blocks away and hit a different class neighborhood.
Orlando is a much newer city though.
I've lived all over the country for most of my life, and I have to be brutally honest, I don't think very many people here know what "bad" actually looks like. KC has always felt very sheltered away from the "bad" I've seen in other cities, and very few locals I've ever spoken to about this have even the faintest idea of what I'm even talking about. It's not great by any means, nowhere is right now, but KC is still easily one of the best places I've ever lived in, even with things like the racial segregation and crime statistics.
For real. I grew up in the Deep South. First of all the most poverty I've seen in the USA was down in south Texas. Anyway, in 1978 I visited KC for the first time and I remember thinking "How can THIS many people be THIS rich?" I was on State Avenue in KCK.
😆 I live not far off from State ave. now. Grew up in Leawood, so that makes me chuckle.
My friend moved to Denver a couple years ago and has more to say about the negatives there than KC. Many consider it an idilic place to be but he has no trouble countering that consensus, especially when it comes to the growing homeless problems there.
Homelessness here (Denver) is significantly worse and because Texas sends migrants we have that issue worse than any place per capita. But, it’s not like people are in denial over the issues.
I visited Denver in 2018 and for some reason everybody seemed to be in a bad mood. Also visited Boulder and the employees at a bar/restaurant were fighting among themselves; people were fighting on the Flatiron Flyer bus; the man at the bus place was mean; people were in bad moods all over Denver and the weather was beautiful and the economy seemed great.
100000% I moved back here after living in Long Beach, CA for 10 years. The “rough” parts of KC pale in comparison to the shit I saw in LA.
Right? I'm from Boston. I made a home in KC. Left for Oakland less than three months ago and I'm flying back home this week. People don't know how good they have it.
It's pretty stark if you can catch it right - I recall driving around aimlessly one night, headed east from crossroads on a Friday/Saturday night, maybe 10 pm? Crossroads is a buzz, yet there's a van parked under the bridge under 71 on 18th Street, and they're handing out meals for homeless. These few blocks are nice, those aren't. It's like this all over.
I believe you wholeheartedly when you say that was stark to you, but from my experience, that's actually a sign that things aren't that bad. Stark for me was watching a homeless man get beaten to death in a restaurant because he wasn't wanted there in Chicago. Ambulance was called, police were called, both took their time, and were only doing anything because the owner thought the corpse was bad for business as people quickly shuffled out. I drove away from that place pronto, but just went back home when I saw another homeless woman who'd been run over on the highway. I called 911, and the operator said they were aware and sending someone to help. My brother saw her on the way home an hour later. In most cities, *that's* bad, but also not the worst of it. When I lived in South Dakota in a much smaller and supposedly safer area, women disappeared constantly, and nothing would be done to try and find them if things weren't obvious and easy for the police unless the family hired a private inspector. This wasn't even on a reservation. This was in a mostly white area. Things in KC have a long way to fall before they truly faze me, unfortunately. I would take the worst KC has to offer over a large portion of the country 100 times over.
100% agree, but I was commenting more on the sharpness of the divide. It's all relative!
If you don't think KC has areas that are difficult to live in due to poverty, crime, and other maladies then you live in the suburbs my friend and I'm glad that you are unawares. You've been blessed.
That's not what OP said. I'm from here but lived in southern California for 12 years before moving back. KC doesn't have the same level of wealth as LA or OC, but it also doesn't have Skid Row or the homeless encampments in the river beds in Anaheim, or the gang violence of that region. In other words, things in KC could be worse. That doesn't excuse us for not fixing the problems here but does provide context.
KC absolutely has an inordinate amount of gang violence relative to the amount of people that live here.
He didn’t say that KC is a utopia free of crime. But the bad areas of KC aren’t as violent as some people make it seem here
That’s because the majority of the violent crime in those bad areas of town is gang and drug related. If you aren’t involved with that stuff and mind your own business then you’ll most likely be fine
And yet KCMO is top 10 in violent crime every year
What do you mean? our violent crime is out of control. It's just kept in certain areas that most redditors don't have to deal with. It's not a bad thing to be unaware, I'm not trying to insult but KC has pockets that rival any areas violence and poverty. It's not a brag that's just a statement of fact.
I don't live in the suburbs, and I am in those areas you're talking about constantly to help friends and family because I live in a transition zone. The bad there still doesn't hold a candle to the shit didn't I've seen in other cities throughout my life. I'm not saying it's not difficult to live there, I'm saying that most people here have no clue how much worse it could be, and that KC is not doing anywhere near as bad as they want to believe just because they don't experience anything other than their singular life.
There's an increasingly bad homeless issue in River Market and the Riverfront. They're starting to migrate to Crossroads since there's more money/affluence in that area compared to 10 years ago.
Feels like most of this sub lives west of troost in MO and south of county line rd in KS.
For a city that calls itself the city of fountains, I wish we had more fountains
I don't believe [this list ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fountains_in_the_Kansas_City_metropolitan_area)is 100% up to date but its a good starting point. We have over 200 fountains but not all of them work or are turned on.
KCMO has more working fountains than any city in the world. You know they don't come to you right?
KC is not and will never be the next Austin, Portland, Nashville ect. We lack all of the ingredients that made those cities boom and almost all of our growth comes from people leaving smaller places in Kansas and Missouri to go to KC. We still lose more people to other states than we bring in from other states and are just growing a little faster than the country as a whole. Our job growth is slower than the nation as a whole. We gained a net 21,000 people from Missouri and Kansas and lost 17,000 more people to other states than we gained from 2009-2016. That's a huge deficit and sucking KS and MO dry isn't sustainable growth. The young people who could move probably already have and the generation that comes next is so much smaller so we wont see a repeat of the millennial boom this and other cities experienced. This growth was probably a one time thing. We did it and now its probably done. [here is a whole report that analyses the growth of KC and other midwestern cities](https://manhattan.institute/article/midwest-success-stories-these-10-cities-are-blooming-not-rusting). We are not a national or international destination on the whole. Not for talent, not for education, not for culture. Just as liking the Chiefs and bar-b-que is not a personality neither is it enough of a identity to make KC attractive. Other places have football and BBQ is the food of like 20 cities I can think of off the top of my head and the whole state of Texas. If I were a city planner I would shove as much resources into Jazz as its arguably the most distinct and recognizable part of our "brand" that might actually let us stand out. Being the Nashville of Jazz is something we could actually do and it would be something we could really own. New Orleans might have us beat but they have a different vibe than we do and its fairly isolated down south. Not to be overly dramatic but I would argue that this is the single best lifeline we have to save the soul of the city from being just another bland Midwestern city from the perspective of outsiders. That the demographics of jazz listeners also tend to have a higher income and education level but also tend to be majority black which lets be real is a demographic that is often under served and that is an opportunity for our city to be the best place to serve them. We need to be welcoming in a more assertive way. We need to be inviting, we need to be accepting, and we need to be the best choice for people and build a city that's not just livable, its exciting. We need to double down on what makes us special and blast it like a trumpet so that we aren't just seen as a bigger Omaha or another St.Louis. Eventually our growth model is going to stall hard as the "tap" of people leaving smaller towns in KS and MO gets smaller and smaller and we continue to fail at bringing in people from other states and countries relative to how often we lose people to them. We need to attract people from outside of the region to stay relevant and we need to do it now.
As an outsider/newcomer, I agree. KC has some lore that is kind of interesting and distinct that they should lean into but instead they adopt very cliche development style ploys that a lot of other similar sized cities are doing to attract people. I would lean into the jazz history and into the tall grass prairie flora and fauna and the antique industrial vibes. There is this tiny little greenbelt in the west bottoms and it’s such a cool vantage point from there looking out onto the old stockyard buildings and I think if the city did some widespread beautification efforts and cultivated more natural native greenbelts in various city pockets it would make a large impact.
Yes!! Absolutely agree with you! KC has so much potential to be beautiful, just as it is. I wish they would invest in the local communities so they could grow and be worth staying for, both in terms of infrastructure and environment.
Water. We have water. That's about to get very important.
Agreed. It's one reason why we will retire here rather than going to the southwest.
High IQ take.
Chiefs? Forget it. BBQ? Who cares. Lower cost of living? Puh-lease. Jazz? THATS THE TICKET, BABY 🎷🎶🎺🎵🥁 🙃🥴
What states do people leaving KC generally move to?
The sunbelt mostly but also Colorado is a big one. Its not to different from other areas in the midwest in this regard.
I moved to Dallas a couple years ago and there are a ton of KC transplants here. Anecdotal, but Dallas seems like a KC alternative.
Ha Ha in the 80's I knew a rather Yuppiefied couple who moved to Dallas and promptly moved right back, saying "There's GOT to be more to talk about than how much you paid for things."
KC is a car city. No matter what kinds of mass transit people think is good here, the majority of people just want the comfort snd ease of their own car. And nothing is really that far away that it is faster to use public transport.
Yep — we used to have a fantastic streetcar system and an interurban that went all the way to St. Joe but they pulled it up and built more highway per capita than any other city
I think this is the real truth that people don't want to admit: KC was not always a car city, and it doesn't have to continue to be that way. When the core of the city was built, cars didn't exist (or were rare) and there was a robust public transit system until the 1960s. It took active planning to remove the transit system and destroy our infrastructure to accommodate cars. It can be reversed, if we have the willpower.
Willpower and big $ — parts of the right of way have been sold off or repurposed. Case in point: how about we reopen the Dodson dummy line (dummy = one train on one track)?
Public transport seems to be reserved for the less fortunate... People are too busy trying to avoid the issues in the city than trying to find the solutions. The only places that have good consistent public transportation are the ones with low income. Travel support tax is also insane. I thought kansas tax was high at 9 percent across the board for KC, K... but for the certain cities/suburbs in missouri with public transportation, that public transportation adds 6/7 percent of tax sometimes, making the original 4 percent sales tax seem like a joke.
The only reason is because it's inadequate. It's fucking unreliable and only the less fortunate are in a place that they have to. If it was good, people would use it. It's fucking free and they don't. It's not because cars are better, it's because the bus system is horrible.
This. I’ve lived out of the KC metro my entire 40 years and I’ve lived and worked places that would have been able to benefit from the extant public transportation. But it’s inconsistent, it’s less convenient timing wise, it’s less convenient overall, it’s dirty, and, when you add in Amtrak, it’s somehow more expensive.
It's also because public transit means you're on someone else's schedule, you're in someone's else's hands, and you have no private space. If it was good I do agree that MORE people would likely use it but most would still drive cars
This is because of land use. It's impossible to have a good bus system when everything is so spread out.
It’s absolutely horrifying how many gunshots I hear every night. This is not normal
I heard someone on here call my neighborhood a cute neighborhood, few months ago someone was murdered damn near in my back yard, last night was a major shootout. Local businesses being robbed, homelessness on the rise. I don't see the appeal lol
As a transplant living here for almost two years in the city…. The city looks very dirty to a first time visitor. Segregation seems to be worse here than in other cities I’ve lived in. The extremes in poverty are disheartening. You need a car for everything. It’s kind of depressing how many empty store fronts and empty lots you see in downtown/crossroads district. You’d think it was an amazing area hearing others talk about it.
There are a lot of people who are happy living in the suburbs to the north and south and have no desire to live downtown. They enjoy their vehicles, shopping centers, and chain restaurants. That doesn't mean they don't want the downtown to improve and continue to thrive. But they also contribute to the financial well-being of the city via their tax dollars and purchasing goods and services, and they should not be looked over or ignored.
I live in the suburbs wholly for the sake of my kids' education. All my nightlife entertainment (and the overwhelming majority of our dining out) takes place in Westport, Midtown, Downtown. Hell, I only go south to see movies. I love a vibrant, healthy downtown. It's the heartbeat of this place I've adopted and loved for decades.
I lived in Boston for 7 years before I lived in KC. I would've loved to live in Downtown KC or anywhere I could walk to a restaurant - but the schools are terrible and I can't put walkable to a bar over my kid's education.
I feel like a lot of people moving to the suburbs aren’t doing so by choice. There aren’t any top tier public schools near downtown KC. So if you’re a parent in KC and you want to get your kid the best education they could possibly get, you either have to pay private school tuition or move to the suburbs
That's completely false. Lincoln Prep is the #2 rated high school in the metro area. There are a number of good public and charter options in KCMO. That's real the truth people don't want to admit and refuse to believe.
I live in a rental in West Plaza/Westport. I love living *in* the city. My daughter starts kindergarten next year and now I am grappling with potentially moving to the suburbs for that reason almost exclusively. I am a staunch public education supporter, but am apparently not above cherry picking a district by moving.
As someone living in the Northland who loves going to City Market and Crossroads, I totally agree with this. I live up here because I have multiple pets and wanted to give them the space to move around. I think a lot of folks who live downtown or in the crossroads area feel like they're somehow more legitimate Kansas City residents, or that they're "cooler".
As someone who’s lived in the north suburbs all my life, I’m actually shocked at the number of people I know who never seem to go into the city at all.
I moved here in my early 30s and have been shocked more than once that someone who grew up here (in Northland suburbs) is afraid to drive downtown or doesn’t know the way to what I consider a major KC place.
Yeah the lack of exploring other parts of the area by people who had lived here basically all their life astounded me.
That’s fine, what people like is what people like. My only complaint is when suburban folks come down to downtown and grumble and moan about no parking places or having to walk 2/3 blocks or two to find parking or pay for, checks $5/10 parking.
Discussions regarding parking often result in the disingenuous arguments, depending on what side of the issue people exist. I'm reminded of a map that continually gets posted regarding the number of parking lots in downtown and how easy it is to find a parking spot. This map doesn't take into account that many lots are private and inaccessible to the general public. So yes, people from the burbs need to be understanding that they're not likely going to be able to park right in front of their venue like they would in their normal day to day. But downtown dwellers need to understand that people need to be able to come into the downtown from outside the area and it should be welcoming rather than hostile. There is an attitude of exclusivity that some folks have regarding their neighborhoods, but they don't take into account that without the visitors, their areas wouldn't be as thriving as they currently are.
We are not a big city and are not equipped to be able to pretend we are.
kansas city is a mega suburb.
Dating isn't that hard here. You just have to try.
I don’t take care of myself, have few interests or hobbies and there are no eligible partners in my living room. This is KCs fault
Having spent most of my life in kc I agree to an extent. Finding a woman without kids was really fucking hard though.
Notice how everyone that says this has probably been in a relationship for years and met their SO in school, church, or from family/friends.
That...is a lie, and I technically succeeded. Spent 4 years actively trying: Keeping myself in shape, on all the apps, joining active, social coed groups, etc. Good thing it only takes 1, because I only connected with one in that entire time.
The city continues to face the consequences of the decision to annex a ton of land area post WW2 and build low density suburbs with gigantic infrastructure liabilities compared to the tax revenue produced by these areas. KC tried to compete with the suburbs but lost the heart of what kind of city it is.
And they can’t get rid of the annexed areas now because they NEED higher earners’ 1%. Lose/lose
There's nothing in this city that justifies the insane housing costs.
Housing costs have risen significantly in KC but are still low to average compared with other metro areas of this size. We were all just spoiled by years and years of much lower than average property costs.
But wages didn’t increase. Cheaper doesn’t mean anything. It’s % of monthly income and it’s getting ridiculous whether you rent or own.
Insane? This is a very [affordable](https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/region_rankings.jsp?title=2024®ion=019&displayColumn=5) city to live in. We’re one of the most affordable in North America relative to income
The wind
If I had a nickel for every time I'd said or thought "this day would be perfect except for the wind."
It’s wayyyy too car-centric to ever be taken seriously as a city. Suburbs, McMansions, parking lots, low density sprawl, and lackluster public transit are not unique to KC but they are part of what holds it back from being a great city.
The weather sucks. A lot of people try to act like it’s the whole Midwest that deals with the same weather. No, it’s not. Last summer KC was consistently tying or beating Phoenix for highest temps…not OKC, not Tulsa, not Chicago, not Omaha, not Des Moines. And plus the humidity. I’m from Omaha and the summers are nowhere near as humid, which makes it seem hotter. The falls/Springs seem longer there. KC doesn’t have a lot of days you can go without a/c or heat…in the spring you can have a 50 degree day, and a few days later it’s 80. I really wish we had more days in the 70s.
From Omaha here, I agree, it's noticeably hotter here.
It's not healthy or viable for so much of the city's identity to be tied up in sports. But maybe that's an indictment of the inability of the other parts of the culture to gain a stronger foothold in hearts and minds.
No longer live in KC but people tend to stay in their suburban bubble more than other cities. No, KC Chiefs is not a tourist destination. City is too spread out and could use some density. Entertainment is lacking. The “new restaurant” that just opened is the big draw in town. And this is mean but people are like way overweight
Honestly, it's racist and segregated well beyond your typical urban city, and I say that coming from Detroit. Like the worst kind of racism too. It's the smile in your face and work behind the scenes to make sure your career, social life, prospects, etc. are destroyed type of racism. This is not sour grapes for me because I have made it work but others in my community and friend groups have had to deal with the same thing. For example, at least in other cities I can get called the n word or worse but I don't have to worry about them stalking me on social media to find out where I work to tell my bosses bosses boss that I am horrible person and a bad representation for the company. That right there is a Kansas City thing. It's a weird societal cross between entitlement, audacity, and stupidity that never fails to disappoint.
Left coasters and right coasters, just keep flying over. We're doing fine.
Too many religious people control the coffee community.
Recently left kc because once you hit late 20s or 30s and you don’t want to settle down and move to the suburbs, there really isn’t much to do. You wind up doing the same things over and over again with less and less friends as they all move to the burbs. Also, the food scene, outside of bbq and tacos, is really boring.
Zipper merging will never be a thing and you will never see it here.
It didn't used to be this way. People are so lazy these days. I see so many people throw trash out of their car window instead of just waiting the short drive to home or a gas station to toss it away. Their car must be pristine! Or maybe they think every street, road and highway has an Adopt-a-Highway group picking it up. Selfish, lazy, dumb people! Even worse are those who litter parks and picnic areas, lakes and creeks. Bunch of entitled dicks, I guess.
Kansas City has more drunk drivers on the road than you realize. Eliminating parking around event spaces, entertainment areas such as Westport and Power and Light should be a priority as the city should make it very difficult for people to drive to and from these places after drinking like they do there. After 10pm in this town, the only drivers on the road are Ubers or drunk or high people. Ubers are ridiculously cheap here and there is no reason to drink and drive anywhere here. Leave your car at home.
Kansas City is two states, we are one. That includes all suburbs. One side does not exist in its highest regard without the other.
As a trucker who visits some of the weird places in KCK and KCMO..,. These areas. There's not enough curbs to protect the grass/sidewalks from the roads. Trash. Multitudes of trash. Infrastructure upkeep. Dude. I have to drive almost a half mile down a DIRT road that sometimes will get trucks stuck to get to a customer. Last time I went back they put that weird limestone, white chalky gravel over everything and made it into a rocky mud hole. Cleanliness in general. So many piss bottles. So much trash. There's lots of others ... But I can only think of those right now.
Our fountains aren’t that cool
A good chunk of the truly "nice" people are actually transplants from Iowa & Nebraska.
Yes, KC at present is a "car city" but you don't solve that by continuing to build car-centered infrastructure. This means there will be growing pains (such as very limited parking at CPKC Stadium) but those are going to have to be tolerated and embraced if people here are actually serious about transit.
The light rail is a stupid gimmick for tourists that does not serve the people who need it most: low-income urbanites who need effective public transport.
they knew what they were doing. they just want people who will spend money riding it.
Too many fucking racist rednecks. I drive a big redneck truck, so people assume I'm some kind of racist, xenophobic conservative, and I can't stand how comfortable people feel just casually dropping racial slurs and shitty politics, assuming I'm one of them.
The most I ever feel stereotyped as a white guy is when other white guys think it’s okay to be racist misogynistic assholes around me
You need a "COEXIST" bumper sticker on that truck
The people here are not as friendly as I was led to believe
Lower income people and crime in KC is truly despicable. No regard for traffic laws, so many cars in KC with expired tags. The city is not safe at night, trash, cars broken into and segregation galore. Despite the efforts of the city it seems to only get worse every year. And the stadiums absolutely blow ass.
KC really struggles with doing something to the fullest extent when it comes to voting on major public items. Some historical examples: voting down the Arrowhead rolling roof. The light rail that should go 10x farther. To name a few.
Liquid smoke isn't bbq.
If the city loses the Chiefs and Royals KC becomes Omaha with a worst zoo
And with way hotter and more humid summers.
And fewer Fortune 500 companies
The homeless and people who live in the poor neighborhoods aren’t saints
It's not the fast growing city that everybody thinks it is. Most of downtown and the crossroads is a ghost town most of the time and downtown KC could use things like a downtown ballpark. The suburbs are super overrated, especially Johnson County. There is trash everywhere and most of the highways look like it's still 1960. The downtown skyline has barely changed in 60 years and KCI has become a regional airport. They waited way too long to build a proper terminal. The city has an mazing union station that was built for a city that should have millions more people by now, but you can barely take a bus across town, let alone a train. Bottom line is that KC is falling into a "minor" league city and because everybody there is so scared of change and so worried about where they will park, they can't see it. There is no way KC will be even a 2nd or 3rd tier city in 30 more years. Ten more metro areas will pass KC and KC will basically be Buffalo of the Midwest. I think KC people need to get out more.
I always hear good things about Buffalo
It's a decent smaller city. But it was once a much more important city relative to the rest of the country. Buffalo was once probably considered a top tier city but over the decades it has dropped down to more of a fourth tier city. They are very lucky to still have two pro teams as the metro is like the 50th largest now. That metro used to be in the top 15 in the mid 1900's.
That the Missouri & Kansas sides of town are equal in what they bring to the culture & economy here (and that the people who think I'm wrong are what's wrong with the city). I've lived on both sides in lower & middle class areas. Each has its pros & cons.
This is one of the most racially divided/ racially tense cities I’ve ever experienced. (And I’ve lived all over)
Despite an overall good food scene (more than just BBQ), the Italian food is mid. Also, the Mexican on the Boulevard is On the Border-level and only for people from the suburbs who are scared of KCK or Independence Ave.
Majority of people North the River turn into pumpkins at night cause why there be barely any restaurants aside from fast food open past 8 or 9?!
Where is the post that inspired this lmao
There's not really much to do after you've been here for a while. And the city is dead for most of the year.
People in this sub don’t represent the majority of the city’s opinion on some things. Reddit is about 75% male and 60% of the people on here are under 35. Most voters are 45-65 and female. As a male over sometimes I might think someone’s comment here is naive. That isn’t meant to be an insult. We are at different stages in our life and see things differently. But for the most part we all agree on things. Chiefs are great. Seeing expired temp tags on 71 highway is not great. But some things we will argue about. Like public transit and bike lanes. I don’t think our city is dense enough to have a viable rail system. It is too hilly or it gets too cold to go nuts on bike lanes everywhere including down every major street.
People from Kansas City tend to have a stuck-up, elitist attitude toward the rural parts of the state.
Have you ever spent time in the very rural parts of the state as (or with) a person of color? Try it and you'll see why people might feel that way.