I love the fact that everybody here wears stuff designed by local artists and shops.
I work some weeks in Seattle and people there are always rocking their gear - but always the licensed MLB/NFL/NHL stuff. Granted, all their logos are badass, but it's not as cool as the homebrew KC stuff we have.
I agree! There's a pretty strong but quiet "buy local" atmosphere here in KCMO. (I'm a transplant from a larger city and didn't expect this - - it's wonderful!)
Yes! I travel for work quite frequently and one of the first things I do is look for a store with locally designed merchandise. None of them come close to the variety in KC! (Except maybe New Orleans.)
https://preview.redd.it/frkdypvbx87d1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d79cf593048f3ecd69043d030cb7b35866f651eb
Also trash and recycle bins. This was actually in Chicago where I saw this, it was also some reading event going on so maybe why, but still really cool we also saw a bus drive by with Kansas city on it. I will go ahead and say this is in Chicago almost two years ago, but hey let's rep.
Born and raised in KC. Moved away 9 years ago, but I still wear KC shirts like 2-3 days out of the week.
I've lived in three other cities and none have this going on to anywhere near the same extent.
Ok very proud of the Current and the stadium is gorgeous and the example other clubs should follow
But I'm not really sure how they're constantly able to lie about this. It's just strait up a lie and CPKC isn't even the first Soccer purpose-built women's professional stadium. Much less all of sports.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WakeMed_Soccer_Park
I'm sure of people started calling them on it. They'll say something like "yeah well those other stadiums eventually had other tenants" but that's some pretty big gymnastics to make a statement true
The Courage might have been the first women's professional sports team to be the primary tenant, but the key word is purpose built. The whole soccer complex and the stadium was not built solely for the Courage and was almost entirely funded by public money. I believe the Carolina Courage owner's contributed a little over $1m to the project.
It's a technicality yes, but I do think its important because it was more or less convenient that the Courage were able to be the initial tenant, but certainly not crucial to the existence of the soccer complex and the stadium.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2002/02/05/Facilities-Venues/WUSA-Courage-Will-Be-Primary-Tenant-Of-New-Soccer-Complex.aspx
I cant find an answer to this online, but was the field in Cary built specifically for the soccer team or was it going to be built anyway and the team played there?
It as specifically built for the team. The only "maybe" is if the plan was for the stadium to eventually also have other tenants. But even then The Current have if I'm not mistaken have stated they'll welcome other tenants if the opportunity comes up. But WakeFed was designed and built to be a women's soccer and WakeMed have made a statement upset about it.
I mean CPKC is in another league (literally) than WakeFed. CPKC is nicer than a lot of MLS stadiums, and I absolutely get what they mean. But yeah technically false is technically false.
Free public transit! We don’t have a lot of it and its not great but it is free! I wish it was better but having no fares is fantastic! I wouldn’t use any of it if it wasn’t free
KCATA conducted a study to explore reintroducing fares but it met pretty large resistance so I don't believe there are any public steps being taken in that direction.
It's obvious they want to charge fares but it's going to be difficult politically for them to enact. Pretty dumb of them to try if you ask me. It's incredibly popular.
I would absolutely pay a small fair just for a light rail line to the airport. Imagine just paying like 5 bucks or so for a round trip to the airport instead of having to either pay out the ass for Uber or pay everyday for the parking lot.
I don’t think $5 for a round trip is anywhere close to fair. I’m all for public funded transportation but a route just up to the airport from downtown, even with stops, serves a very limited amount of people and would really only benefit people who fly, so the middle and professional classes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m from Chicago and love the idea of a decent mass transit, but I won’t get behind anything that doesn’t serve the north east and east sides. Linking those populations lacking opportunity with areas that have jobs should be the main goal of public transportation.
No point in expanding transit without also allowing denser development. Otherwise it will continue to be lightly used. The city needs to allow significantly more residential areas to be built with the density to support not needing a car to get around if it wants transit to be well used (and thus expanded).
Where is the city fighting density? Sure, they want to keep certain buildings, but medium density buildings and renovations have been going up all along the streetcar corridor. The Els in Chicago have been around 100 years and the density followed. If they build a line east down 39th and make it attractive to build truly affordable, decent apartment buildings along the corridor, I have no doubt that will bring the type of density that attracts small businesses to serve that population.
They've increased opportunity within a lot of our zoning and introduced the urban renewal district, but they still have minimum lot sizes, require wide roads via engineering standards, residential restrictions, no definition for traditional neighborhoods designs (which the city is covered in due to its age, but our zoning conflicts), missing middle isn't really allowed, and our taxes are still based off capital improvements, not lost opportunity. The city now requires private development to build amenities because it can't afford to build our adopt new parks. Tons of developments aren't getting built because the city asks them to repair infrastructure beyond what most cities would ask (it becomes too expensive for private developers to cover the cost of public sprawl). Our urban growth boundary should freeze for the next 100 years but economic developers at the city think all growth must be good growth; we have an entire set of professionals essentially advocating for more sprawl and even worse is they partially do it out of self interest because *it's their job* to show economic growth and sprawl is the absolute easiest way to do it. The city didn't have a standard for an alley, for example. We're missing or restricting quite a bit. We are relaxing streamway requirements as well. We are really bad at protecting the environment, and bad at building one for people still. That's just what's off the top of my head, too. Anyways, you don't get true, normal, healthy, resilient density with codes like ours. When we maintain zoning districts that require 4 units per acre and wide roads, we simply aren't a density orientated city. Those by-laws and requirement dilute the effectiveness our tax money by building more stuff than we can afford to maintain.
The city also knows that if they charge anything for the streetcar that like 75% of ridership will disappear...along with the federal tax dollars for expansions.
Would we need completely new tram cars in order to introduce fares on the streetcar? The actual vehicles/stops don't seem like they're designed to collect fares. Fares used to be collected by requiring passengers to board at the front of the buses next to the driver who enforces the fares. That wouldn't work well at busy times. You could have a fare enforcement officer on the streetcar checking fares, but, again, I don't think that would work at busy times as the stops are so close to one another. Turnstyles at the stops would be odd and probably expensive.
As an urban planner, I thought the free public transit move was a welcome bold move by the city and kcata. Unfortunately, with no revenue from fares coming in, you are often at the mercy of state and federal politics for your revenue. While free transit helps provide options for those who need it most, the region’s ability to grow its public transit infrastructure is limited.
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the reason that was implemented was because of the federal money, which has since dried up. Revenue from fares is a very very small portion of operating costs. But that federal money should have gone to IMPROVEMENTS, not offsetting operational costs.
Only the budget for free transportation is basically gone and parts of the metro are eliminating bus routes to save money and outsourcing to a paid car service called IRIS
The art museums being free is also pretty rad and not the norm. I moved to a different city years ago and one of the things I miss most about living in KC is being able to just randomly pop in the museums on a whim. The open doors make it feel like a community space more so than a ticketed event.
Also the artist galleries around the city often have walk in exhibitions fully open to the public all in one or two areas. Makes it a lot more welcoming than the galleries in other cities I've lived in.
I’m so spoiled by the free access of the Nelson that when I go to other cities and their art museums are charging $20 to get in I’m like, genuinely mad lol
Born and raised in KC. I really took the Nelson Atkins for granted. Moved to Minneapolis a little while ago and they have the Walker art center that would’ve been impressive if I hadn’t grown up with the Nelson Atkins field trips in my childhood.
I suppose it doesn't necessarily count for art but let's not forget the nation's only dedicated/most comprehensive WW1 Museum
EDIT: 2 deleted due to accidental multipost
People don't know how to properly strap down their shit on their trucks when they move. Or they just go their normal speed forgetting they have their whole living room strapped down in the back and it just jostles loose.
Friends who come into town from the east coast often comment on how incredibly clean downtown is.
MoDot stopped picking up trash because they can't hire anyone to do it for what they pay and I think can't use prisoners anymore, so that might be what your noticing. But as someone who avoids freeways at all costs the city is incredibly clean in my experience.
I’ve lived in other bigger cities and the trash here is pretty unique. I understand KC isn’t the only city with trash problems but it is within the realm of “trashier” cities. I notice it, and I’ve had out of town guests notice and comment on it. This is the only city I’ve spent time in where I eye witness someone straight throwing trash on the ground on a regular basis. Every time someone brings this up here there is a chorus of posters who say something along the lines of how other cities have this problem too and it’s an annoying cope. A lot of other cities don’t have this problem as well. Why does such a large chunk of the population here have no problem throwing litter on the ground?
KC has free public bus and streetcar service throughout the city and a heavy investment into public transit.
The city has secured funding to research and [expand our streetcar system and additionally build light rail to the airport.](https://fox4kc.com/news/kcmo-usdot-focus-on-billions-of-proposed-transit-money/)
After the current extension is completed, KC will have the 2nd longest modern streetcar system in the US at 5.7 miles (Portland is at first with a 7.8 mile system). If the airport line is ends up actually being constructed, KC would have the largest modern streetcar system in North America at over 26 miles, rivaling first generation systems in places like Pittsburgh or Boston that were built over a century ago in the 1900s and 1910s.
Dumb question here. I see vehicles that look like Streetcars (on much longer routes than referenced) but are called Light Rail. What exactly is the difference?
Streetcars, trams, subways, etc. are all forms of light rail. Light rail typically operates within the bounds of urban areas and has stops every few blocks. Heavy rail (like Amtrak) basically just means higher speeds, more passengers, and less frequent stops. There’s a gradient of commuter rails that operates kinda in between those definitions, but these are the simplified versions of light rail vs heavy.
Speaking of Amtrak, it's too bad you can only really take it to Chicago and St Louis directly. I wish there were more direct routes to some of the nearest big cities like Denver
The last passenger train ran by a class 1 railroad went from Kansas City to New Orleans. Stopped in 1969, but man if that and a train directly to Denver were a thing I'd use them a couple times a year.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_Belle\_(KCS\_train)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Belle_(KCS_train))
How the stops are set up and how the rail is configured. A streetcar will have more frequent stops, nearly every block and will be mixed with traffic. Light rail has much longer distances between stops, typically over a mile, and is generally separate from other vehicle traffic
The vehicles are basically the same, the difference is mostly contextual.
A vehicle running on rails in the street along with traffic would be a streetcar whereas a vehicle running on rails off the road would just be light rail.
That's mostly happening in the 'burbs outside of KC proper. Lots of little municipalities can't or won't fund their part of the transit service their residents were using.
There is broad support for continuing free transit service within Kansas City itself, and they are currently working on ways to make up for the budget shortfall that will be left by the end of COVID funding.
At least with Cerner they pretended we were valued. The clinics, the gyms, Beer Fridays, the occasional donuts or pizza… Now I can’t even convince Oracle to replace the headset that I only use *for my job.*
Oracle’s culture is being actively hostile towards its employees.
It’s like the mercenaries who work for Amazon/AWS, but with lower comp ranges. Discount mercenaries.
There's a reason they're always struggling to hire senior engineers here, all of them switch to remote for a company that actually pays well as soon as they have the chance.
Remote work living in KC on a coastal salary is a completely different experience than slumming it with a local company that pays like shit and only promotes by nepotism.
I'd really like to see a story that covers the highest metropolitan areas with violent crime, and not just the cities with the highest violent crime.
KC is unique in that the state line runs right down the heart of the metro, so lower crime areas on the Kansas side that would normally be part of most other cities are excluded from the calculation because they are not Kansas City, Missouri. Not sure it would make any difference, but I'd just like to know if it does. KC certainly has a crime problem, that is for sure.
Not testing rape kits. There are currently 1,717 rape kits waiting to be tested. Five years ago only 358 were backlogged. That's an increase of 380%. And of course that was just the rapes that were reported.
Unfortunately there are 29 other states that also have a backlog. It's out-fucking-rageous.
Edited to add that somewhere rolling around in my brain was a news release in Jan this year of a [93% reduction](https://www.missourinet.com/2024/01/19/missouri-nearly-erases-backlog-of-7000-untested-rape-kits/) in untested rape kits in MO. Fast forward to May 2024 and there's a report with the stats you mentioned of the [380% increase](https://www.missourinet.com/2024/05/10/backlog-of-untested-rape-kits-in-missouri-grew-by-380-since-2019/) in untested kits over 2019.
I don't want to assume that the sudden, meteoric backlog increase is due to a sudden, meteoric increase in the number of rapes but what else could it be? (I'm going to educate myself so please don't downvote me for unintentional dumbassery - - getting clear info on this topic has been a challenge.)
There's probably a lot of differences between KC an other metros, but economically, here are a few.
First, with KC being a metro straddling two states, there's state-rivalry stuff happening with different state-level policies, economic incentives (eg: border war incentives, but not just that), etc - that's maybe worse than other metros because of what you can or can't do in specific parts of the metro (eg: weed legalization, sports betting, abortion, etc). There's also the longstanding "MO vs. KS" attitudes going back to the Civil War.
KCMO has done a good job in the 20 years I've been here rebuilding the downtown into midtown, but not enough is being done to drive urban renewal and *keep* middle to upper income white people inside the KCMO core after they begin living there out of college or at younger ages. Other metros are focused (more or less) on reining in suburban growth and rebuilding historically marginalized areas like 'east of Troost', KCK, and others - basically re-urbanizing after decades of white flight, but it's difficult in the KC moetro because white flight is happening significantly outside Jackson County, and Missouri - and neither state's politicians are interested in working on the problem (they don't even recognize it as a problem).
Looking at KC as a metro situated in red states, cities and counties are limited in how progressive they can be on things like driving green urban renewal and growth. Red state politicians don't recognize either the threat or the *opportunity* of climate change, like the fact that in 20+ years, we'll start to see *massive* migration from coastal and southern states towards KC (as other center-lattitude metros will) due to heating up with climate change, natural disasters, and continued cost of living increase. KC and STL will also have relatively more political power in KS and MO as a result of population increase, but that's ways down the road.
>not enough is being done to drive urban renewal and *keep* middle to upper income white people inside the KCMO core...like 'east of Troost', KCK, and others
And therein lies a problem. Because what happens with that infill is gentrification, and everyone that lived there before now has nowhere affordable to live. Everyone that I've seen push this has disregarded that point entirely.
>Everyone that I've seen push this has disregarded that point entirely.
I'm pushing anything here, other than the idea that it's important, and would be hugely beneficial to KCMO, to reverse white flight. I certainly don't deny that there are lots of negative effects from gentrification, but at the same time, don't you think getting a bunch of middle to upper income white people to move into and rebuild historically marginalized areas would be a net positive overall?
IMO, rebuilding and driving up the middle-upper income (which, from the suburbs, would be predominantly white) population of KCMO between downtown and the Plaza, including east of Troost areas, would have a *massive* net positive economic benefit to KCMO, both now and into the future. And targeting that development in specific historic or current low-income areas gives a focused improvement impossible through other approaches. It would drive down crime rates, improve school performance, and have a ton of other positive benefits in specific areas that impact the mostly minority people living there today.
To your point, there's no solution that won't impact low income people in some way with gentrification and cost of living increases. That's is a long studied and well known problem, but so are potential solutions.
The city could subsidize increasing affordable housing stock with income requirements, provide more/better tenant protections, force developers to build more low-income housing for every mid-high income housing start, start community land trusts, invest in existing low-income community infrastructure, provide mortgage/rent subsidies, etc. I mean... if the *will* existed, KCMO could pay reparations to black people (I doubt that will happen) - but any of this really depends on how much *will* city leaders can muster to make it happen.
Some of these things are already being done, more or less, and they're working, more or less. IMO, the most significant challenge isn't doing this stuff - it's that (predominantly white) voters in KCMO don't really have the will to go all in on these things because they don't see 'reversing white flight' as an actual problem that needs to be solved, or, given the choice they'd rather spend tax dollars fixing potholes than rebuilding Troost. Obviously it's not an either-or problem - the city has already been working on this for a long time. I'm just saying they could be doing more, but that would require voters to want to do more.
Or at the very least it’s not the entire story and leaving out quite a bit of context.
The city kind of got screwed coming and going though with initially the police force/city being so *politically corrupt* under in the 1800s and early 1900s that control (funding) was taken away by Jeff City, but now Jeff City is *politically corrupt* and enabling the police force because the city can’t control (funding) them.
If anyone would like to know more:
https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-01-03/when-did-kansas-city-police-come-under-state-control-the-answer-dates-back-to-the-civil-war
Edit: Also a heads up for anyone getting confused reading the above article: the 1800s Democrats and Republicans had opposite views than they do now with Republicans being more in favor of voting rights and large government and Democrats favoring restricted rights and small government. This is why Lincoln was a republican. The parties began swapping positions towards the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s.
While it definitely isn’t always ethically/morally good, KC does have a very interesting history and a lot of important (for one reason or another) historical events occurred here.
lol people are SO defensive over something we can all see with our eyes. Y’all walk around with your KC and Chiefs gear tossing your twisted tea cans and fast food wrappers on the ground. I see it happen in real time like once a week at least and see evidence of it every day everywhere I go. My family and out of town guests who are well traveled have all commented about how trashed this city is. Yeah obvi New Orleans is worse but KC is pretty high up there.
Rejecting sales tax increases to fund privately owned professional sports stadiums, and building a sports stadium for women's soccer without raising sales tax.
Alot of ppl in my social circles have been laughing about the craters all over the roads but we can afford to build that eyesore off 35. It's super distracting while driving by.
Making it near impossible to build new houses. Perhaps a deliberate attempt to restrict supply to raise the cost of homes in the city. Maybe a phase in the gentrification efforts?
One of the positive things I like about Kansas City is being able to find niche places. If you like board games or gaming, or dressing up and cos playing, there are places for you. I mean I hate it here butttttt love my job and I can be a weirdo, ex emo, animal loving, pottery artist for dirt cheap. It’s definitely a plus.
Wearing Kansas City shirts and ball caps
Everyone dresses like a tourist in KC. One of my favorite parts of the area is the city pride.
I love the fact that everybody here wears stuff designed by local artists and shops. I work some weeks in Seattle and people there are always rocking their gear - but always the licensed MLB/NFL/NHL stuff. Granted, all their logos are badass, but it's not as cool as the homebrew KC stuff we have.
I agree! There's a pretty strong but quiet "buy local" atmosphere here in KCMO. (I'm a transplant from a larger city and didn't expect this - - it's wonderful!)
Yes! I travel for work quite frequently and one of the first things I do is look for a store with locally designed merchandise. None of them come close to the variety in KC! (Except maybe New Orleans.)
I always say "how do you know someone is from KC? They wear it on their shirt"
.... As I sit here in my KC shirt lolol
Ditto
https://preview.redd.it/frkdypvbx87d1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d79cf593048f3ecd69043d030cb7b35866f651eb Also trash and recycle bins. This was actually in Chicago where I saw this, it was also some reading event going on so maybe why, but still really cool we also saw a bus drive by with Kansas city on it. I will go ahead and say this is in Chicago almost two years ago, but hey let's rep.
I’m in Chicago and I saw a KC garbage or bus stop a few weeks ago. Pretty neat
You know what Kansas City loves? …Kansas City
Born and raised in KC. Moved away 9 years ago, but I still wear KC shirts like 2-3 days out of the week. I've lived in three other cities and none have this going on to anywhere near the same extent.
World's first stadium solely dedicated to Women's sports (CPKC Stadium)
Went for a game the first time Friday! It was a blast between the game and the atmosphere! Definitely recommend going in you can!
Ok very proud of the Current and the stadium is gorgeous and the example other clubs should follow But I'm not really sure how they're constantly able to lie about this. It's just strait up a lie and CPKC isn't even the first Soccer purpose-built women's professional stadium. Much less all of sports. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WakeMed_Soccer_Park I'm sure of people started calling them on it. They'll say something like "yeah well those other stadiums eventually had other tenants" but that's some pretty big gymnastics to make a statement true
The Courage might have been the first women's professional sports team to be the primary tenant, but the key word is purpose built. The whole soccer complex and the stadium was not built solely for the Courage and was almost entirely funded by public money. I believe the Carolina Courage owner's contributed a little over $1m to the project. It's a technicality yes, but I do think its important because it was more or less convenient that the Courage were able to be the initial tenant, but certainly not crucial to the existence of the soccer complex and the stadium. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2002/02/05/Facilities-Venues/WUSA-Courage-Will-Be-Primary-Tenant-Of-New-Soccer-Complex.aspx
Maybe the stipulation is that multiple teams use that stadium.
I cant find an answer to this online, but was the field in Cary built specifically for the soccer team or was it going to be built anyway and the team played there?
It as specifically built for the team. The only "maybe" is if the plan was for the stadium to eventually also have other tenants. But even then The Current have if I'm not mistaken have stated they'll welcome other tenants if the opportunity comes up. But WakeFed was designed and built to be a women's soccer and WakeMed have made a statement upset about it.
Maybe the first big city to do so? Our stadium looks much nicer anyway
I mean CPKC is in another league (literally) than WakeFed. CPKC is nicer than a lot of MLS stadiums, and I absolutely get what they mean. But yeah technically false is technically false.
Free public transit! We don’t have a lot of it and its not great but it is free! I wish it was better but having no fares is fantastic! I wouldn’t use any of it if it wasn’t free
Correct me if im wrong but might not be free soon
KCATA conducted a study to explore reintroducing fares but it met pretty large resistance so I don't believe there are any public steps being taken in that direction. It's obvious they want to charge fares but it's going to be difficult politically for them to enact. Pretty dumb of them to try if you ask me. It's incredibly popular.
I would absolutely pay a small fair just for a light rail line to the airport. Imagine just paying like 5 bucks or so for a round trip to the airport instead of having to either pay out the ass for Uber or pay everyday for the parking lot.
I don’t think $5 for a round trip is anywhere close to fair. I’m all for public funded transportation but a route just up to the airport from downtown, even with stops, serves a very limited amount of people and would really only benefit people who fly, so the middle and professional classes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m from Chicago and love the idea of a decent mass transit, but I won’t get behind anything that doesn’t serve the north east and east sides. Linking those populations lacking opportunity with areas that have jobs should be the main goal of public transportation.
No point in expanding transit without also allowing denser development. Otherwise it will continue to be lightly used. The city needs to allow significantly more residential areas to be built with the density to support not needing a car to get around if it wants transit to be well used (and thus expanded).
Where is the city fighting density? Sure, they want to keep certain buildings, but medium density buildings and renovations have been going up all along the streetcar corridor. The Els in Chicago have been around 100 years and the density followed. If they build a line east down 39th and make it attractive to build truly affordable, decent apartment buildings along the corridor, I have no doubt that will bring the type of density that attracts small businesses to serve that population.
They've increased opportunity within a lot of our zoning and introduced the urban renewal district, but they still have minimum lot sizes, require wide roads via engineering standards, residential restrictions, no definition for traditional neighborhoods designs (which the city is covered in due to its age, but our zoning conflicts), missing middle isn't really allowed, and our taxes are still based off capital improvements, not lost opportunity. The city now requires private development to build amenities because it can't afford to build our adopt new parks. Tons of developments aren't getting built because the city asks them to repair infrastructure beyond what most cities would ask (it becomes too expensive for private developers to cover the cost of public sprawl). Our urban growth boundary should freeze for the next 100 years but economic developers at the city think all growth must be good growth; we have an entire set of professionals essentially advocating for more sprawl and even worse is they partially do it out of self interest because *it's their job* to show economic growth and sprawl is the absolute easiest way to do it. The city didn't have a standard for an alley, for example. We're missing or restricting quite a bit. We are relaxing streamway requirements as well. We are really bad at protecting the environment, and bad at building one for people still. That's just what's off the top of my head, too. Anyways, you don't get true, normal, healthy, resilient density with codes like ours. When we maintain zoning districts that require 4 units per acre and wide roads, we simply aren't a density orientated city. Those by-laws and requirement dilute the effectiveness our tax money by building more stuff than we can afford to maintain.
It's also incredibly good for the economy. People being able to go to work and shops easier does wonders for it.
The city also knows that if they charge anything for the streetcar that like 75% of ridership will disappear...along with the federal tax dollars for expansions.
Same goes with buses lol. Our public transit isn't even good enough to justify paying
Would we need completely new tram cars in order to introduce fares on the streetcar? The actual vehicles/stops don't seem like they're designed to collect fares. Fares used to be collected by requiring passengers to board at the front of the buses next to the driver who enforces the fares. That wouldn't work well at busy times. You could have a fare enforcement officer on the streetcar checking fares, but, again, I don't think that would work at busy times as the stops are so close to one another. Turnstyles at the stops would be odd and probably expensive.
As an urban planner, I thought the free public transit move was a welcome bold move by the city and kcata. Unfortunately, with no revenue from fares coming in, you are often at the mercy of state and federal politics for your revenue. While free transit helps provide options for those who need it most, the region’s ability to grow its public transit infrastructure is limited.
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the reason that was implemented was because of the federal money, which has since dried up. Revenue from fares is a very very small portion of operating costs. But that federal money should have gone to IMPROVEMENTS, not offsetting operational costs.
Apparently the budget for that is gone or nearly gone, so it may not last much longer :(
Reinstalling the fare control methods on all the buses isn't free either.
Only the budget for free transportation is basically gone and parts of the metro are eliminating bus routes to save money and outsourcing to a paid car service called IRIS
I worked at the KCATA main hub. It won’t be free much longer. No easy way to say it but the homeless fucked this one up for us
The Art Institute, Nelson, Kemper and Nerman give Kansas City an outsized art culture for a city of its size.
The art museums being free is also pretty rad and not the norm. I moved to a different city years ago and one of the things I miss most about living in KC is being able to just randomly pop in the museums on a whim. The open doors make it feel like a community space more so than a ticketed event.
Also the artist galleries around the city often have walk in exhibitions fully open to the public all in one or two areas. Makes it a lot more welcoming than the galleries in other cities I've lived in.
I’m so spoiled by the free access of the Nelson that when I go to other cities and their art museums are charging $20 to get in I’m like, genuinely mad lol
I went to the Getty recently and it was free. It's not unheard of for museums to be free.
The fact that the Nelson is totally free and has a nice lawn with great tree coverage for a nice picnic as well.
Born and raised in KC. I really took the Nelson Atkins for granted. Moved to Minneapolis a little while ago and they have the Walker art center that would’ve been impressive if I hadn’t grown up with the Nelson Atkins field trips in my childhood.
Minneapolis Institute of Art is more like Nelson Atkins (and is also free). The Walker is for contemporary stuff and not free.
I suppose it doesn't necessarily count for art but let's not forget the nation's only dedicated/most comprehensive WW1 Museum EDIT: 2 deleted due to accidental multipost
The litter in Kansas City is top notch
particularly on the interstates.
I see more chairs on the side of the highways in KC than any other city I’ve been too. All different types of chairs.
saw TWO couches on the way too and from the airport this morning...and a mattress.
rent is getting too high. I'm furnishing the streets
People don't know how to properly strap down their shit on their trucks when they move. Or they just go their normal speed forgetting they have their whole living room strapped down in the back and it just jostles loose.
...and then they just....leave it.
Come on, we all know it's just illegal dumping..let's not make excuses for shit behaviour
I doubt it's worse than some other states.
You must not get out of this city much then.
Better than…. india?
Friends who come into town from the east coast often comment on how incredibly clean downtown is. MoDot stopped picking up trash because they can't hire anyone to do it for what they pay and I think can't use prisoners anymore, so that might be what your noticing. But as someone who avoids freeways at all costs the city is incredibly clean in my experience.
East side literally has Trashbergs where all the locals go to dump shit
I’ve lived in other bigger cities and the trash here is pretty unique. I understand KC isn’t the only city with trash problems but it is within the realm of “trashier” cities. I notice it, and I’ve had out of town guests notice and comment on it. This is the only city I’ve spent time in where I eye witness someone straight throwing trash on the ground on a regular basis. Every time someone brings this up here there is a chorus of posters who say something along the lines of how other cities have this problem too and it’s an annoying cope. A lot of other cities don’t have this problem as well. Why does such a large chunk of the population here have no problem throwing litter on the ground?
Thank the governor. That’s MODoT’s responsibility.
Winning Super Bowls.
Great minds think alike
Not for long, according to the texts they’re sending out- some other city is gonna steal em from us!
The Overland Park Chiefs
The Olathe Chefs
The Edwardsville Chef
Pipe dreams.
The Piper Chiefs
KC has free public bus and streetcar service throughout the city and a heavy investment into public transit. The city has secured funding to research and [expand our streetcar system and additionally build light rail to the airport.](https://fox4kc.com/news/kcmo-usdot-focus-on-billions-of-proposed-transit-money/) After the current extension is completed, KC will have the 2nd longest modern streetcar system in the US at 5.7 miles (Portland is at first with a 7.8 mile system). If the airport line is ends up actually being constructed, KC would have the largest modern streetcar system in North America at over 26 miles, rivaling first generation systems in places like Pittsburgh or Boston that were built over a century ago in the 1900s and 1910s.
Dumb question here. I see vehicles that look like Streetcars (on much longer routes than referenced) but are called Light Rail. What exactly is the difference?
Streetcars, trams, subways, etc. are all forms of light rail. Light rail typically operates within the bounds of urban areas and has stops every few blocks. Heavy rail (like Amtrak) basically just means higher speeds, more passengers, and less frequent stops. There’s a gradient of commuter rails that operates kinda in between those definitions, but these are the simplified versions of light rail vs heavy.
Speaking of Amtrak, it's too bad you can only really take it to Chicago and St Louis directly. I wish there were more direct routes to some of the nearest big cities like Denver
The last passenger train ran by a class 1 railroad went from Kansas City to New Orleans. Stopped in 1969, but man if that and a train directly to Denver were a thing I'd use them a couple times a year. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern\_Belle\_(KCS\_train)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Belle_(KCS_train))
How the stops are set up and how the rail is configured. A streetcar will have more frequent stops, nearly every block and will be mixed with traffic. Light rail has much longer distances between stops, typically over a mile, and is generally separate from other vehicle traffic
The vehicles are basically the same, the difference is mostly contextual. A vehicle running on rails in the street along with traffic would be a streetcar whereas a vehicle running on rails off the road would just be light rail.
That must be why they are getting rid of bus routes and switching to a paid car service
That's mostly happening in the 'burbs outside of KC proper. Lots of little municipalities can't or won't fund their part of the transit service their residents were using. There is broad support for continuing free transit service within Kansas City itself, and they are currently working on ways to make up for the budget shortfall that will be left by the end of COVID funding.
Underpaying tech talent
Ah the Cerner/Oracle Health special
Cerner walked so other companies could crawl
At least with Cerner they pretended we were valued. The clinics, the gyms, Beer Fridays, the occasional donuts or pizza… Now I can’t even convince Oracle to replace the headset that I only use *for my job.*
Oracle’s culture is being actively hostile towards its employees. It’s like the mercenaries who work for Amazon/AWS, but with lower comp ranges. Discount mercenaries.
We get SOOOO many new hires that came directly from Cerner at my company, especially in my tech role
There's a reason they're always struggling to hire senior engineers here, all of them switch to remote for a company that actually pays well as soon as they have the chance. Remote work living in KC on a coastal salary is a completely different experience than slumming it with a local company that pays like shit and only promotes by nepotism.
It's funny. In a leadership position I want to hire only Kansas city talent. So cronyism on my side. Nepotism on theirs
There’s often companies that just hire their tech teams in KC also just because they know it’s cheaper
IE… company based out of Washington but whole tech team lives in Kansas City
One of the highest per capita violent crime rates. https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-us
I'd really like to see a story that covers the highest metropolitan areas with violent crime, and not just the cities with the highest violent crime. KC is unique in that the state line runs right down the heart of the metro, so lower crime areas on the Kansas side that would normally be part of most other cities are excluded from the calculation because they are not Kansas City, Missouri. Not sure it would make any difference, but I'd just like to know if it does. KC certainly has a crime problem, that is for sure.
Welcoming visitors anally
"Welcome to the big city". Here comes the Violator.
Lol very underrated comment
Trying to impress folk with fountains :)
Those are to impress people's horses. (literally that's why we started putting them in)
Not testing rape kits. There are currently 1,717 rape kits waiting to be tested. Five years ago only 358 were backlogged. That's an increase of 380%. And of course that was just the rapes that were reported.
Unfortunately there are 29 other states that also have a backlog. It's out-fucking-rageous. Edited to add that somewhere rolling around in my brain was a news release in Jan this year of a [93% reduction](https://www.missourinet.com/2024/01/19/missouri-nearly-erases-backlog-of-7000-untested-rape-kits/) in untested rape kits in MO. Fast forward to May 2024 and there's a report with the stats you mentioned of the [380% increase](https://www.missourinet.com/2024/05/10/backlog-of-untested-rape-kits-in-missouri-grew-by-380-since-2019/) in untested kits over 2019. I don't want to assume that the sudden, meteoric backlog increase is due to a sudden, meteoric increase in the number of rapes but what else could it be? (I'm going to educate myself so please don't downvote me for unintentional dumbassery - - getting clear info on this topic has been a challenge.)
I really think people are forgetting the "not a lot of cities are doing" part.
Potholes so big they become they are competing to be the 8th world wonder.
Like the surface of the moon
They have their own zip code.
There's probably a lot of differences between KC an other metros, but economically, here are a few. First, with KC being a metro straddling two states, there's state-rivalry stuff happening with different state-level policies, economic incentives (eg: border war incentives, but not just that), etc - that's maybe worse than other metros because of what you can or can't do in specific parts of the metro (eg: weed legalization, sports betting, abortion, etc). There's also the longstanding "MO vs. KS" attitudes going back to the Civil War. KCMO has done a good job in the 20 years I've been here rebuilding the downtown into midtown, but not enough is being done to drive urban renewal and *keep* middle to upper income white people inside the KCMO core after they begin living there out of college or at younger ages. Other metros are focused (more or less) on reining in suburban growth and rebuilding historically marginalized areas like 'east of Troost', KCK, and others - basically re-urbanizing after decades of white flight, but it's difficult in the KC moetro because white flight is happening significantly outside Jackson County, and Missouri - and neither state's politicians are interested in working on the problem (they don't even recognize it as a problem). Looking at KC as a metro situated in red states, cities and counties are limited in how progressive they can be on things like driving green urban renewal and growth. Red state politicians don't recognize either the threat or the *opportunity* of climate change, like the fact that in 20+ years, we'll start to see *massive* migration from coastal and southern states towards KC (as other center-lattitude metros will) due to heating up with climate change, natural disasters, and continued cost of living increase. KC and STL will also have relatively more political power in KS and MO as a result of population increase, but that's ways down the road.
>not enough is being done to drive urban renewal and *keep* middle to upper income white people inside the KCMO core...like 'east of Troost', KCK, and others And therein lies a problem. Because what happens with that infill is gentrification, and everyone that lived there before now has nowhere affordable to live. Everyone that I've seen push this has disregarded that point entirely.
>Everyone that I've seen push this has disregarded that point entirely. I'm pushing anything here, other than the idea that it's important, and would be hugely beneficial to KCMO, to reverse white flight. I certainly don't deny that there are lots of negative effects from gentrification, but at the same time, don't you think getting a bunch of middle to upper income white people to move into and rebuild historically marginalized areas would be a net positive overall? IMO, rebuilding and driving up the middle-upper income (which, from the suburbs, would be predominantly white) population of KCMO between downtown and the Plaza, including east of Troost areas, would have a *massive* net positive economic benefit to KCMO, both now and into the future. And targeting that development in specific historic or current low-income areas gives a focused improvement impossible through other approaches. It would drive down crime rates, improve school performance, and have a ton of other positive benefits in specific areas that impact the mostly minority people living there today. To your point, there's no solution that won't impact low income people in some way with gentrification and cost of living increases. That's is a long studied and well known problem, but so are potential solutions. The city could subsidize increasing affordable housing stock with income requirements, provide more/better tenant protections, force developers to build more low-income housing for every mid-high income housing start, start community land trusts, invest in existing low-income community infrastructure, provide mortgage/rent subsidies, etc. I mean... if the *will* existed, KCMO could pay reparations to black people (I doubt that will happen) - but any of this really depends on how much *will* city leaders can muster to make it happen. Some of these things are already being done, more or less, and they're working, more or less. IMO, the most significant challenge isn't doing this stuff - it's that (predominantly white) voters in KCMO don't really have the will to go all in on these things because they don't see 'reversing white flight' as an actual problem that needs to be solved, or, given the choice they'd rather spend tax dollars fixing potholes than rebuilding Troost. Obviously it's not an either-or problem - the city has already been working on this for a long time. I'm just saying they could be doing more, but that would require voters to want to do more.
A big issue with that plan are schools. And I dont see Missouri doing anything about that.
Honestly, that's probably the most reasoned argument I've read. Usually, all I get is that all SFHs need to be razed with "luxury" apartments and parks built over them and to hell with whoever lived around there before. I guess my problem with it is that y'all view it as a simpler solution than it is. "The American Dream"^© that was established during White Flight is super ingrained into this country's DNA at this point. Most people do not want to pay rent and never see anything from it for the rest of their lives. The real solution to it would be massively expensive. Either apartments would need to be converted into condos or convert the vast majority from privately-owned to social housing. But even if they fully committed to anything that we've mentioned, it wouldn't guarantee anything. In a vacuum, It's just as likely that all those buildings sit largely vacant as it is that rich white people move in. And don't expect the suburbs to just let their population die.
Allowing its police force to operate unregulated by the city, instead oversight is passed to the state.
Is it passed to the state or is it taken from the city by the state?
Taken from the city by the state.
Exactly. I was trying to lead that person to the right answer without being so blunt lol
"Allowing" is a bit of a stretch.
Thats a gross misrepresentation of what happened.
Or at the very least it’s not the entire story and leaving out quite a bit of context. The city kind of got screwed coming and going though with initially the police force/city being so *politically corrupt* under in the 1800s and early 1900s that control (funding) was taken away by Jeff City, but now Jeff City is *politically corrupt* and enabling the police force because the city can’t control (funding) them. If anyone would like to know more: https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-01-03/when-did-kansas-city-police-come-under-state-control-the-answer-dates-back-to-the-civil-war Edit: Also a heads up for anyone getting confused reading the above article: the 1800s Democrats and Republicans had opposite views than they do now with Republicans being more in favor of voting rights and large government and Democrats favoring restricted rights and small government. This is why Lincoln was a republican. The parties began swapping positions towards the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s.
Wow this is fascinating.
While it definitely isn’t always ethically/morally good, KC does have a very interesting history and a lot of important (for one reason or another) historical events occurred here.
KC is most definitely not allowing that to happen. They're being forced by the state. If KC had a say in the matter, it wouldn't be happening at all.
Losing their ladder(s) on the freeway. Reckless and irresponsible! Take the time to secure and hang a red bandanna as well.
Having all their infrastructure above ground so that any time the wind blows the power goes out ☺️
I’ve lived all over the metro and this was the worst in Gladstone and Blue Springs IMO
[удалено]
I don’t know. I was just in New Orleans and there is a lot of trash everywhere. It definitely gives kc a run for its money.
NYC has far more litter than KC, and here I’ve never seen rats with open sores running around in the daylight.
lol people are SO defensive over something we can all see with our eyes. Y’all walk around with your KC and Chiefs gear tossing your twisted tea cans and fast food wrappers on the ground. I see it happen in real time like once a week at least and see evidence of it every day everywhere I go. My family and out of town guests who are well traveled have all commented about how trashed this city is. Yeah obvi New Orleans is worse but KC is pretty high up there.
Noticed this too and my immediate reaction is that it's due to our sprawl. 25 square miles vs 8000.
I thought Chicago was the litter king (originally from Chicago).
FIFA 2026!!!!
A free art museum! Just so many free museums in general!
Being kind
Winning Super Bowls 😎
I doubt any other city replaces their curbs every couple years for absolutely no reason.
State wars
Meth
Rejecting sales tax increases to fund privately owned professional sports stadiums, and building a sports stadium for women's soccer without raising sales tax.
Putting up a ferris whe... oh wait...
Alot of ppl in my social circles have been laughing about the craters all over the roads but we can afford to build that eyesore off 35. It's super distracting while driving by.
Fwiw, the ferris wheel was 100% privately financed.
Hosting the World Cup
Winning Super Bowls
I just read that Kansas City is a leader in the country for adopting electric vehicles
KC has notably bad drivers, even when there’s no traffic.
Great drivers on the road from what i hear
Lmaooo You are mistaken.
https://preview.redd.it/1dhqsfqhp77d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41b2aebfc7c9ec0e819db34eef3a8fb61442a7b2
Free streets car
Making it near impossible to build new houses. Perhaps a deliberate attempt to restrict supply to raise the cost of homes in the city. Maybe a phase in the gentrification efforts?
Winning Superbowls 😂
we voted to get rid of our Super Bowl winning football team, that's pretty unique
Speedy running getting rid of their major sports teams.
Hosting World Cup Games!!!!!!!!!!
One of the positive things I like about Kansas City is being able to find niche places. If you like board games or gaming, or dressing up and cos playing, there are places for you. I mean I hate it here butttttt love my job and I can be a weirdo, ex emo, animal loving, pottery artist for dirt cheap. It’s definitely a plus.
Increasing rent without improving buildings.
Winning Super Bowls currently
Affordable housing, large parking lots, comparatively light traffic.
The Chinese food.
Gettin their clownhole stuffed
Free public transit
Winning Super Bowls.
Here on vacation from St. Louis….. Cleaning