I just felt like putting this here.This is a really good summation of kansas city's recent history from poster "kcmo"
"^ Kansas City is basically a collection of midwestern suburbs with a handful of "big city" attractions mixed in. Having lived on the east coast now for several years, I do notice some of what is being said here.
But unless you lived there in the 80's and 90's, you have NO IDEA how much better is it today than it was then. KC was probably the only city that truly gave Detroit a run for its money as far as urban decay and blight. Even places like St Louis and Baltimore had and still have more vibrant and thriving urban core and inner suburban neighborhoods than KC did and those places were also able to build transit systems, build and maintain museums, sports venues etc while KC was literally rotting away till the late 90's.
Not everybody will like KC. It seems rather sleepy to me now. I mean, there is almost no traffic there, even on city streets. Downtown, Midtown during the business day is empty for a city of its size and the amount of underutilized space and land (even urban land) is mind boggling. It's just not a "busy" city at all and most people there are actually scared of even the idea of it becoming a busy, bustling city (the way they love KCI, the deadest, most depressing airport in the US now, is a great example of this).
But.....things change very slowly there and they are still changing for the better. KC had a LONG way to come back.
Just 15 years ago, the crossroads was nearly entirely vacant, liberty memorial as falling down, union station was nearly boarded up, 18th and Vine was ghetto, midtown was ghetto filled with "projects", the river key was dangerous and full of XXX theaters, 75% of the buildings over 10 stories downtown were vacant or used as haunted houses, downtown kc was just a few skyscrapers and a whole bunch of run down crap and parking lots, crumbling police and fire stations, the royals and chiefs were threatening to leave town after KC has already lost the NHL and NBA, kemper was falling down and lost 80% of its events including the prized Big 12 Tourneys, Bartle Hall was deteriorating and KC lost most of its large conventions dropping to a fourth tier convention city, the zoo was an embarrassment and became uncredited and was at risk of closing, KC was the largest city without a science museum, one of the largest without rail transit, the nelson had not changed since the 30's, KCMO despite having 40% of its land vacant was losing residents (unheard of), nearly all of the metro's freeways and major bridges were in deplorable shape, sidewalks and traffic signals were crumbling, street lights were barley working if they existed at all, many airlines tried, but none could ever make a hub work at kci mainly due to its terrible design (still a problem), KCMO and KCK combined had an incredible amount of homicides and high crime, KCK had nothing at all going for it (not even village west), the Northland was not growing despite incredible location, Independence was the meth capital of the country, JoCo was boring as hell with its top attraction being a rather bland oak park mall, Penn Valley Park, Swope Park etc were places you just did not go, brush creek on the plaza was a graffiti and bum filled concrete canal, the Northland finally took off and has become KCMO's answer to something to compete with JoCo, KCK still has urban core issues, but has been able to do some incredible things out west that maybe someday will lead to more investment in the city east of 435.
For the reasons I just listed, I can see why so many in JoCo and other suburbs were so hateful towards KC for most of my time living there. I think by 1990 or so everybody had lost any faith that anything outside of outer suburbia had a fighting chance. But it was still my home and I just couldn't join the crowd and do nothing but hate and bash on KCMO and KCK.
I would visit other cities and come back to KC and HATE it every time. It was so easy to just join with others and just say KC sucks, nothing can be done, but Johnson County is god's gift to the world and it makes up for such a ****ty urban core!
Instead, I stayed in KCMO, bought a home in waldo, and I did everything I could to change it. I was deeply involved in every single civil project in KCMO from Union Station to the East Village and Light Rail.
People in KC still don't understand just how much Mayor Barnes did for KC. They should rename the city after her, she freaking saved the city. But most people there despise her because she was pro change and pro development and simply RROgressive.
KC in a few short years literally blossomed overnight into a city where residents can be proud of the city again. New bridges cross the rivers, new sidewalks, new traffic signals, a city wide street light system was installed, MAX buses were initiated, the stadiums were rebuilt and the sports teams locked into leases, the city built a new downtown arena and it became one of the world's most successful, a huge entertainment district downtown replacing parking lots and haunted houses, the crossroads district is a vibrant neighborhood, dozens and dozens of downtown buildings were reopened and converted to housing, freeways were rebuilt, bartle was expanded, a huge ballroom was built, the performing arts center was built, the nelson was expanded, the zoo was massively expanded and eventually properly funded by a MO side regional tax, union station was saved by what would be the last time KS and MO worked together. So sad because Union Station is a huge success story and the original renovation was a flawless well run project, a science center was built (although because it was not funded by the bistate tax it had struggled reach its potential), the negro leagues museum and jazz museum was built, the college basketball experience was built, Swope Park, Penn Valley Park etc cleaned up, new police and fire stations built all across town, the amazing WWI museum was built and liberty memorial restored, brush creek was turned into a beautiful river walk (although still ignored by locals), Midtown, River Market etc is being gentrified, new residential construction is finally starting to occur north of the plaza, there is a streetcar line under construction, I can go on and on. I mean, KC might actually have a decent amount of people on sidewalks, using bike lanes etc outside the plaza in the near future!
My point is that it’s easy to be hard on KC if you travel a lot and spend time in other major cities. KC may never again catch up to cities it once dwarfed in size and culture (Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Charlotte etc), but it’s come a long way and if it keeps on pace and the people there don’t mess it up, in another 10-15 years, KC could be one of those cities people envy. Personally, the state line is the one thing that is keeping that from happening because the metro just can't focus on things like other cities do. The metro is always trying to pull itself apart rather than get on the same page. But despite that huge drag on the metro, the city of KCMO has done nearly a 180 and people should take notice of that."- kcmo from city-data.com