Worried about culture shock from northern california (Salina, Hays: sales, real estate)

[crshedd]

if you go to this site:
https://www.city-data.com

type in wichita to search you will get a TON of stats about wichita. near the very bottom of a very long page is a cost of living calculator. it shows wichita is about 15% cheaper than sacramento.

i don't know who the previous posters run into, but i have found kansans to be very nice and friendly. not many i would want for long term friends but are fine for the time i am here.

drivers are polite here compared to the 5 other states i have lived in. but be careful they are really, really bad about cutting corners when they turn left!

if you are a church goer, things would be a bit better as far as meeting people. i have done fine without stepping into a church.

my biggest complaint (probably only) is the group-think conservative 'values' here. avoid politics and just grin and bear it.

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by phxone

As a relative newcomer to Wichita, I will agree 100% with this poster. I have found the people in Wichita to be some of the nastiest, most judgmental people I have ever come across. It is like they have been acting this way for so long that they don't even notice. I find it especially worse among the over 40 ultra conservative church going crowd - the only hobby those people seem to have is being miserable and complaining about things other people are doing. Anti-abortion protests seem to be a community thing here with idiots doing it all day every day with their signs and other associated nonsense. Drive down the highways in rural areas and you will see plenty of "Children of the Corn" style homemade signs spouting fire and brimstone roast in hell damnation BS. IMO, Kansas is like the crazy ward of the Bible Belt.

Yikes, I'll just be by-passing this state along with Mississippi and North Carolina. Not that it will be difficult, and I'm from a Nebraska farm family, but I am aware of national politics, the governor, as well as Midwestern politeness cloaked in judgemental bigotry and standoffishness to those not from there or judged to be different.

[Count David]

I grew up in Southern California, and have also lived in the Pacific NW, and also in Denver for the last 10 years.

I visited Wichita twice in 2014 or 2015 (I really don't remember, lol), and didn't come away from it in terrible shock, but even downtown (we went to a breakfast place there) came off as a lot more conservative-feeling than I had expected (good ol' boy, minorities "knowing their place"). Downtown was a lot more dead than I thought it would be, and much of the city was ran-down or suburban. OP, if you've ever been to Fresno, it's like that, but without the large Latino population. I didn't take it for a bad place, but it's not somewhere I'm dying to visit again.

Our purpose for the trip was to visit some of my wife's family in a small town in SE Kansas. We had a good time out there, but the main social event is sitting around and talking, and doing the same again at night with alcohol in hand.

[carbonz]

Originally Posted by rickybobbyusa

Ive lived in the same small northern california town for my entire life.... 25 years... I have a few friends in witchita and need a change. Ive spent time a fair amount of time in sacramento/san fransico two very liberal cities.... im worried if i move to ks it might be to much of a culture shock. Also I have brown skin. Are people generally open minded to colored people? Also, for a 25 year old is there much of a social scene? Or do people typically hang out with friends at home? I will be introduced to a fair amount of people but it would be nice to meet people on my own. Ive done a fair amount of reading about the city itself, but dont find much on the social side. I almost have in my mind the majority of people being country music enjoying white city cowboys.

It kind of depends on what you're into. The art, music, and fitness communities here are pretty welcoming and amicable (and based on my observations, completely unphased by other ethnic groups). If you aren't a hobbyist of some kind, you might have a more difficult time. People here can be somewhat cliquey and judgmental, as others have noted. Granted, I lived in Sacramento, and I found those social aspects much worse there. I'm not sure where in NorCal you are.

I may be able to recommend ways to meet people depending on what your interests and priorities are.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by David Aguilar

I grew up in Southern California, and have also lived in the Pacific NW, and also in Denver for the last 10 years.

I visited Wichita twice in 2014 or 2015 (I really don't remember, lol), and didn't come away from it in terrible shock, but even downtown (we went to a breakfast place there) came off as a lot more conservative-feeling than I had expected (good ol' boy, minorities "knowing their place"). Downtown was a lot more dead than I thought it would be, and much of the city was ran-down or suburban. OP, if you've ever been to Fresno, it's like that, but without the large Latino population. I didn't take it for a bad place, but it's not somewhere I'm dying to visit again.

Our purpose for the trip was to visit some of my wife's family in a small town in SE Kansas. We had a good time out there, but the main social event is sitting around and talking, and doing the same again at night with alcohol in hand.

Downtown Wichita has actually improved a bit since then. A few hotels and apartment complexes in converted office buildings have opened and Union Station isn't a vacant mess anymore. Cargills new division headquarters is getting ready to start construction and Old Town is still going strong. People always seem to forget about Old Town when talking about downtown Wichita despite it being right there. There are also a few projects in the works for the old Macy's and arena area with one developer hoping to open a downtown grocery. The big issue is that a lot of land and buildings in downtown Wichita were caught up in bankruptcy courts for years and couldn't be touched as a result. I believe the failed Water Walk project still has some legal turmoil attached to it. That project failed due to the recession as did several other proposed downtown projects. Now that the recession is over, developers are more interested in NE Wichita and infill development on the west side near Northwest High School where the demographics are apparently nicer than the housing and existing businesses suggest. Wichita is actually a pretty neat place if you look at the positives rather than look for the flaws. People expect more from the city than it has ever been able to provide thanks to boom and bust cycles. I'm just glad to see that Wichita has added a decent amount of residential properties downtown and that more are to come. The next big downtown project seems to be figuring out what to do with Century II.

[djsmps]

I moved here from Los Angeles. Previously, I lived in San Jose, San Francisco, Dallas and Denver. There was no culture shock when I moved here. The people were friendly. Unemployment is very low and there is a very skilled workforce here. There is a thriving nightlife. And it is very inexpensive to live here. I sold my house in LA and paid cash for a house here.



If you think there will be culture shock, move somewhere else.

[Repo_man_sanchez]

Kansas - no scenery but nice people...unless you are going to SE Kansas.

[widespreadfan]

Originally Posted by djsmps

I moved here from Los Angeles. Previously, I lived in San Jose, San Francisco, Dallas and Denver. There was no culture shock when I moved here. The people were friendly. Unemployment is very low and there is a very skilled workforce here. There is a thriving nightlife. And it is very inexpensive to live here. I sold my house in LA and paid cash for a house here.



If you think there will be culture shock, move somewhere else.

Wichita's downtown is a rocking with all of kinds of re-development. The suburban growth has been focused on the Northeast side of town. Recent new additions to town include: Trader Joe's, REI, Saltgrass Steakhouse, Dave & Buster's, Chicken 'N Pickle, and a golf facility similar to a Top Golf has been announced. PM if you have specific questions.

[eddie gein]

rickybobbyusa is long gone. But I got a big chuckle out of this thread when some posters claimed that a guy named rickybobbyusa would have "culture shock" moving to Wichita. Seems like it would be a rickybobbyusa kinda place.

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

I honestly don't believe the culture from one region of the country to another is all that much different. The way people live their day to day lives in this country is pretty much the same no matter where you go. I think moving from a small town to a big city or vice-uh-versa is the biggest culture shock that most Americans will suffer from.

I think there is probably more culture shock involved by moving from a small town or small city, such as Salina, Kansas to a huge city within the same region than moving to a similar sized city in a totally different region. I think the average Salina native would have a much easier time adjusting to life in Jackson, Tennessee or Grand Junction, Colorado than adjusting to life in St. Louis, Chicago or Minneapolis.

Even the different American accents, for the most part, are not near as thick as they were 40 and 50 years ago, as they have become mostly watered down and homogenized.

Everything else, such as weather, food, activities and entertainment, is a matter of getting use to. If you have school age children, that will make a big difference easing the culture shock one might experience.