STL vs KC (Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield: insurance, homes, school)

[GraniteStater]

The tipping point will occur in 10 years or less in terms of Johnson County, KS overtaking Jackson County, MO for total number of jobs.

[Blue Earth]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Oh my god, here we go. So let me get this straight, I must hate StL and like Kansas, I must not talk bad about KC drivers. I must post links to stupid lists about how KC is a top whatever in whatever list, but never ever talk about the state lines issues or lack of community spirit in KC.

Sorry not going to happen, I talk about everything KC, not just cheesy lists. I’ll talk up the arts center and make fun of KC drivers in the same thread. Again we are all adults and if you can’t handle that, then I guess you need to move on.

Who has left this forum? Samantha? She and a few other hard core JoCo posters were the main reason I joined this forum in the first place to reduce the all "move to JoCo that's where all the nice suburbs, safe areas and good schools are!" "stay out of MO and you will be fine".... The forum is far more balanced without them with people recommending all parts of metro KC, including JoCo, but not only JoCo. Go back five years and look at the posts before I came along, but I’m sure you are fine with those.

@ Blue Earth, I know I hurt your feelings with my post about Village West over on KC Rag. Village West is what it is. People have different opinions of it, get over it. You can love the place I don’t care. As far as me hating the Midwest. What’s the big deal with that? I like some of the cities in the Midwest, but no, I’m not fond of the rural Midwest outside the big cities. It’s one of the few reasons I like a lot of cities better than KC, the location.

Not trying to hurt your feelings, but you are over-the-top in your criticism of the Kansas side of the metro. Your criticisms are often personal in nature, attacking how people live or what they wear. I also just disagree with you on many things. How many times did you have to say how everyone near STL is "about STL", but people near KC are not "about KC"? First of all, I disagree that KC metro residents are not "about KC". This is entirely subjective and is just your opinion based on your feelings. In my experience, people in Wyandotte and Johnson counties are very much "about KC". I found when I lived there that people in those counties have very little regard for Topeka or Wichita, so what are they going to be "about" if not KC?

But even if there was some truth to the STL area being more "about STL" than the KC area is "about KC", a quick glance at a map and studying the development patterns near the two cities would tell you why it is. There is no city within 100 miles of STL that is larger than 50,000. The dominant part of Illinois is up north (Chicago, Peoria, Quad Cities, Rockford, Champaign), so those in southern Illinois have weak ties to Illinois. It makes sense that people near STL would have strong ties to STL, because it is the only urban node within 100 miles.

The KC area, on the other hand, has a much different development pattern. There are three cities well over 50,000 within 50 miles: Topeka, Lawrence, and St. Joseph. One of those cities has a flagship state university and another is a state capital. And probably most importantly, the northeast part of Kansas is the dominant part of Kansas. So those who live in northeast Kansas are more tied to Kansas than those who live in southern Illinois would be tied to Illinois.

Try to imagine STL if Champaign was 40 miles east, with the main campus of the University of Illinois and all that entails. Now place 40% of the STL metro population on the Illinois side, along with the most wealthy suburbs, and the metro's ONLY three Fortune 500 companies. It would function exactly like KC does. Form follows function. If you create a certain type of urban development pattern, that region will function spontaneously as a response to the development pattern.

[kcmo]

^ we just need to agree to disagree. That's about it. I like KC. I defend and promote it more than anybody on this entire forum. You can check my posts in other forums. I just looked at your profile, and of course, its locked down so I don't know where you post, but if I think KC stacks up against another city, I will aggressively go to bat for KC. But at the same time, I'm not going to wear blinders on the issues that are not so great about KC and the state line is one of those issues.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by kcmo

^ we just need to agree to disagree. That's about it. I like KC. I defend and promote it more than anybody on this entire forum. You can check my posts in other forums. I just looked at your profile, and of course, its locked down so I don't know where you post, but if I think KC stacks up against another city, I will aggressively go to bat for KC. But at the same time, I'm not going to wear blinders on the issues that are not so great about KC and the state line is one of those issues.

You know I agree with you on that point. If Jackson County can't figure out a way to stem the tide of continued job losses to Johnson County and in general it's going to get even worse. If Johnson County claims the title of the county with the greatest number of total jobs in the metropolitan area the state of Kansas will use even further corporate economic development incentives and corporate welfare. A chunk of it may very well be private in scope, but the state of Kansas just can't rely on 1 COUNTY for all new job growth and population growth in the state while the rest of the state sees massive out-migration and job losses. It won't work and it is an unbalanced model to plan future development on.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

You know I agree with you on that point. If Jackson County can't figure out a way to stem the tide of continued job losses to Johnson County and in general it's going to get even worse. If Johnson County claims the title of the county with the greatest number of total jobs in the metropolitan area the state of Kansas will use even further corporate economic development incentives and corporate welfare. A chunk of it may very well be private in scope, but the state of Kansas just can't rely on 1 COUNTY for all new job growth and population growth in the state while the rest of the state sees massive out-migration and job losses. It won't work and it is an unbalanced model to plan future development on.

Yea, the day the largest county in metro KC (by population or economy) is the one with the least amount of interest in a vibrant urban core is probably the day KC begins a pretty sad downhill spriral as a whole into a "has been" city or at the very least begins to rapidly lose ground to cities that were once considered peer cities and be passed up by cities that are currently a lower tier or "AAA" cities.

You can laugh at that. But 20-30 years down the road KC may not be much more than a collection of nice family suburbs with a bankrupt and dying city as a core with a few regional attractions and urban core companies hanging on by a thread. That is a very real possibility.

It would be like if St Louis County were in a different state and didn't give a flying *** what happened to St Louis City and actually instead of funding much of what makes StL great, they were actively and aggressively stealing every company StL city had and watching the city close and lose everything else it did have (sports teams, museums etc) as it no longer could support them. Things are not perfect in StL, but they would be a lot worse if that were the case.

As JoCo and now even WyCo continues to grow at KCMO's expense, that's becoming the case in KC.

So while I can go into the Indy and OKC and Charlotte forums and talk up KC now. I'm not so sure that will be the case in another 20-30 years. KC's style of metropolitan growth is simply not sustainable if metro KC has any goals of building up and maintaining itself as a city with a vibrant growing urban center that is attractive to potential residents, tourists and businesses.

[masterwood89]

Originally Posted by Blue Earth

There is no city within 100 miles of STL that is larger than 50,000.

Actually St. Louis does have cities within a 100 miles that are larger than 50K.

O'Fallon 79,329

St. Charles 65,794

St. Peters 52,575

Florissant 52,158

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by masterwood89

Actually St. Louis does have cities within a 100 miles that are larger than 50K.

O'Fallon 79,329

St. Charles 65,794

St. Peters 52,575

Florissant 52,158

Interesting. I was wondering what the populations of STL's largest suburbs are. That guy left out KC's suburbs though when describing bigger towns around KC. KC has 4 suburban cities over 100,000, and 3 are in Kansas. Kansas City, Overland Park, and Olathe, KS, and Independence, MO.

On top of that, Kansas City, KS, and Independence, MO, are very much cities unto themselves, KCK in terms of jobs and population, and Independence in terms that it's older than KCMO and is co-county seat. Overland Park, Olathe, and Johnson County in general have a huge suburban jobs base, rapidly approaching the same number of jobs as KCMO and Jackson County. KCK and Independence very much operate like Council Bluffs does in relation to Omaha.

So in some sense, KC is and always has been less centralized and more polarized than STL. KCK and Independence natives tend to hold their hometown loyalty to their respective cities instead of KCMO. This is even true to some extent for smaller, outter suburbs like Liberty and Lee's Summit.

KC is just a less-centralized, less-urban metro. It doesn't help that an absolutely huge swath of KCMO, basically the entire eastern half of the city south of the river, is perceived as ghetto - and arguably rightly so.

I understand where KCMO is coming from though when he suggest many KC metro residents don't have any loyalty to KCMO. It's definitely true. And STL is the perfect antithesis to such.

I know of folks who live just across the state line, 2 miles from the Plaza, but have NEVER been, but will travel 15-20 miles to Village West or 10 miles to Oak Park Mall. I don't know that it's just a state line thing though because I know folks in Independence who think going across the metro is like going out of town. Speaking of my own family and their social surroundings, who are particularly yokel-types, they couldn't even tell you where the most major neighborhoods are in the city, like Brookside or Waldo, let alone Volker.

I've kind of always attributed some of the ignorance and yokel-type behavior to KCK, where I'm from, and a blue-collar thing, but perhaps it's widespread throughout the KC metro, which makes sense since we draw from so many small towns and rural areas.

I'm beginning to think cities are like spouses. You can be emotionally attached, but you can't change them, so you have to move on to a place that better suits your needs if it is that important to you and you know what you want. I think only a more massive-influx of Californian's, sort of like Denver experienced, would change KC for the better.

That said, STL is obviously a cooler, much larger city, at least to a city fan. It's much more urban, a century older, and seat of a metro almost 1 million more than KC.

[stlouisan]

Originally Posted by masterwood89

Actually St. Louis does have cities within a 100 miles that are larger than 50K.

O'Fallon 79,329

St. Charles 65,794

St. Peters 52,575

Florissant 52,158

You also forgot Springfield, Illinois

[PVPete]

"WHERE DID YOU GO TO HIGH SCHOOL?"

Seriously, whats up with that St. Louis?

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by PVPete

"WHERE DID YOU GO TO HIGH SCHOOL?"

Seriously, whats up with that St. Louis?

I'm curious about this phenomenon too, but it doesn't particularly bother me.

You might get asked that in KC too, if you grew up in the old upper-middle class/upper-class areas. Ward Parkway, Brookside, Fairway, Mission Hills, Prairie Village, etc., where a certain "set" lives. STL being larger, wealthier?, older, and more Catholic, and there you go, explained.

Although at first I thought it was a working-class thing.