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Yeah, understood until you said the following based on second hand info...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geologic
My own advice to Kansas City would be: you need to
No worries, but you did jump the gun at that point - is a bit heavy handed to say having never been here, which is why I called out back seat driving.
There aren't any city planners on this site. Check the last link I posted, the picture thread. There are many with closer ties to city planning on that site if you want to get involved. If you decide on KC, you could probably make a difference downtown. Sounds like you know a lot about urban planning and KC is an opportunity for you to get involved.
I agree with some of what he (strongtowns guy) said but also found much to be pretty snarky. I'm still at a loss how he could consider downtown KC to have 'wide streets'. There are only a few that are. You can cross Main street in under 10 steps, most numbered streets can be crossed in 4-5 steps. However some streets could be slowed down by making one way back to two way. When there are events though, cars can sit for over 30min. He wasn't there for events.
I would still agree though that KC street engineers design flow for worst case scenario car traffic, not daily foot traffic for the most part. Many downtown planners are aware of it, not at all ignoring it. A few streets were changed to back to two way. Others in Xroads added slotted parking to slow down traffic. There is awareness for sure with some hits, some misses.
OP, just curious, what other cities are on your list? Winter? Well KC got some snow recently you know. Quite a mess especially for those poor folks in cars. But really the the last couple years hasn't been bad. How soon are you planning a move?
Winter to me is kind of a non-issue in KC, and I say that on the heels of two back-to-back winter storms that resulted in four days of work lost. Because that is essentially the ONLY snow we've had all season, apart from a few days at the end of December. I've only lived here for five winters, and came here from much more snowy climates, so take that as you will, but my winter experience here thus far has been confined to isolated larger dumpings of snow and a lot of days of very comparably mild winter weather.
OP, just curious, what other cities are on your list? Winter? Well KC got some snow recently you know. Quite a mess especially for those poor folks in cars. But really the the last couple years hasn't been bad. How soon are you planning a move?
How soon?
I am planning a trip to the US as soon as I have found a buyer for my property here. But I may go sooner, because the HK government has "thrown a spanner into the works" of my plan, by raising a certain tax here. That will delay the sale. In fact, I might have sold the flat by now if they had not made the change about 3 weeks ago. So my plans are fluid.
Where?
I want to keep about 5-10 locations on my list, and then visit most of them on my trip, which could last for a few weeks.
The criteria are a bit idiosyncratic - to say the least - but a basic requirement is the possibility of living Carfree. None of them are on the coasts, and most are in the area near Charleston. But I wanted to have some alternative areas of the country, so I added some other locations, like KC, plus a few other areas where I have friends or family.
(Locations rejected):
+ Serenbe, near Atlanta GA (carfree problems)
+ Rock Hill SC (carfree problems)
+ Ann Arbor MI (too cold, to accept the size of the walkable area)
+ Prospect City, near Longwood CO (transport issues)
+ Sedona, near Flagstaff AR
(Top Locations still being considered)
+ Denver CO
+ Charleston NC (and one place to the North of CLT)
+ Asheville NC (and a nearby town)
("Added" locations, or lower likelihood)
+ Kansas City, MO : I like what I heard so far, may upgrade to a "Top" location
+ Greenville, SC : Downgraded, because of small size of carfree area
+ Columbus, OH : early stage search
+ Missoula, MT : early stage search
There are some others too, which I am still pondering.
I am sure that many folk who read this will find the list strange. There are many different criteria and a long time has good into thinking about some of these loactions, while others have been added recently, with much less work. I have also kept 2-3 non-US locations on the backburner
BTW, I wanted to add some new locations, as I reject some old ones. But the Mods here have threatened to ban me from CD, if I create another Carfree thread. Apparently, they are concerned that I am abusing people's goodwill by asking the sorts of questions I ask here. I requested a better explanation, and they have pointed me to the rules. You cannot "fight City-Data hall", I suppose. So I will accept that restriction.
If anyone here feels that I have abused your generousity by starting this thread, send my a message, and I will apologize in return.
Your focus seems to be on downtown KC but given your posts, am thinking you might want to check out the Plaza area, which is more walkable/lively than downtown for the most part and has access to MAX.
I wouldn't try to live in a city as spread out as KC with out personal transportation. I never though of KC as a Missouri side or Kansas. I enjoyed the whole thing. To me KC is at least everything inside of 435. To get everything the city has to offer you have to be willing to view KC as one place and not two States.
Unless you are locating to a city on the list of top ten cities for public transportation, I would bring a car until you have enough personal connections and have a good Ideal of what your geographic space with in the city is going to be.
How soon?
I am planning a trip to the US as soon as I have found a buyer for my property here. But I may go sooner, because the HK government has "thrown a spanner into the works" of my plan, by raising a certain tax here. That will delay the sale. In fact, I might have sold the flat by now if they had not made the change about 3 weeks ago. So my plans are fluid.
Where?
I want to keep about 5-10 locations on my list, and then visit most of them on my trip, which could last for a few weeks.
The criteria are a bit idiosyncratic - to say the least - but a basic requirement is the possibility of living Carfree. None of them are on the coasts, and most are in the area near Charleston. But I wanted to have some alternative areas of the country, so I added some other locations, like KC, plus a few other areas where I have friends or family.
(Locations rejected):
+ Serenbe, near Atlanta GA (carfree problems)
+ Rock Hill SC (carfree problems)
+ Ann Arbor MI (too cold, to accept the size of the walkable area)
+ Prospect City, near Longwood CO (transport issues)
+ Sedona, near Flagstaff AR
(Top Locations still being considered)
+ Denver CO
+ Charleston NC (and one place to the North of CLT)
+ Asheville NC (and a nearby town)
("Added" locations, or lower likelihood)
+ Kansas City, MO : I like what I heard so far, may upgrade to a "Top" location
+ Greenville, SC : Downgraded, because of small size of carfree area
+ Columbus, OH : early stage search
+ Missoula, MT : early stage search
There are some others too, which I am still pondering.
I am sure that many folk who read this will find the list strange. There are many different criteria and a long time has good into thinking about some of these loactions, while others have been added recently, with much less work. I have also kept 2-3 non-US locations on the backburner
BTW, I wanted to add some new locations, as I reject some old ones. But the Mods here have threatened to ban me from CD, if I create another Carfree thread. Apparently, they are concerned that I am abusing people's goodwill by asking the sorts of questions I ask here. I requested a better explanation, and they have pointed me to the rules. You cannot "fight City-Data hall", I suppose. So I will accept that restriction.
If anyone here feels that I have abused your generousity by starting this thread, send my a message, and I will apologize in return.
Man, I don't know, you are just all over the map here. It sounds more like you are just researching what cities are truly walkable, but then when you look at the cities you are mentioning, they have almost nothing in common.
Do you want big city, mid sized city or small city or small town? Your climate is all over the map too. Some of your locations are extremely isolated while others are not. You have midwest, south, west, plains.
I'm just not following you. Very bizarre.
I love Kansas City, MO and think it's highly underrated, but as far as being a vibrant, urban city with lots of dense, walkable areas with busy sidewalks and cafes, tree lined urban boulevards with slow traffic, street parking and awesome transit, I don't think it makes the top 20 in big cities and when you include places as small as Greenville, KC would rank even lower.
The plaza is nice and you can live in KC and use buses to get around, but the general anti-urban mentality of the metro is extremely obvious and kind of annoying and there really are not many busy urban places in KC outside of the plaza area which is more touristy than a lot of urbanites would likely prefer.
Again, I like KC, but it's just not on the same level with Denver, Portland, Minneapolis, DC, Boston, Seattle, Chicago etc and in many cases, it has a hard time competing with places like Cincy, St Louis, Milwaukee etc which just have more "local" vibrant and busy transit friendly mixed use areas in my opinion.
Having said that. It's a great city that continues to improve and in ten years, it could be right there with places like Denver (or maybe Denver in the year 2005). But I kind of doubt it due to the lack of regionwide urban pride there. KCMO can spend all the money in the word on downtown, but till companies stop moving to sprawling office parks in the suburbs and leaving urban KCMO in their rear view mirror, for every step KC takes forward, most other cities will have taken three steps...
I wouldn't try to live in a city as spread out as KC with out personal transportation. I never though of KC as a Missouri side or Kansas. I enjoyed the whole thing. To me KC is at least everything inside of 435. To get everything the city has to offer you have to be willing to view KC as one place and not two States.
Unless you are locating to a city on the list of top ten cities for public transportation, I would bring a car until you have enough personal connections and have a good Ideal of what your geographic space with in the city is going to be.
^However KC along downtown/midtown has more to offer just along that stretch than several small towns he is considering. There is quite a bit along a 75 block stretch along MAX line. There are many people who live in the city w/out a car, including a lot of retired people in my condo. It will be inconvenient w/out a car in some cases, which is true in most cities, including what OP is considering. My brother came from Philly and lived in KC w/out a car for several years on Plaza and in River Market, so did a sister coming from Germany, living on W Side of Plaza. It was doable but they did borrow my car a few times a year. People who are accustomed w/out a car don't think the same way as car dependent people and are generally not interested in suburbia anyway.
BTW, KC has a lot of cabs for its size. There are cab stands in all the city hotspots. Can't easily hail a cab from anywhere but can call from cell and have one in a few minutes in city core.
Man, I don't know, you are just all over the map here. It sounds more like you are just researching what cities are truly walkable, but then when you look at the cities you are mentioning, they have almost nothing in common.
Do you want big city, mid sized city or small city or small town? Your climate is all over the map too. Some of your locations are extremely isolated while others are not. You have midwest, south, west, plains.
I'm just not following you. Very bizarre.
I love Kansas City, MO and think it's highly underrated, but as far as being a vibrant, urban city with lots of dense, walkable areas with busy sidewalks and cafes, tree lined urban boulevards with slow traffic, street parking and awesome transit, I don't think it makes the top 20 in big cities and when you include places as small as Greenville, KC would rank even lower.
.
I told you, that you would find it strange.
But I have reasons - including that I want to look at a spread of locations, and I already know people in some of these off-theme locations. Some of my reasons, will stay private - but the locations are not nearly as "random" as they may appear. You will note that none of the locations are High Cost locations like NYC, SF, or Boston. Beyond that, I would rather not say anymore at this stage, except that the selection, search, and research process is progressing well so far IMHO.
The thing that would make KC very exciting (or not) is its vision of the future, and its willingness to transform itself in a way that many cities may find a big challenge. I have kept GRV on the list because they have shown some past city-planning vision, and I have had a good communication with the Mayor.
How progressive is the Mayor of KC and his/her team?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcmo
Denver, Portland, Minneapolis, DC, Boston, Seattle, Chicago etc.
The coast cities, and the really cold ones (MIN, CHI), I rule out. Ann Arbor was "in" because I grew up in Detroit, and wanted to see how it looked on my new selection criteria, but it is too small, and too "collegiate", as well as being too cold.
I would like to replace it with another town of the same size which is not too far from a major airline hub, such as Detroit is.
^However KC along downtown/midtown has more to offer just along that stretch than several small towns he is considering. There is quite a bit along a 75 block stretch along MAX line. There are many people who live in the city w/out a car, including a lot of retired people in my condo. It will be inconvenient w/out a car in some cases, which is true in most cities, including what OP is considering. My brother came from Philly and lived in KC w/out a car for several years on Plaza and in River Market, so did a sister coming from Germany, living on W Side of Plaza. It was doable but they did borrow my car a few times a year. People who are accustomed w/out a car don't think the same way as car dependent people and are generally not interested in suburbia anyway.
BTW, KC has a lot of cabs for its size. There are cab stands in all the city hotspots. Can't easily hail a cab from anywhere but can call from cell and have one in a few minutes in city core.
Thanks, X.
That's good to know about the taxis.
Did you sister from Germany find it easy to adjust?
German cities tend to be ahead of US cities in many respects: transport, walkability, solarcells, etc.
You can get a sense of that in this talk by a Seimens rep:
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