Austin, TX to KC - culture shock (Kansas City, St. Louis: real estate, rentals)

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by TabulaRasa

Gay-friendly? My impression is yes (again, particularly compared to elsewhere MO/KS, overall). I'm not gay, but I do sing in a GALA chorus, and there are two in the city. We usually perform at Pride, etc.

Well, I know it's not the Heartland Men's Chorus*. What's the other?

(*HMC's artistic director and the artistic director of the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus, in which I sang for nine seasons, are friends.)

It's diverse, but fairly segregated. Food's good (and not just BBQ, though that's good, too). Fine arts scene is pretty great. It's super affordable. The weather is good, by my standards, but I grew up in the upper midwest, and would be happy if we never, ever had harsh winters. Naysayers seem to find it prohibitively humid in the summer months. It doesn't bother me.

Seen that Raygun T-shirt with the "Midwest 7-Day Forecast"? Pretty on target (and a good laugh), if you ask me.

(The guy who started this Des Moines-based design studio got his start selling "Not Penn State" T-shirts when he was an undergraduate at Penn. It has a store in the Crossroads; that store and one in Chicago are their only two stores located outside Iowa.)

Although we have colleges and universities, it really lacks a "college town" feel, which could be a pro or con, depending on who you are. There's no "university district" anywhere, for one thing, and a number of the institutions of higher learning are largely commuter schools and have not a big campus atmosphere.

Most of the schools in the Kansas City area are small colleges and universities; the one university within the city limits (now a campus of the University of Missouri) was founded only in 1933 and is largely a commuter school.

The MU-KU rivalry, which Mizzou wrecked when it bolted the Big 12 for the SEC, used to be one of the big sports events in the area: the University of Kansas is located in Lawrence, one-half hour west of Kansas City and the main reason the county containing it is still not part of the Kansas City MSA or CSA. (My Mom was a double Jayhawk, the first black woman to get both a BSN and an MSN from the school. I'm a Missourian by birth and upbringing. Go figure.) And when MU and KU met each other, some treated it as a Civil War re-enactment: I read once about Mizzou fans sporting black-and-gold Tigers jerseys with "Quantrill" on the back. (Google "Quantrill's Raid" for the reason why. Lawrence was a free-soil stronghold during "Bleeding Kansas," the dress rehearsal for the Civil War.)

So: are you watching any of "Q***r Eye" Season 3?

[eastontracks]

As someone who's also considering relocating to Kansas city from San antonio, this is great info to read

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Well, I know it's not the Heartland Men's Chorus*. What's the other?

(*HMC's artistic director and the artistic director of the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus, in which I sang for nine seasons, are friends.)

Kansas City Women's Chorus. Which, with HMC, was also under the direction of Joe Nadeau when I started. Who is amazing (and back in the area, after a stint as AD for Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus). KCWC is now under the direction of Cindy Sheppard. It's good people.

Seen that Raygun T-shirt with the "Midwest 7-Day Forecast"? Pretty on target (and a good laugh), if you ask me.

(The guy who started this Des Moines-based design studio got his start selling "Not Penn State" T-shirts when he was an undergraduate at Penn. It has a store in the Crossroads; that store and one in Chicago are their only two stores located outside Iowa.)

I love Raygun's stuff. They were also selling a bit of it in the shop at the Nelson Atkins for a while, but i haven't seen it there, lately.

Most of the schools in the Kansas City area are small colleges and universities; the one university within the city limits (now a campus of the University of Missouri) was founded only in 1933 and is largely a commuter school.

There are other universities within city limits. I'm a graduate student at one of 'em.

So: are you watching any of "Q***r Eye" Season 3?

I watched the first episode...but school and internship and parenting babies are all cutting into my viewing time. Hopefully will catch up on it, soon. The first episode was good.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by TabulaRasa

There are other universities within city limits. I'm a graduate student at one of 'em. .

Rockhurst?

I'd forgotten how long it's been since I lived there. Kansas City's Jesuit university was a college when I was growing up.

(Had a fun conversation with a Rockhurst High alum who now lives in the nice part of Newark, N.J. [yes, it has one] when I visited a mutual friend of ours a few weeks back. "Jockhurst" High was one of Pem-Day's chief football rivals. I won't tell you what he told me they called us.)

The Rockhurst and UMKC campuses abut each other.

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Rockhurst?

Nope, Avila.

Been around since 1916, when it was the College of St. Theresa, a two-year Catholic women's college. It became a four-year program in the 1940s, adding a nursing program. In the 60s, it became Avila College, and moved to admit male students as well. It's been Avila University for 17 years, now, having added master's programs in counseling psych, education, business, and health sciences.

They also just unveiled a MSW program that they are doing jointly with St. Louis University, which is a hybrid of online coursework offered through SLU and on-campus coursework that takes place at Avila. The degree is ultimately issued as an SLU degree, though, because it's a 60-40 split.

[lovekcmo]

Originally Posted by TabulaRasa

Kansas City Women's Chorus. Which, with HMC, was also under the direction of Joe Nadeau when I started. Who is amazing (and back in the area, after a stint as AD for Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus). KCWC is now under the direction of Cindy Sheppard. It's good people.





I love Raygun's stuff. They were also selling a bit of it in the shop at the Nelson Atkins for a while, but i haven't seen it there, lately.





There are other universities within city limits. I'm a graduate student at one of 'em.






I watched the first episode...but school and internship and parenting babies are all cutting into my viewing time. Hopefully will catch up on it, soon. The first episode was good.

Is Joe Nadeau back in KC? He was incredible!

[bentodd1]

I moved from Denver to Kc and noticed a few cultural differences. How liberal the city core was not one of them. The biggest difference is that people weee a lot less into physical fitness. It seemed like in Denver everyone was into physical fitness and here in Kc only a subset of people are. The other major difference is Kc was way more rundown. I took this as a positive, as I could find more interesting bars and restaurants that wouldn’t be able to survive Denver’s high rent. The last thing is there isn’t any good Tex mex. I still have yet to find a good breakfast burrito.

[xz2y]

Originally Posted by bentodd1

I moved from Denver to Kc and noticed a few cultural differences. How liberal the city core was not one of them. The biggest difference is that people weee a lot less into physical fitness. It seemed like in Denver everyone was into physical fitness and here in Kc only a subset of people are. The other major difference is Kc was way more rundown. I took this as a positive, as I could find more interesting bars and restaurants that wouldn’t be able to survive Denver’s high rent. The last thing is there isn’t any good Tex mex. I still have yet to find a good breakfast burrito.

Interesting. I haven't visited KCMO in 30 years, though I lived there for 6 years back in the 1980's. I never considered it run down, though I lived near the Plaza the entire time, in 3 different places. I always considered the city very spread out, and now there is a tremendous amount of building going on in downtown, hubdreds of new apartments and condos going up and rehabbing the older properties. There is a good thread on that topic in this forum.

I haven't been to Denver in many years. Do you really think DT Denver is not as run down as DT KCMO? KCMO has "neighborhoods" that are well-developed, such as the Plaza and Westport and P&L District as well as the area down by the river and the market. It's all very spread out compared to Denver. Can you explain a bit more about your impressions of both cities in terms of KCMO being more rundown? Maybe you are referring to the warehouses and buildings that have been vacated from long-gone industries, but not rehabbed or repurposed yet.

[bentodd1]

Originally Posted by xz2y

Interesting. I haven't visited KCMO in 30 years, though I lived there for 6 years back in the 1980's. I never considered it run down, though I lived near the Plaza the entire time, in 3 different places. I always considered the city very spread out, and now there is a tremendous amount of building going on in downtown, hubdreds of new apartments and condos going up and rehabbing the older properties. There is a good thread on that topic in this forum.

I haven't been to Denver in many years. Do you really think DT Denver is not as run down as DT KCMO? KCMO has "neighborhoods" that are well-developed, such as the Plaza and Westport and P&L District as well as the area down by the river and the market. It's all very spread out compared to Denver. Can you explain a bit more about your impressions of both cities in terms of KCMO being more rundown? Maybe you are referring to the warehouses and buildings that have been vacated from long-gone industries, but not rehabbed or repurposed yet.

KC is way more run down than Denver. Denver has been revitalized, which also shot the rent prices way up. There’s tons of abandoned buildings in Kc, I had hard time finding an a abandoned building in Denver. The murder rate is 5 times higher than Denver.

Some other differences I noticed. Kc has a much higher African American population while Denver has been gentrified to the max. The interests of people in Kc seems pretty diverse while everyone in Denver seemed into the mountains or weed.

[chicago2kc]

Originally Posted by bentodd1

I moved from Denver to Kc and noticed a few cultural differences. How liberal the city core was not one of them. The biggest difference is that people weee a lot less into physical fitness. It seemed like in Denver everyone was into physical fitness and here in Kc only a subset of people are. The other major difference is Kc was way more rundown. I took this as a positive, as I could find more interesting bars and restaurants that wouldn’t be able to survive Denver’s high rent. The last thing is there isn’t any good Tex mex. I still have yet to find a good breakfast burrito.

KC is not more rundown than Denver. I spend a ton of time in Denver. Portions of KC are much older than Denver because KC developed much earlier than Denver (Denver of course shot past KC in size long ago), and much of that older area is still around. But much of it has been or is in the process of being re-developed. The Crossroads area, for example, is old and if you're from sunbelt and western cities you might think at first glance that its run down because of how old it is. But it's quite vibrant and gentrified. When my family from Dallas came to visit me in Chicago, they thought the north side of town was run down because compared to Dallas it's old. But there are a ton of millionaires living on the north side of Chicago. Places like Denver and Dallas that did most of their growing after the great depression, and indeed from the 1960s forward, have a different look than older cities. But old doesn't necessarily mean rundown. That was something I had to learn having grown up in Dallas.

Sure, KC has rundown areas. But so does every city.