You're not in Kansas
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6/11/2005
This is a fantastic place to live. Been here since 1993 and teaching at the University of Kansas. We have a fantastic main stree (Massachusetts), no mall, and have successfully fought off a second Wal-Mart. Lots of arts stuff going on, a great university performing arts center, and just a great quality of life. It's getting expensive though for housing, and there are (IMHO) too many people moving in who work in Kansas City and Topeka - making us more of a bedroom community. I just got back from a walk down Mass on a Saturday evening - lots of people out. Lots of great restaurants (Thai, Ethiopian, Chinese, Japanese, steak houses, BBQ places - esp Vermont Street BBQ - "regular" food, Indian, Vietnamese). Need a big city - Kansas City is 35 minutes away (at least to the western burbs). Laid back, pleasant, and the only county to vote democrat in a 3-state tier (in 2004 - Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma). Proud people - lots of history (the civil war started here), the KU Jayhawks, concerts, theater, good civic theater and a great music scene. Now if the Kansas legislature over in Topeka could get their act together and cough up the money we need to support education in Kansas, and if the State Board of Education would realize the difference between science and faith and let us have evolution, we'd be OK. And why did I call this "Not in Kansas" - because it's not like the rest of the state. Hilly, trees galore, lots of great arts stuff, not flat, not treeless, not Oz, not Republican.
steve | Lawrence, KS