escape from new york Kansas City Is The New Greenpoint
If you're like us, all you know about Kansas City is that it was nuked by the Russians in 1983 (in some made-for-T.V. movie we saw on the SciFi channel the other night). But they've rebuilt! And they're having a renaissance! Creative types priced out of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Providence, Wilmington, and Columbus, Ohio are flocking to Missouri's largest city, leading some wags to call it "the 11th borough."
With a history of criminality and death ranging from some of the bloodiest battles of the civil war to the tragic gang-related deaths of Mac Dre and Fat Tone, Kansas City has an unexpectedly violent past just begging for immediate gentrification—and a murder rate that guarantees cheap real estate! According to, uh, the PR firm the city might want to reconsider hiring, half the hard work of whitening has already been done for you, future loft-dwellers of the new Midwest!
"Have you seen Kansas City lately? This city is experiencing $6 billion investment in development and improvements, the biggest building boom in over 35 years. From a world-class sports and entertainment arena (The Sprint Center), a Moshe Safdie-designed performing arts center (Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts), and a nine block entertainment district, to long-needed civic improvements, just about every citizen will benefit from the positive changes in Kansas City under the leadership of City Manager Wayne A. Cauthen."
Nine straight blocks of entertainment—match that, Astoria.
Bring on the trend pieces! Broke artists are flocking to the Midwest to replace all the kids whose parents paid for them to flock out here! If Kansas City has half the success of, say, Omaha, they'll have their own Bright Eyes by the end of the decade, who can lead a cultural revival and then move to the Lower East Side once he gets rich.