Heartland Isolation Challenges Kansas City

A great premise for this post that probably won't find its way to most social media feeds . . .

"In the heart of the nation, everything is far away."

In so many words . . . This is really a post about the decline of American passenger rail transit, which is really what put our cowtown on the map.

And so . . .

The author struggles to overcome supercilious perceptions whilst offering insight worthy of consideration.

Check-it . . .  

"It’s when you look at geographies smaller than the country as a whole that this centrality starts to break down. You can get anywhere pretty quickly by air, and ground freight is fairly insensitive to long distance travel. But human beings primarily travel by car for work and leisure, and it’s here that our centrality completely reverses . . . 

"We have no oceans, no top-tier cities, no world-class universities, no spectacular mountains, no great beaches, no national parks (except the Arch NP but that hardly counts), and no defining industry cluster (like tech in Austin/SF, medical/biomedical in Boston, music in Nashville, autos in Detroit, entertainment in LV & LA, or finance in NYC). When it comes to truly spectacular, world-renowned places and institutions, we are simply not in driving range.

"More than cultural and geographic resources, though, the paucity of people gives KC its feeling of isolation."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

In the Center but All Alone

In the heart of the nation, everything is far away