Welcome to Kansas City: The Total Package

Cobb, the antagonist/sheriff from the mythical town of Silverado, famously issued this greeting in the Lawrence Kasden classic: “Welcome to Heaven.” With apologies to the screenwriters involved back in 1985, a parched spit of land in the desert Southwest, heaven ain’t.

But rather than engage in any parochial chest-thumping that does little to advance broader arguments about the merits of an entire region, we’ll defer to the good judgment of the folks at Web site thrillist.com. Earlier this year, they rolled out their list of “Underappreciated American Cities You Should Totally Move To.”

Live, Work, Play | The Kansas City region offers the best of all worlds. From world-class shopping and dining experiences to unmatched opportunities for culture and entertainment, from innovative businesses and research institutions and more, there is plenty to recommend this region to anyone seeking a higher quality of life, or a better path to business success.

And right atop that list was this little slice of heaven in the great American heartland. Thus spake thrillist: “KCMO has become the unlikely stomping ground of hip urbanites opting for a three-bedroom house at a fraction of what they’d pay for a crawlspace in Brooklyn, Chicago or LA. Revitalized neighborhoods offer lofts and condos at extremely affordable prices, alongside converted industrial warehouses bustling with markets, shops, artist exhibits, and pop-ups. Free high-speed Internet is available to all, courtesy of Google Fiber, and a brand-spankin’-new trolley system (also free) makes parking Downtown a non-issue.” Some might quibble with the finer points of those arguments, but in general, they have us dead to rights: Kansas City is a great place to live. Low cost of living, high-quality arts and theater venues, a vibrant Downtown, the nation’s best highway infrastructure for getting to work and getting home, terrific schools, managable tax burdens, ease of access to both coasts, burgeoning tech, life-sciences and logistics sectors—there are so many great things about this place, you could fill a magazine writing about them. 

And that we’ve done. Destination Kansas City is your passport to the world Kansas Citians live in every day: A place where you can mingle if you’re single, raise a family and still fund a retirement, access the best healthcare in the nation, and work for companies infused with a regional DNA that prizes entrepreneursip and innovation. We’ll walk you through the attributes that define our regional economy, and the assets that define our quality of life. 

Almost without fail, executives who relocate to the Kansas City region marvel at what they’ve come to find here, and we can’t argue with them. For the committed downhill skier, for the fanatical lover of ocean breezes, for someone who insists on a stable climate year-round, we might not precisely fit a description of heaven. But we’ve got most of the goodies we need to qualify, and in the rare instances where we don’t, you can at least get there from here. 

So welcome … to the total Kansas City.