Talk:Kansas City

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Disambiguation[edit]

Kansas City (Missouri) is larger than its Kansas counterpart, but not sufficiently so to get to invoke the way-more-famous rule. --(WT-en) Evan 01:30, 22 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Missouri–Kansas state division[edit]

The article on Kansas states that Kansas City (Kansas) is the Smaller half of Metro Kansas City, which spills across the border into Missouri. By implication therefore, Kansas City (Missouri) must be the other half. This seems to imply to me that Kansas City is a single metropolitan area that happens to be divided by an arbitrary political boundary.

If this is the case, and given that WikiTravel is a travel site for inward visitors, and NOT a politics site, it would seem better to have a single Kansas City page, rather than two pages and a disambig page. Is an inward visitor really going to that care much that some attractions/hotels/whatever are in one state, and others in another?. -- (WT-en) chris_j_wood 16:19, 18 Jul 2004 (EDT)

It is one metro area, like many other bi-state metros (e.g. D.C., NY, Portland, etc.). Kansas City, MO is the central city and has the central business district, as well as the majority of the cultural and recreational attractions. Popular tourist destinations like the airport, Country Club Plaza, Westport, River Market, etc. are on the Missouri side of the metro.

The population of KCMO is 450,000, compared with 150,000 in Kansas City, KS (KCK). Including the suburbs, the entire region is around 2,000,000, 60% of which are in Missouri and 40% in Kansas. -- (WT-en) Erogers February 2005‎

Agreed, it's the same city, just managed differently due to a state border. Most information currently seems to be in Kansas City (Missouri), so could that be moved to Kansas City and Kansas City (Kansas) be turned into a redirect? -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:19, 10 June 2006 (EDT)
What about doing what we do for the Twin Cities and other metro regions: create a region article at Kansas City, and maintain individual city articles for KC, KS and KC, MO? --(WT-en) Evan 21:48, 10 June 2006 (EDT)
I'm not sure - while the Twin Cities or Dallas-Fort Worth are actually two distinct cities, and travelers are likely to recognize that Minneapolis is a separate (but nearby) location to St. Paul, my understanding and that of the contributor above is that there is no practical distinction between Kansas City (Missouri) and Kansas City (Kansas) and that it's an entirely administrative split. We've always followed the policy that the traveller comes first and that official divisions are unimportant if they aren't relevant for a traveler (see the many discussions about regional breakdowns) so I don't know that we need to create a breakdown here. Do you see an advantage to separate articles that maybe I'm missing? I've been working all day, so the possibility that I'm missing something obvious is pretty high &-) -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:55, 10 June 2006 (EDT)
I think you misread the above statement. "It is one metro area ... Kansas City, MO is the central city ...". Typically we make a region article for a metro area and leave the "core city" as a city article (viz. Southern California and Los Angeles, Bay Area (California) and San Francisco). --(WT-en) Evan 15:04, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
Coming in late here, but: In my opinion the TTCF principle argues that information should be both as useful as possible, and as painless to use as possible. By this principle, the indicated path seems to be to maintain information on both cities named Kansas City on this page, with redirects from the "state" pages and clarity within this page as to which side of the KS/MO state line a particular attraction is on. There actually are practical differences between KC, MO and KC, KS (for example telephone area codes), but they're down in the noise for the traveler from afar who's only heard of "Kansas City," and our manual of style conveniently accommodates the area-code distinctions anyway. I'm with Ryan: a single page covering both Kansas Cities (with descendant pages for important suburbs) seems best. The solution is anomalous, but so is the state of having identically-named major cities separated by a river. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 23:39, 10 June 2006 (EDT)
What Bill said. KC,MO and KC,KS may be districts of KC, which (if it has to be just one) IsIn|Missouri. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 23:53, 10 June 2006 (EDT)
Evan, you seem to be the only dissenting voice at the moment, so I don't want to make any change until you've had your say. Are you OK with the arguments above for moving the Kansas City (Missouri) article to Kansas City and then making redirects to Kansas City for each of the state articles? We can always turn the state articles into districts later if that's needed and appropriate. -- (WT-en) Ryan 13:20, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I'm not 100% sure I buy the argument that "Kansas City is one city that stretches across two states." I think that conflates "city" with "metro region". I think the KC metro region spans two states, but my experience with Kansas City didn't have me hopping back and forth across the river to visit sights in both KC MO and KC KS. I spent most of my time in KC MO, and I never really got the feeling that the two cities were intimately integrated. That said, my experience in the area is pretty slim, and I'm sure those with more experience can give more details.
I agree that our guidelines suggest routing around legal definitions of place and having a more traveler-oriented definition. However, experience has shown that contributors often feel the need to re-emphasize legal definitions and boundaries. I think that, where there are legal boundaries, we should try to recognize them, and incorporate them into a larger framework.
If we really think of it as a "divided city", I think Bill's idea of Kansas City as a huge city with Kansas City (Kansas) and Kansas City (Missouri) as "districts" is a good one. I'm guessing the hierarchy would work something like this:
I think this'd make a good hierarchy. It preserves the legal boundaries for those who care about them, while giving a higher-level traveller-oriented understanding. --(WT-en) Evan 14:39, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
This should work, but KC isn't really a "huge city" on the world standard. I think the goal can be achieved by just calling it a single large city with the redirects. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 15:12, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I don't like that plan. I don't think that they're one big city. I think there is a big metro region that includes KC MO as its core, and has a lot of satellite cities like Overland Park, Independence, and Kansas City, Kansas. Could we do this?
If it's important to get rid of the disambiguator -- I don't think it is -- I could see dropping the disambiguator from Kansas City (Missouri) as reasonable. --(WT-en) Evan 15:42, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
First off, apologies if the "only dissenter" comment came across wrong - I need to find a better way to say "in order to reach a consensus, we need to see if X would be OK with this proposal". When only one person has an alternate opinion they obviously become more important to a discussion as consensus demands their concerns be addressed before action is taken, so it's sometimes hard not to single someone out. Anyhow, sorry about that.
My original comment about moving the article was motivated by the fact that I personally didn't realize Kansas City actually was (legally) two cities, and the fact that the Kansas City (Missouri) article (which I assume is written by people who know the city) has information about both the Kansas and Missouri side, while Kansas City (Kansas) is almost totally empty seemed to back the argument that from a practical standpoint it really is a single unit. A WikiPedia:Kansas City Metropolitan Area would be a good thing (we already have Greater Cleveland, Bay Area (California), and many other similar region articles), but the question of whether to make Kansas City (Kansas) a separate article still seems to be an open issue. If you feel strongly that it should be separate I'd be OK with just removing the disambiguator for Kansas City (Missouri) and keeping the Kansas City (Kansas) article, but if you don't feel strongly then, based on the reasoning above, my preference would be to just have a single article and make the state articles into redirects. -- (WT-en) Ryan 16:09, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I tested the idea of inserting an isIn tag in a city's district, with the isIn being linked to a different country. Even if there is a Kanasas City/Kansas district or something of the sort if Kansas City's (The main article) breadcrumb links back to Missouri so will the Kansas City/Kansas district even if someone changed the district's isIn tag to read {{isIn|Kansas}}. Here's the result of my test - [1]. - (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 00:11, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
There are a few cases where the isIn code isn't perfect yet, but I think it's on Evan's to-do list to add support for cases where a place isIn multiple locations. In this case Kansas City isIn both Missouri and Kansas - see Lake Tahoe for another example of where isIn doesn't work quite right (it straddles the California-Nevada border). -- (WT-en) Ryan 13:20, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
There are two points, actually; a district done as a sub-page like [[City/District]] is always in the [[City]]. Also, if there are two "isIn" templates, only the first is recognized. I'd like to eventually fix both. --(WT-en) Evan 14:52, 11 June 2006 (EDT)
I don't think fixing the breadcrumbs is the main issue with these pages. The main issue is: where does the information go? Yes, KC (MO) and KC (KS) are administratively separate cities, to a far greater extent than the arrondissements of Paris are. A visitor trying to figure out where to eat, sleep, have fun, etc., doesn't know, care about, or need to know that administrivium. He/she does, however, need to know where the information is, and ideally, to be able to get at that information as conveniently as possible. Having the root Kansas City article be informative, rather than a disambiguator, strikes me as meeting that goal. This isn't incompatible with other articles that reference the suburbs, nor with a Kansas City Area region for the two state articles to point to, if necessary; it just means the KC info is in the KC article, not split between Kansas City (Missouri) and Kansas City (Kansas).
Again, I recognize that this solution is anomalous. So, however, is the situation. I'm not aware of any other pair of cities, anywere, that share a name across a major boundary, in such a way as to leave it unclear -- and unimportant -- to the first-time visitor where attractions are. There's language in our guides about the "exception that proves the rule." This is such an exception. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 09:21, 12 June 2006 (EDT)
Kansas City is one city that some bureaucrats decided to draw a state border through the middle of. (Why do else would the municipalities have the same name?) The KC tourism agency treats it that way, scarcely mentioning that it lies in two states. It's a bit like East Berlin and West Berlin... but if no one ever built a wall or asked for papers to cross between them. I challenge anyone unfamiliar with KC to look at a satellite photo without map lines, and correctly identify where KCMO ends and KCKS starts. (Hint: it's not the river.) And unless there are big "You are now leaving the Missouri sector" signs on the ground, I doubt a typical traveler would be able to tell either. It doesn't especially matter whether it's called Kansas City Area or Kansas City (one should redirect to the other), but that should be the main page for this destination (with the two municipalities serving as districts of it if the volume of informatin warrants it). - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 10:50, 12 June 2006 (EDT)
"A city is, in reality, the unit of travel guide geography. It's where you arrive to, where you go see sights, where you find a hotel, where you eat in restaurants, where you move on from when you're done. Wikivoyage's definition of a city is flexible: cities may be literal incorporated cities, but they can also be larger metropolitan areas with suburbs and satellite cities, like Los Angeles or Paris.... Where suburbs, satellite cities and villages deserve their own Wikivoyage entries is a matter of judgement -- probably depending on the amount of information about those places." [2] I've found Wikivoyage straying from (heck, ignoring) this guideline and becoming pedantically bureaucratic, and it concerns me. One reason I've avoided working on the article for my own home city is that I don't want to have to haul out my city map to figure out which hotel or restaurant is in what municipality, and whether there are actually any cinemas or shopping malls within the city limits or do I have to create and refer people to articles about the suburbs for those, because even after 40 years here I still don't know (or give a damn) exactly where the municipality lines are. They're all part of the same destination, and the day someone tells me to start dividing Grand Rapids (a city not profoundly smaller than KC) into a hierarchy including separate articles for East Grand Rapids, Kentwood, Wyoming, Walker, Cascade, Grandville, etc. is the day I give up. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 23:48, 12 June 2006 (EDT)
At the risk of re-igniting a somewhat contentious debate, where do we stand on this? As far as I can tell there are two opinions being expressed here: one is that Kansas City is two distinct cities, and another that it's one single city with an administrative line drawn through it. The solutions being proposed are then:
  1. Move the current "Kansas City (Missouri)" article to "Kansas City", and link to the "Kansas City (Kansas)" article as a district in the "Kansas City" article.
  2. Move the current "Kansas City (Missouri)" article to "Kansas City", and make "Kansas City (Kansas)" a redirect to "Kansas City".
An additional discussion included the suggestion of creating a "Kansas City Metropolitan Area" article, but Evan's original comments included a "Kansas City" article within that region, so I don't think that suggestion affects the two options above. If I'm reading this discussion correctly there is agreement on moving the Kansas City (Missouri) article to Kansas City, so can we do that? The remaining issue is then what to do with the Kansas City (Kansas) article (district or redirect). If I'm misread this discussion and there is still disagreement over the "Kansas City" move I apologize, a day of programming has left my brain a bit frazzled. -- (WT-en) Ryan 20:21, 20 June 2006 (EDT)
Per discussion at lunch with Evan today there seems to be an agreement that the main article should be Kansas City. The remaining issue is then what is to be done with Kansas City (Kansas) - either make it a district of Kansas City, link to it as a separate city, or redirect it to "Kansas City". I'll leave that for others to decide as I don't know the area well enough. -- (WT-en) Ryan 19:39, 22 June 2006 (EDT)
Sorry to join the discussion about 3 years late. And while I'm no expert, it appears a decision was made about 3 yrs ago about what to do regarding disambiguation between KC, MO, and KC, KS. While that's fine and dandy, the metro area has grown to the extent that when looking at the KC, MO, page, it looks a bit cluttered. I would agree with an earlier comment that KC (collectively) isn't "large" when compared on a world scale, but honestly, few American cities would if comparing them with the world. There are distinct districts in KC that the page needs to begin to be broken up. Just take a look at the Drink section...probably some cool spots that would be sad to see deleted. This can be remedied by creating district articles. I appreciate your opinions and hope to bring back the discussion...respectfully, -- (WT-en) Zepppep 22:28, 22 October 2009 (EDT) (WT-en) Zepppep

Bump[edit]

I agree with the prior arguments that Kansas City should be covered by one guide (districted or not), rather than split in two by the state boundary, which is simply travel irrelevant. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 22:03, 16 June 2010 (EDT)

It's worth noting too that the reality obscured by administrative divisions is driving the content of this article—locals have placed plenty of KC-KS material in this article, and significant content duplication is occurring. --(WT-en) Peter Talk 22:18, 16 June 2010 (EDT)
In the four years since this discussion started my opinion remains the same, and I'd still be in favor of turning Kansas City (Kansas) into a redirect. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 22:45, 16 June 2010 (EDT)

From someone that lives in this area, KCK and KCMO are not the same city in anyway. Part of the two cities are just divided by a line, but the downtown areas of both cities are removed by a two rivers. You could lump Shawnee, KS with Mission, KS (What we call Shawnee Mission) - Johnathan

My impression from discussions on Wikipedia is that the distinction between the two cities is important and is not purely administrative. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:11, 25 October 2011 (EDT)
I agree that it's probably a good idea to treat the city as simply one area from a travel perspective, but it is downright misleading to state that the city stretches from Kansas into Missouri, as the article lead currently states. I've found that it's a common misconception from people who don't live here to think that it's the same city, when it's not. Against the current (talk) 06:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I realized that the wording is not as misleading as I assumed at first, but I will see what I can do to clean it up to make it more clear. Against the current (talk) 06:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Metro or just the two KCs?[edit]

Am I right in thinking this article covers only the combination of Kansas City, MO, and Kansas City, KS, and not the rest of Kansas City metropolitan area? Nurg (talk) 04:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are, at least, articles for Overland Park, Olathe, Independence, and Leavenworth. Is that what you mean? Texugo (talk) 04:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, exactly. Should those links be included in the Districts section or left out? Nurg (talk) 06:03, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative banner for this article?[edit]

In the Hebrew Wikivoyage we are currently using this banner instead of the one which is currently used here. Do you think too that this banner would would better than the existing one? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 06:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The current banner has a weird curvature. This banner is straight-on and a clearer picture. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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