Matt Staub
@staubio
Jaded KCMO urbanist. Marketing agency owner. Curious person. Creative generalist. Traveler. Visited 49/50 largest US metros.
When what is the KC suburbs' most iconic sprawling office complex, Corporate Woods, launches a plan to go fake city with mixed use development and housing, it is the final acknowledge that the suburban model of single use with sprawling disconnection was a terrible, unsustainable idea.
Building to accommodate cars means entire blocks get sacrificed for garage access and back of house, leaving absolutely nothing to the street level experience but blank walls.
The double size is not hyperbole, and this isn't a micro car. There are so many trucks in the airport parking garage, you can't find your car.
Spotted this unintentionally poignant exemplar of a scene just now and it reminded me to come back to this post.
There's a segment of lefty thinking that just wants to fight over the remaining scraps of a sinking ship. We'd still be a ghost town if this thinking prevailed. Tourism is huge for local economies. Fight over the priorities for how we grow and invest as we build back our urban economy instead.
Searching for something and randomly landed on this photo of my cubicle table in 2007. Quite the time capsule.
The journalist I was chatting with on WhatsApp to help him find good KC spots answering questions of his followers on IG. Interesting insight into how outsiders see our city. No surprise, the cars are isolating.
For a moment in Downtown KC, people were on their balconies chatting with passers by, a passenger train departed Union Stations, and the streets were full of people. More of this European cosplay please!
It is a bit surreal that this is in a hotel I passed this morning on my run along the riverfront. And I think I've stayed in this exact room for a NYE staycation. Scenery has changed a bit.
And they're still almost entirely dead zones outside of game days or celebrations, even when tightly integrated into their neighborhoods like Emirates is.
Riding to the World Cup is easy peasy. Choose the all trail path with monitored parking and a free shuttle, arrive at the "official" bike parking at the Rock Island trailhead, or just ride on in unofficially like I did.
The @kclibrary.bsky.social Summer Reading program theme is "Read, Score, Roar!," combining dinosaurs and soccer. Anyway can sign up! But an important debate here: if a dinosaur manipulates the ball with its horn, is it considered handball by the laws of the game? kclibrary.org/reading-prog...
Do you know the address? kchistory.org has a bunch of stuff tagged under Warner Plaza Apartments (demo'ed) and Midtown Marketplace. Absolutely heartbreaking. kchistory.org/solr-search/...
Are we really proud of this? I've lived here for 23 years and I've never seen this as some cultural value. It's just what we do because there aren't other options, and the teams monetize the parking. Welcome world! Our land use sucks!
Gotta love a brazen push poll. I wonder who these hypothetical people could be? 😂
How car dependency metastasizes: streets close for parking, secure car storage, or to eliminate cut through traffic, disconnecting the grid and forcing pedestrians to go blocks out of their way. This is Union Hill in KC, a block from @kcstreetcar.org but an enforced three block walk.
Still at the Nelson as of 10:15, so you have time to catch up if you're interested. I'll post again with a more realistic ETA for Grand bike ped bridge.
Passed it thousands of times, but never toured the Frank Lloyd Wright designed church right on @kcstreetcar.org This June 13 event fixes that, ft. tours and speakers outlining the architectural significance and preservation efforts of the building. www.eventbrite.com/e/experience...
I'm curious: in cities where delivery drivers break bulk outside the core and use smaller vehicles instead of driving oversized trucks into neighborhoods, did it come about because of regulatory influence or just practical reality?
I already thought the fact that we routinely have two people beating the shit out of each other on the TV in the background while having dinner at a restaurant was an apt symbol of civilizational decline. That fact that they're hosting it at the White House....
After riding a few trains in the last week, you get used to the layout and immediately notice how weird this one is. Sleepers behind coach! The views in the Columbia valley are amazing though. The train hugs the shore most of the way.