THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE KANSAS CITY

I WENT TO KANSAS CITY assuming I’d be a brown girl in a decidedly red state. I went to Kansas City thinking, I live in New York and there’s no way KC is a real urban center. I went to Kansas City suspecting it was flyover territory for a reason. Basically, I went in without an open mind. But Kansas City challenged me at every turn. Nay! It double-dog dared me to resist its charms. Your preconceptions are putty in Kansas City’s hands because, it turns out, KC is not what you think it is, and it will confront the pants off of your assumptions.

I landed at the airport in the middle of a bright, sunny September day and immediately realized that the airport was bigger than I thought it would be. I somehow imagined that a city of 418,000 with a metro area of 2.1 million would have two gates and a horse stand. Come on, snooty urban elites, deep down, didn’t you think the same thing? It was merely the first of many things I was wrong about.

I got in a cab helmed by an Eritrean refugee. He had first immigrated to another U.S. city—whose name I shall not besmirch—and ended up moving to Kansas City because that other nameless city wasn’t friendly. In KC, he says, everyone is friendly. This was a common refrain on my trip. Everyone is really nice. They’re friendlier than whatever Meanie McAsshole Town you just came from. The Palestinian Lyft driver said it, the Dominican branding expert said it, the Australian restaurateur said it. Kansas City’s evil, maniacal plan for global domination is to turn everyone into a delightful person.

I used this eager