Kansas City is the 14th best historical city, or something, and other meaningless accolades from content-starved websites in July
We have discussed before the profound irrelevance of Internet lists about cities. Few rely on primary reporting, most use thin statistics interpreted by unqualified writers (some don’t even use statistics) and all are intent on soaking up your homerism and converting it into advertising revenue.
Worst of all, supposedly legitimate media operations, desperate for the very same advertising revenue, post these distinctions as though they are news stories with actual meaning and not cynical grabs at Web traffic. The whole thing is pathetic all around, and everyone should stop participating in it.
Instead, let us track these meaningless accolades for you! Below, find all KC’s proudest accomplishments from last month. Please share!
Travel + Leisure says Kansas City is the seventh-best coffee city in America and gets a quote from a guy in Overland, Kansas [sic].
Travel + Leisure also says Kansas City is the 14th-best historical city in America. We’re number four-teen! We’re number four-teen!
Bloomberg had Zillow, a for-profit real estate company, do a study to see where it’s cheap for Millennials to live. They looked through their listings and decided Kansas City was one of the six best places!
Wallethub — trusted sourced Wallethub, which does not have a Wikipedia page and appears to be the content-marketing arm of a credit-card/personal finance company — says Overland Park is the best place to raise a family in America. If you can believe it, little old Overland Park beat out Plano, Texas; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Lincoln, Nebraska. What a town! Also, Overland Park is the best place in America for first-time homebuyers, sez Wallethub.
Headlight Data — you know them, right? — says Kansas City is the third-best job market for college-educated people in America. (But wait, isn’t the KC job market lagging behind competing cities? Oh, well.)
Andrew Zimmern is a guy with a cable show called Bizarre Foods. He says Kansas City has the best BBQ in America. The Star has the full report.
Free State Brewery is the best craft brewery in Kansas, says Thrillist. (Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis is the best craft brewery in Missouri, says Thrillist. Oh, no!)
Westport is the Brooklyn of Missouri, says Thrillist. OK?
Mental Floss did this really cool write-up about the 25 things you just gotta know about KC — sample: “Jazz lives at 18th and Vine. The area around the intersection became popular during the 1920s for its music and nightlife” — that is definitely not based off the Kansas City Wikipedia page or a quick Google search by an unpaid intern trying to hit a content quota.
The Huffington Post says Kansas City is the 10th-best city to be a creative in. Not as creative as Kalamazoo or Des Moines, but hey — very creative still!
Wait, that’s a sponsored post written by a financial firm? Oh, well. The mayor tweeted it, and then 46 people retweeted him. KC pride, baby! Till next month.
