Cupcake Land – Requiem for the Midwest in the Key of Vanilla (1987) [pdf]
plaza.ufl.edu
plaza.ufl.edu
If we assume for sake of argument that the author's description is accurate for 35 years ago, I'd wonder how much things have changed since. Do current KC residents recognize the city that is being described? My guess would be that since then there have been a lot of national trends that have homogenized country (reducing the distance between the Coastal and Flyover Elite) but also a lot of fractures that have divided the previously more uniform midwestern metropoli.
Any current residents want to do a point-by-point evaluation?
I came in from the rural surroundings. I was looking for schools, and the difference between JoCo school and KC was a no-brainer. It wasn’t until I was living in the metro that I realized I was contributing to the problem in KC by riding the coattails of the previous generation’s White Flight.
A sizable proportion of the kids I went to HS with are living exactly this life, dressing exactly this way. I found it to be incredibly stifling and yet also, a comfort to be so boring.
I’ve never heard it described as Cupcake Land, but “JoCo” or Johnson County. Inside of which it’s residents referred jokingly to other adjacent counties as being “North of the Wall”.
It is one the starkest contrasts in county and school district wealth vs neighboring areas.
I don’t think a bust is coming to Cupcake Land this time. Sitting on multiple big rail lines, I-35, I-70, and the Missouri while reshoring is happening. Tied closely to healthcare, but not the tech industry.
Cupcake Land is sounding rather attractive.
The police are actually nice, which is a new experience for me. I like that I never see them in my hood. Still don’t trust em though.
There is a minority of “weirdos” among them (I am one). I like that I have openly trans and gay neighbors. Don’t like that there are also openly bigoted neighbors too. The cupcakers are nice though (of course they are).
Having been in California for 26 years, I am back in the Midwaste. Kansas City has really done pretty good in the two-plus decades I have been absent. Tech made it here, there's money to be had. It's even become, like the rest of the U.S. I suppose, much more cosmopolitan. I expected to find the same Taco Tico "Mexican" restaurants I grew up with, the Chinese buffet (with pizza in case the kids don't like General Chicken) — and that would be too bad since I had come to like bulgogi, Chinese dumplings, "street tacos", sushi. There aren't exactly boba-tea places in every strip mall but you can find some of that here now.
To be sure though when I mention having come from California there are people I have met here that have made an offhand comment about the "homeless" or the legal marijuana (you know, as a bad thing) or whatever. A real estate agent assumed we we must have moved from California to get away from all that — to get back to "The Good Life".
Christ, in addition to the food and Tap Plastics, I miss the Bay Area weather. How I took it for granted....