Geography of Kansas (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Geography of Kansas (2022)

geographyrealm.com

The sneaky thing about the geography of Kansas is that it's longitudinally exponentially-scaled, with distances between stuff (people, raindrops, ...) exponentially increasing as you go west. No one tells you this, though, so when you're in the western Kansas outpost of Hays, you're actually pretty close to the center of the state. You're almost to Colorado! Just stay awake and you'll be there in like 3 hours. It's OK, your mind is already dulled and your resting heart rate at refrigerator temps. Just... stay awa.... [snore sounds followed by the screech of broadsiding a barb-wire fence at 85 mph]

True story: I was in a bar in Lawrence with a friend late one night, being chatted up by a student of mine. When we asked her where she was from, she said some town in extreme NW Kansas (Bird City maybe? Atwood?).

"I've been there!" my friend said.

"No you haven't." my student said.

"Yes, we went there on a geology field trip last summer. That morning as we left the campsite, the back door of one of the vans was open and and a food cooler fell out. We needed food so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant when we went through that town. The restaurant wouldn't serve us because they said that they only buy enough food for the regulars, because no one else ever comes in."

The girl was quiet for a bit, and said "My mom wrote about that in a letter."

RCJH

That's amazing. A town that small seems like a whole other world. The pressures and calculations at that scale are so different from medium and large sized population areas.

A curiously deep dive I wasn't expecting.

Reminding me of the song "Wellsville" by the never-made-it band, The Embarrassment from Wichita, Kansas.

"We stopped just past the Flint Hills, there's a sign, it was Wellsville."

https://youtu.be/vWm6-htMu4U

Thanks for this - what a great find this evening!

I once had a job candidate - who clearly had no interest in the job - ask me in an interview "What's it like living in such a flat place?" I thought it was kind of strange, because flat places are just like non-flat places, but flatter. It was unclear what the question was. I answered that I wouldn't know, because it's not flat.

I mean, compared to mountainous places, you probably spend a lot less time walking up and down hills. (just to state the obvious).

> flat places are just like non-flat places, but flatter.

furiously takes notes

Kansas, birthplace of the Lynx browser.

And Django!

Waves from Lawrence, home of both!

and the video toaster, and with that, lightwave 3D

And Garmin.

Years ago, I moved from Kansas City to Denver and used to drive back and forth a lot. I remember during my first drive to Denver I noticed my ears were popping and shortly after I discovered that western Kansas sits at almost 4000 feet, but you'd never notice it if you drove up there on I-70.

I certainly notice it in fuel economy, even just between Kansas City and Hays.

I've driven across Kansas twice, once eastbound and once westbound. I remember the state trooper waiting for speeders leaving Colorado - in the western states, driving 75-80 mph or more on the interstate outside of urban areas is pretty common, so they were most likely waiting for someone not paying attention so they could nail them with lower speed limits in place. Fortunately I noticed the patrol car in my rear view far enough back so I could ease up and stay in the right lane. I still remember when he or she pulled alongside me, I kept my eyes straight forward, think that they might also suspect me of transporting CA marijuana to the east or something, but eventually they slowly pulled ahead.

The other thing about Kansas is how cheap it is. On my most recent drive in 2021, the Motel 6 in Salina, KS was easly 30% cheaper than any other motel I had stayed at in many different states including other Motel 6s.

They say Kansas is so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days before you lose sight of him.

They should change the state motto to, “a slightly less boring version of Nebraska”

Ha ha, I know both states well. Kansas City does have a certain draw that Omaha can't quite compete with.

But when I was living in K.C. we were jealous of so-much-more cosmopolitan Chicago.

Not to be too pedantic, but I think the Kansas City you are referring to is in Missouri :)

You’re right about the draw though. The KC metro is growing — sort of feels like Denver felt about 15 years ago

Kansas City Kansas and Kansas City Missouri are in fact 2 distinct jusridictions, each contribute to the larger Kansas City Metro Area. While there are varying definitions of what jurisdictions comprise the "Metro" one could point to regional planning commision MARC as being the defining entity. Regardless, the KC Metro is geographically large in area as there is quite a bit of unbuildable floodplain land dissecting Kansas City Missouri leading to a fun bit of trivia; The KC Metro has more lane miles of roadway per capita than any other metro in the world. It's not even really close in comparison either.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-tti99ratio.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_metropolitan_area https://www.marc.org/

Also, if you find yourself in the area, Highway 7 is on the Kansas side while 7 Highway is on the Missouri side.

There are 3 Kansas Cities if you count North Kansas City.

It’s really part of Kansas City, MO, but there is a 4th called “Kansas City, North” which an extremely confusing concept but refers to the part of Kansas City, MO north of North Kansas City. Suburbs annexed by the bigger city while NKC was left independent.

North Kansas City is definitely not part of KCMO. They do not have to pay the 1% earnings tax.

The area north of the river is referred to as the Northland.

> Also, if you find yourself in the area, Highway 7 is on the Kansas side

Everybody in Kansas calls it K-7

Also, Nothing to do with MARC, the commuter rail system of the Boston Metro Area.

Really? Denver 15 years ago was pretty rad. Maybe I should go check it out.

Yea. I moved to the KC area from Broomfield about 20 years ago. It is not terrible.

My home state. <3

Totally a terrible place to live. Don’t come here ;)

I love Kansas!

I guess "Dust in the Wind" was pretty good.

Where in Kansas do you live?

Nothing wrong with Kansas.

This article feels vaguely AI-derived.

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