Wichita might have had its Sally Field moment this week: We like Wichita! We really like it!
That was the impression of Janet Harrah, economics guru at Wichita State University, about the surprising and gratifying results of the Visioneering Wichita online survey.
The survey could be a breakthrough in Wichita’s decades-long struggle with its self-image. Turns out the widely held belief that Wichitans are overly negative about their city is wrong.
According to the survey, a large majority of Wichitans (more than 80 percent) have a positive image of their city and its quality of life — they just think their neighbors and outsiders don’t like it.
As Vera Bothner of the Bothner and Bradley agency said, the survey “gives us permission to say, ‘We love Wichita.’”
So go ahead, Wichita — don’t hold back.
Of course, the survey isn’t an excuse for complacency. Most Wichitans, while fond of their city, want to see continued progress on a host of quality-of-life and economic issues.
And still unanswered: Why do we think outsiders have negative opinions about Wichita? Is that perception accurate? And if so, what can we do to get the good word out about Wichita’s strengths?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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14 Comments
Having lived in a lot of large cities (a whole log), I am very pleased to be in Wichita. I might be a bit prejudiced as I’m a native Kansan.
The River Project, Art District and other projects is a good start.
I think that bike paths should be implemented. Why? There is nothing lovelier than a tree lined bike path in a city. It also gives policing a chance to use alternative means of transportation.
Bike paths also provide a beautiful way to extend architecture into nature and vice versa.
Bike paths also provide utilities to be safely and carefully placed instead of pall mall juts of wood and metal.
Bike paths provide safety for families and individuals not wanting to interact with traffic with the usual side of the road travel.
That is my wish for Wichita. Want to make a World Class City? Put in stylishly designed bike paths.
As is often said, we, the people of Wichita like the people of Wichita and its churches, schools, organizations etc.
Its the big spending, mostly out of town program managers in cahoots with a few elected politicians who are desparately spending millions of our tax dollars on frivilous unneeded projects that make us mad here in Wichita and Sedgwick County.
When some 85% or more of our people say NO, NO, NO — WE DON’T WANT THE $300,000,000.15 WHITE ELEPHANT DOWNTOWN ICE HOCKEY ARENA WITH 20 NEW ZAMBONIES — and County Commissioners Dave Unruh, Tom Winters and Tim Norton won’t listen or discuss it AND refuse to debate it at a neutral site, then you know something is rotten, really rotten in Wichita.
And with Tim Norton now saying we need to extend the arena sales tax after it runs out to raise more money for YOUR GOVERNMENT, meaning our county government, again Unruh, Winters and Norton to spend willy-nilly as their “vision and dreams” tell them, you know we have problems, big problems here in river city.
With a Federal Government running an all-time high FEDERAL DEBT potentially of FIFTY TRILLION DOLLARS, and our KANSAS STATE GOVERNMENT desparately looking for more millions of tax money for its “visions,” we can’t add to this loss by giving an unrestrained “go ahead and spend all you want” to our big spending county government.
In the words of the Lone Ranger, WHOA UP THERE SILVER.
“Why do we think outsiders have negative opinions about Wichita?”
That is an easy one to answer, let’s look at it this way.An outsider comes to Wichita and one of the first things that they do is they start comparing our city to wherever they come from, you have to remember that it is instinctual to seek out familiarity when we are in new surroundings.If that outsider finds something that is better from where they come then what we have here, the reaction is going to be negative. Negativity is not just from the natives.This is the Mid-West; we still like it slow and easy going.We are sensitive and conscientious about our city’s way of life and heritage and we try to hang on to that.Now why do we think outsiders have negative opinions about Wichita?The answer is “we are actually hear it from them.”
If you smile at a stranger the most likely reaction is a smile given back to you.
Wichita is a nice city. It just does not have many jobs and lousy weather. But it is also clean, safe and has a great public school system.
My experience is not like what Wiseman describes. I moved here from Florida, and I like it here. Having lived in southern California for 20 years prior to living in Tampa, I find Wichita to be home.
The thing that gets me is when people learn I moved here from another state, the inevitable question I get is “WHY”? as if I were insane. Seems to me that many people living here have an inferiority complex or something.
I suppose a lot has to do with attitude..my new bride, a Florida native, having never seen Kansas in her life, told me in advance she was sure she would love it. And, no surprise, she does. It is all in how you look at it.
The nay sayers will bash Wichita regardless. I have a suggestion for those that hate Wichita so much..MOVE somewhere that is perfect. Nobody is forced to live here..nobody is required to stay put. But, I have a nasty surprise for you: You won’t find perfection elsewhere…especially with a negative attitude.
I have been to all 50 states, every major and most mid sized cities in this country. My experience is that how much you like a place starts with YOU..not the external surroundings.
I’m going to do a little copying and pasting because I don’t feel like retyping my comments from the story but I think it’s all very relative…
“I moved here from out of state about a year ago and I like it here. I also took the survey. The only question I have is that the main people who are going to reply to a survey of this nature are the people who care about the area and want to see it thrive. Usually, those are the people that like the area. In other words, the people who like the area are going to participate in the survey because the people who dislike the area are too negative to care/participate. That seems to make the results a little unaccurate to me.”
“I see your point and yes I know all to well how vocal those negative nellies are, but they also tend to not participate in anything that could cause improvement or seem to be a product of civic pride. I know this isn’t the case with all of them, but quite often that negative attitude gets in the way of actually doing anything to correct those things that they supposedly think are so horrible.”
“I’ve lived in LA, AL, SC, SD, and spent much time in other states. I can’t swear that I will always live here but it definitely isn’t as horrible as most people make it out to be.”
It all really depends on your attitude and I chose to have a good attitude about moving here and it has worked!
You’re scaring me Republican – we are in agreement twice this morning! I would add a few more ’soft’ things – walking paths, improve the river front etc. Not big high-dollar stuff.
Glad to hear Wichita Is safe :-)BS
Raptor’s comment is interesting –(My experience is not like what Wiseman describes. I moved here from Florida, and I like it here. Having lived in southern California for 20 years prior to living in Tampa, I find Wichita to be home.)
Above is the comparison that I was trying to tell you about.
(The thing that gets me is when people learn I moved here from another state, the inevitable question I get is “WHY”? as if I were insane. Seems to me that many people living here have an inferiority complex or something.)
Above is the negativity, Raptor has just reinforced it by telling us that we have an inferiority complex or something.
Now why do we think outsiders have negative opinions about Wichita?The answer is “we are actually hearing it from them.”(Yeah – I know, I forgot to put an ing on the end of the hear word from my first posting.)
Florida is a nice place but a house that you buy in Wichita will cost you 4 times as much in Florida. My sis in law lives in Royal Palm and her taxes and insurance on her house cost more than my whole mortgage payment including taxes and insurance.
Wichita is really quite safe of you compare it with other cities. You can still park your car downtown and it will still be there when you come back with the radio still in it. You can still stroll in most parts of the city after dark. With the exceptions of a small part of NE Wichita and Planeview, the rest of the city is safe.
Interesting results. But Wichita does in fact have an identity problem. I don’t think there’s any signature feature of Wichita (building, structure, or event) that anyone outside of Kansas could tell you about the city.
Overall, it seems to me that Wichita has been overrun by an attitude of cookie cutter suburbia, and lacks a personality of its own. It’s Anytown, USA.
Nice houses and well-watered lawns? Sure. Clean? Mostly. Short commutes? Yeah. Great zoo and symphony? Check. Cookie cutter? Got it.
So what’s the goal of this survey anyway? To help Wichitans feel good about themselves? Make others see Wichita positively? Help with some sort of long range development plan?
The point is … we don’t need a billion dollar tax financed white elephant arena brought to us by out of towners to make the “collective us” feel good about ourselves.
If we are going to spend that much tax money, it needs to be prioritized by a BLUE RIBBON CITIZENS COMMITTEE to spread the cheer around Sedgwick County where its needed. Dumping it in one vastly unpopular albatross ice hockey arena with a traffic jam of 50 new $100,000 Zambonies IS TOTALLY WRONG.
If the arena is built it should be fronted with a massive brass statue honoring Wichita native son, EARL BROWDER. A former candidate for President, Mr. Browder served during the 1930’s and early 1940’s as general secretary of the American Communist Party.
How does this sound … Earl Browder memorial tax-financed downtown white elephant arena?
As long as you don’t try to rock the boat, and get along with the right people, this isn’t a bad place.It would just be a lot better if we didn’t have a city staff that runs amok, and a newspaper that openly and desperately panders to the moneyed.