What's up KC what's up?

Jump on it, jump on it, jump on it!

So I was in Kansas City this past weekend. It is your typical mid-western city and I'm pretty sure it is larger than Nashville. It has a pro-football team and baseball team, but luckily, the deal fell through for them to get the Predators. For now, they have a new arena downtown, without a sports team to fill it. Neither the football stadium or baseball stadium is downtown, so they have to do something to draw KC residents and tourists to the heart of the city.

There's a trend in a lot of cities right now to build a restaurant and bar district downtown, in order to attract tourists and people from the suburbs. Many of these are built along side rivers, and they are called City Walk, or Board Walk, or something else. Since KC does not have a river, they built their new Power and Light District next to their arena. The power and light district has a wide variety of restaurants and bars, from fine dining seafood, to bull riding country bars. They have a piano bar, trendy bowling alley, micro brewery and whiskey lounge.

I went to the P&L district on both Friday and Saturday night. They have the area roped off and only people 21 and up are allowed in. This way they can let people walk around outside with drinks.

I think all of KC was there on Saturday night. The district attracts all kinds of visitors, so there's a wide variety of people, but it gets really crowded.

The entire place looked very manufactured though. It did not look natural. I am willing to bet that KC's P&L district will look very outdated with vacant bars in 20 years. It will need a complete makeover.

St. Louis is currently building a Ballpark Village of some sort, around the new Busch Stadium. Great idea, but again, I don't think that the designers are looking into the future.

In the past, Nashville has had one of these manufactured areas, and it did not work. 20 years ago, Metro Center, just north of Nashville, was a new office park with shopping and restaurants. I think I remember going to a comedy and magic show there with my parents. But I only remember going once or twice, and then all of the sudden, it was gone.

Nashville has upgraded its downtown tourist district and it does not look manufactured at all. It looks very natural. No, you can't walk around with drinks, but we don't want it to turn into New Orleans... or do we?

Maybe Sir Mix a-Lot should change his song and include Nashville in it!