Making progress through Andy Crouch’s Culture Making, which is proving to be a fantastic read.
Reading some authors is like scanning a blank wall with occasional windows. Reading Crouch is like walking through a fully furnished downtown loft with picture windows that open on the Missouri River and urban arts district (showing my KC bias there). Point is, Andy Crouch can flat out write.
Culture Making is not that book you “read for content.” Some authors make the occasional good point. A few authors do it with personality. And a mere handful write with consistent insight, voice, and artistry. Crouch is in that minuscule group, and the fact that he’s writing about cultures, creativity, and the arts makes it extraordinarily appropriate.
OK, I’ll stop raving. Here’s a piece from chapter 2:
The fact that I can give you a fairly complete description of the Gryphon Cafe depends on its participation in a broader culture, one that includes coffee shops, ponytails, realtors and bourgeois bohemians. But the culture of the Gryphon Cafe—the things it makes of the world, the horizons of possibility it creates within its walls, the new culture that its denizens make in response—is not exactly like any other coffee shop. The Gryphon Cafe is not just making something of the vast world of coffee or the current boom in “third places” all over America fueld by Starbucks; it is also making something of the lovely building it inhabits at the corner of Wayne and Lancaster Avenues, of local artists who hand their work on its walls, of the availability of artfully scruffy twenty-somethings who somehow can afford to live in an affluent community on barista’s wages.
Great book, and very helpful in exegeting an urban context like Kansas City.
If you live in or near downtown Kansas City, you know that there’s a ton of development going on. But you may not realize the full extent… Constructor Magazine:
“Kansas City is experiencing a construction boom the relative scope of which we have not seen since the pioneer days,” says Don Greenwell, executive director of AGC Kansas City. In the core city area bounded on the north by the Missouri River, approximately $4.5 billion of construction has been completed or is in various stages of development.
See also Constructor’s piece on the Sprint Center (which I’m hoping will draw NCAA Tourney games in the near future):
At the center of the rebirth sits the bedazzling new Sprint Center, an eye-popping jewel in Kansas City’s newly polished crown. Designed as a see-through building, the $276-million sports and entertainment venue is intended to be viewed from the inside out.
The article states that the Sprint Center “will” host an NBA team. However, to my knowledge that’s not true at this point. Unless the Constructor folks are privy to behind-closed-doors talks with NBA owners…here’s hoping.
Anyway, seems like the ball is rolling as far as downtown Kansas City goes, and may keep rolling for awhile.
HT: Kevin Cawley.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the extended coverage from the KC Star (May 17-19), evaluating downtown Kansas City’s progress in the last decade. As a guy who’s lived in/near downtown for the past six years, I want nothing less than an urban renaissance. Optimistically, big strides are being made in that direction. Pessimistically, Progress could be walking a little faster. Here’s the opening paragraph:
Just looking around downtown Kansas City, it’s hard not to be proud. A cool-looking arena. A hopping entertainment district. Art galleries galore.
We all know downtown is better, but how much better?
The Kansas City Star set out to measure downtown’s progress since the dawn of the decade. The upshot: The progress has been good, but not as good as you might think — and not enough to keep up with downtown revivals in some similar-sized cities such as Denver, Charlotte and Nashville.
Quick links to some of the best info:
30 Indicators of Urban Vitality, 19 up, 11 down
Interactive Map of Downtown, Showcasing Development
And now for something totally different…
The only question is, how have I lived in/near downtown Kansas City for six years without discovering the Urban Explorers club? This is like one of those boyhood dreams realized…Mark Twain goes urban/e. Talk about an ideal way to spend quality time with the boys.
Mind-boggling.
