OK acrossthesea, I read your other post about Wichita (which I didn’t see before) and I think I understand a little better what you’re asking.
As you’ve probably gathered in your research, Wichita has a largely aviation manufacturing-based economy. Because of the downturn in aircraft purchases in the last two years, there’s been quite a few folks laid off from Boeing, Cessna, Raytheon/Beech, and Bombardier/Lear. These were largely manufacturing and engineering jobs as far as I can tell. Things may be picking up in the nearfuture, but for now a result is that it’s a “buyer’s” housing market. I’m not sure how this has affected apartment costs - but there are still lots of apartments in nice parts of town. The gang comment earlier . . . like anywhere depends on what part of town you’re in. You’ll figure it out by just wandering around when you get here, and I’d say most of the town is pretty nice. Murders make the news because they’re exceptional compared to a bigger town. There’s a university (Wichita State) and a couple smaller colleges. Interested in learning to fly? Wichita’s about the cheapest place in the country to get a private pilot license. If you retain any commissary/BX priveleges, there’s McConnell AFB, possibly a good way to save money.
I don’t know if you’ve acquired a taste for Japanese food but . . . you gotta remember that Wichita is about as far from an ocean as you can get in the US. Believe it or not, the grocery store Dillon’s (Kroger) does the best sushi I’ve found here. A couple places for Japanese home-style cooking though: Mama-San’s on the west side and Japan Express in the northeast. Chop-em-up-on-your-table with an onion volcano fare is very popular here and is what the natives think of as Japanese food. Overall for restaurants you’re gonna have to search a little to get beyond Bennigans/Chiles caliber. But, we do have some favorites including N&Js for Middle Eastern, B&C Creations for BBQ in the back of a midwestern art store, The Spice Merchant for a healthy sandwich hidden in the back of a really neat stuff store.
The airport is getting better. For a while, most passengers were driving to Oklahoma City and Kansas City because fares were so high, but the city has done quite a bit to attract several low-cost carriers. My wife Pricelined a ticket three-hop from Wichita to Bangor for $180 once, round trip. $200-ish to Austin. At least double that for normal fares.
If you’re going to work at B&N, there’s one on the east side just a couple miles north of McConnell. Within 15 minutes you’ve got the spectrum of nice and moderately priced to crummy and cheap neighborhoods.
My overall impression as a transplant to Wichita is I like it, and I didn’t think I would when I moved here three years ago. At the time (pre 9/11/2001) my wife found a temp job very quickly which led immediately to a permanent job until our ankle-biter was born. I can’t speak to the job market right now other than the crummy state of aerospace. The people are generally nice, but if you want to be left alone that’s cool too. Our neighborhood is a little on the older, lower-end end, but we’ve got good neighbors who’ve been here all their lives (90 years on one side) and are very helpful and friendly. I’m not religious, but I don’t feel out of place WRT people being overbearing about religion - because most of them aren’t.
More and more I find that this, like other cities, is becoming more and more like every other city, but for some people that’s not so bad. Some people might be surprised by the diversity here. There’s not as much art, music and partying as a bigger city like Austin or New York, but there is art, music and partying. First run movies are about $6 or $7 non-matinee.
Hope this helps - if you have any questions ask away or email me directly. I’ll be online until next Tuesday, then only on the weekends for a few months. Good luck!
Caligynephobia
At least they have a symphony, and art museums, and city theater etc.