My fellow Olatheans, it has been a wonderful year, after a whole string of wonderful years. And as your mayor, I am proud to deliver my state of the city address in this year of our Lord, 2037. It's hard to imagine that we would go from the nation's 193rd largest city to its 10th largest in just 20 short years. And it's all thank to our wonderful beaches!
(Cheers and laughter.)
Who knew that a simple article from Wallethub.com could have been the focal point of the world-changing growth of our city. Those of you who moved to Olathe in the last 20 years may not know our history. We used to be the fourth largest city in Kansas with a population of 135,000, and things were fine. They were just fine.
(Cheers and applause from the old-timers.)
Those of us originally from the Midwest know that feeling well. We like it when things are Just Fine. But then that Wallethub article was published, and it changed everything. Now we're the largest city in Kansas, and Kansas City is now a suburb of Olathe!
(Wild cheers from the crowd.)
In that article, "Best Beach Towns to Live In," Wallethub examined various cities with beaches, and ranked them in terms of affordability, weather, economy, and quality of life. And our tiny beaches next to Lake Olathe and Cedar Lake ranked higher than Miami Beach, Florida. Wallethub ranked us at number 20, and Miami Beach at number 27! We even finished beat Newport Beach, California.
Well, folks around here thought it was all a mite amusing. Surely this was written by some intern who had failed basic geography, or at least had never been to the ocean before. It was good for a few laughs, and I can remember being in college at Kansas State University and making jokes about it. We had fun on Twitter that day, I can tell you. You folks remember Twitter, back in the good old days?
(The crowd murmurs fondly in remembrance.)
Except it turns out other people took it seriously. They began moving to little Olathe to pursue the beach life. The beaches got bigger, and people began putting up little bamboo hutches with grass roofs to serve drinks and food. Then there were a couple restaurants. My father started his restaurant empire by opening Turf's Up, the first Midwestern beach-themed restaurant. That was quickly followed by a series of nightclubs and bars that drew the nighttime beach crowd, and we never looked back.
Pretty soon, the city was overrun with beautiful rich people who were attracted by our glamorous beach life. It wasn't too long before people began flocking to little Olathe for some of that beach life. Even Jimmy Buffet's last three albums have all reflected the Kansas beach attitude: Wichita Dreamin', Last Mango in Iola, and Far Side of Missouri.
We had fashion shows, you started to see Ferraris and Lamborghinis everywhere, and there was a Cuban music revival, even though we only had two Cuban families, and they were former baseball players who just never left.
In my six years as mayor, we've swapped baseball teams with Miami, which sparked a wonderful rivalry. These days, everybody gets excited about the games between the Miami Royals and Olathe Marlins, and we call it the Battle of the Beaches.
The Kansas City Chiefs finally changed their historically racist name to the Olathe Breakers, and every year, we look forward to the Beach Bowl between the Breakers and the Dolphins.
Finally, the Kansas Heat is in the middle of their seventh season in the NBA's Western Division. Of course, some of that Miami Heat luck followed them up here, because they're currently fifth in the division. I guess some things never change.
Olathe continues to prosper thanks to our beaches, our businesses, and our people. Property values are growing, we have more condos per capita than even New York City, tourism is one of our primary industries, and our unemployment rate is 3.5 percent, compared to seven percent for the rest of the country.
We aren't the only city to benefit from Wallethub's complete lack of understanding of statistical research. Thanks to their staggering geographic ignorance, Cincinnati now has the country's best art scene, the Portland, Oregon theater district is considered an American treasure, and Oklahoma City is now the hot dog capital of the world.
And their latest article means Kansas isn't done growing. The "Best Pizza in the Country" article lists Antonio's Pizza in Manhattan, Kansas as the 13th best, just behind Brooklyn, but ahead of Chicago. So to our friends in Manhattan, let me just say, "hold on for the ride."
Photo credit: Ichabod (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0)
You can find my books Branding Yourself
(affiliate link), No Bullshit Social Media, and The Owned Media Doctrine
on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million, or for the Kindle or Nook.
(Cheers and laughter.)
Who knew that a simple article from Wallethub.com could have been the focal point of the world-changing growth of our city. Those of you who moved to Olathe in the last 20 years may not know our history. We used to be the fourth largest city in Kansas with a population of 135,000, and things were fine. They were just fine.
(Cheers and applause from the old-timers.)
Those of us originally from the Midwest know that feeling well. We like it when things are Just Fine. But then that Wallethub article was published, and it changed everything. Now we're the largest city in Kansas, and Kansas City is now a suburb of Olathe!
(Wild cheers from the crowd.)
In that article, "Best Beach Towns to Live In," Wallethub examined various cities with beaches, and ranked them in terms of affordability, weather, economy, and quality of life. And our tiny beaches next to Lake Olathe and Cedar Lake ranked higher than Miami Beach, Florida. Wallethub ranked us at number 20, and Miami Beach at number 27! We even finished beat Newport Beach, California.
(The crowd murmurs fondly in remembrance.)
Except it turns out other people took it seriously. They began moving to little Olathe to pursue the beach life. The beaches got bigger, and people began putting up little bamboo hutches with grass roofs to serve drinks and food. Then there were a couple restaurants. My father started his restaurant empire by opening Turf's Up, the first Midwestern beach-themed restaurant. That was quickly followed by a series of nightclubs and bars that drew the nighttime beach crowd, and we never looked back.
Pretty soon, the city was overrun with beautiful rich people who were attracted by our glamorous beach life. It wasn't too long before people began flocking to little Olathe for some of that beach life. Even Jimmy Buffet's last three albums have all reflected the Kansas beach attitude: Wichita Dreamin', Last Mango in Iola, and Far Side of Missouri.
We had fashion shows, you started to see Ferraris and Lamborghinis everywhere, and there was a Cuban music revival, even though we only had two Cuban families, and they were former baseball players who just never left.
In my six years as mayor, we've swapped baseball teams with Miami, which sparked a wonderful rivalry. These days, everybody gets excited about the games between the Miami Royals and Olathe Marlins, and we call it the Battle of the Beaches.
The Kansas City Chiefs finally changed their historically racist name to the Olathe Breakers, and every year, we look forward to the Beach Bowl between the Breakers and the Dolphins.
Finally, the Kansas Heat is in the middle of their seventh season in the NBA's Western Division. Of course, some of that Miami Heat luck followed them up here, because they're currently fifth in the division. I guess some things never change.
Olathe continues to prosper thanks to our beaches, our businesses, and our people. Property values are growing, we have more condos per capita than even New York City, tourism is one of our primary industries, and our unemployment rate is 3.5 percent, compared to seven percent for the rest of the country.
We aren't the only city to benefit from Wallethub's complete lack of understanding of statistical research. Thanks to their staggering geographic ignorance, Cincinnati now has the country's best art scene, the Portland, Oregon theater district is considered an American treasure, and Oklahoma City is now the hot dog capital of the world.
And their latest article means Kansas isn't done growing. The "Best Pizza in the Country" article lists Antonio's Pizza in Manhattan, Kansas as the 13th best, just behind Brooklyn, but ahead of Chicago. So to our friends in Manhattan, let me just say, "hold on for the ride."
Photo credit: Ichabod (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0)
You can find my books Branding Yourself
on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million, or for the Kindle or Nook.