Lawrence, Kansas and Ames, Iowa
Two fairly typical college towns in the American Midwest.
Located just 269 miles from each other, or about a 4 hour drive.
Why am I comparing them?
Matt: Well, I'm from Lawrence
Xander: And I’m Xander from the channel ARTexplains. I live in Ames.
Both: And we're filming a collaboration!
Both Lawrence and Ames are dominated by the major universities in each city.
Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas, the largest university in Kansas
and Ames is the home of Iowa State University, the largest university in Iowa.
So yeah, overwhelmingly the largest employer in both cities are those two universities.
After that, most workers in both towns work for either the city government, school district, or hospital in town.
Both Lawrence and Ames are relatively cheap places to live compared to the rest of the country
although Ames is 3 percent more expensive than Lawrence.
Both are consistently ranked on various lists of the top college towns to raise a family or retire.
I don’t know, though, aren’t those lists fairly arbitrary?
Yeah, I think those lists are pretty much meaningless.
Both are about the exact same distance from major urban centers.
Lawrence is short drive west from Kansas City
and Ames is a short drive north from Des Moines.
Both cities have similar, continental climates, although Lawrence gets more precipitation than Ames,
and since Ames is further north it gets colder and gets more snowfall than Lawrence.
Both cities are on the prairie, in areas where lots of agriculture is going on.
Farmers represent.
Wheat tends to be more common around Lawrence, and not to sound corny, but corn is all around us in Ames.
Both cities were founded during the Civil War Era.
Lawrence in 1854, and Ames in 1864.
Now, Lawrence had a much more chaotic first few years compared to Ames.
It started with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law which said the people living in Kansas and Nebraska territories could vote on whether they wanted slavery to be legal or not when they voted for statehood.
This idea of popular sovereignty to determine whether or not Kansas would be a slave state or not caused a flood of Americans to migrate there.
Many of the first settlers of Lawrence were Free Staters, or those who wanted Kansas to be a free state.
However, due to developing a reputation as a Free Stater hotbed, Lawrence became a huge target for pro-slavery bushwhackers, who raided the town multiple times, most famously during the Lawrence Massacre, aka Quantrill’s Raid.
The violence in Lawrence and around the state was so bad it became known as Bleeding Kansas.
Uh, yeah, Ames was pretty quiet and chill in its early years. It was pretty much just a railroad crossing.
Lawrence has a lot more people living there than Ames.
It recently crossed the 100,000 mark, while Ames has around 67,000 people.
Ames has lower taxes than Lawrence does.
We just pay a 7% sales tax rate and we don’t pay taxes on groceries like you silly Kansans.
Yeah we pay taxes on groceries and over a 9% sales tax. But our property taxes are a little bit lower in Lawrence so there’s that.
Ames has more residents with bachelor’s degrees and a higher graduation rate than Lawrence.
We also currently have a lower unemployment rate currently than Lawrence.
Are you sure about that, Xander? It’s pretty low here. It’s only 3.3% in Lawrence.
Yeah, it’s 2.1% here.
Ames has significantly better air quality than Lawrence.
Lawrence has less poverty than Ames.
Lawrence clearly has a better music scene. It’s scene rivals cities much larger than it.
There’s great bands like Westerners, Psychic Heat, Your Friend, Something and the Whatevers, Arc Flash, Electric Needle Room, and we have the godfather himself, Matt Pryor, of Get Up Kids and Reggie and the Full Effect fame.
And we’ve got legendary music venues like Liberty Hall, The Bottleneck, and The Replay Lounge.
And we’ve got the best college radio station in the country, KJHK, baby.
I beg to differ. My car’s radio is tuned into the Ames alternative college radio station, KURE, so frequently, it might as well be stuck there.
Our music venues are pretty diverse.
You can find our folk rock scene at DG’s, open mic at the Vinyl Grind, jazz and wine at Della Viti, and if you know the right people, the DIY venues and House concerts are a unique experience as well.
We have great bands and acts such as Mumford’s, Strong Like Bear, Evan Campbell For Real, Kickstart the Sun, Sisko Diq, The Circumference, Indigo Monks, Stars Hollow, Ben Schrag and the Cautionaries, Arizona Landmine, Neon and Nude, Honeygold, Satchel Bruna, Jon Marko, and Funkmammoth.
And fun fact, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats previously lived and performed here.
Oh yeah? Well our food and drink is better.
We’ve got the Java Break and Henry’s for coffee, Wake the Dead for breakfast, Rudy’s for lunch, Free State Brewery for dinner, and the Burger Stand for second dinner.
For ice cream and smoked meats we have Hickory Park, for a constantly changing seasonal menu we have the Cafe, and for an alcoholic root beer float we have the Monkeytini at Olde Main.
At Jeff’s Pizza, we have pizza, and stop by Cafe Baudelaire for a Long Island Iced Tea and according to the judges, a top ten burger in Iowa.
Other cool things about my city.
30 Jayhawk statues all around town.
One of the greatest college basketball programs, the KU basketball team, which plays here at Allen Fieldhouse, built in 1955 and the loudest college basketball arena in the country. My Jayhawks have 5 national championships, which is five more than Iowa State.
A better downtown. Mass Street is always exciting.
One of the coolest libraries ever, it has a free recording studio in it, a place where I can record my sick Beats.
A Rec center than any Lawrence resident can use FOR FREE.
Well, you know, not technically free I guess, because they pay plenty in property taxes and sales taxes. But you know, kind of free.
A puppet show that performs around town and a ukulele orchestra.
The fact that Google Earth used to use Lawrence as the default location
A place called Burrito King
But seriously, the last time I ate there it didn't go very well.
Here’s a particularly explosive fact, Ames was involved in the original Manhattan Project!
We’ve got thirty statues of Cy the Cardinal, the Iowa State mascot.
This is the amazing Reiman Gardens, which houses a ridiculously cool collection of butterflies and plants!
And if you’re into laser tag, we have a two-floor laser tag arena at Perfect Games.
As you have seen by the evidence in this video, clearly Lawrence is a better place.
Well, at least we can agree on one thing.
At least we're not in Nebraska!
This video was obviously a lot of fun to make. And it also should be obvious that I love my city. I’m a little biased, but so is Xander.
Be sure to check out Xander's channel, ARTexplains.
It is just, ridiculously underrated.
Thank you to him for collaborating with me on this video.
Be sure to subscribe over there, while you're over there.
Also a shout out to Drew Gerber.
Who was one of my former students. I used his music as background music for this video.
And also the past two videos, so
Thank you Drew. And thank YOU for watching.