As a resident of KC, KS for all of my adult life I think your statement is reasonably fair.
Since the Unified Govt. came into being thinks have gotten better. There are still too many folks at City Hall or whatever it is called now that think they have all the answers to the city problems. Several promising developments left because of the government functionaries who wanted to tell the developer how to do his job, etc.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
My dad was a graduate of Argentine HS in 1935 and my grandparents lived there in the house they built until my grandfather passed in the 60s. My grandmother was a precinct captain in the Republican party until she retired. She HATED Roosevelt.
I grew up in Leawood, Kansas but by my thirties I was in the Platte County portion of first Parkville and then Kansas City, Missouri. That lasted until my 60s when I moved to the Phoenix Valley. I think you and I crossed paths in person a time or two, once being the Plaza recount rallies. Perhaps also at the Jazz Nights I got going or the gatherings that Troutstalker had in the impeachment era.