I haven't lived in Kansas City, but I've lived in St. Louis and Austin, Texas, and I strongly prefer Denver over either.

I'll admit that my experiences are probably colored by my life stages at the time, but I lived in St. Louis (burbs) for five years and never found a home. Nothing ever felt right about it. I used to describe it as Soviet Louis, because it seemed very bland to me. Things may have changed, but back then you just didn't go downtown or to any areas that might have had "personality."

I then moved to Austin, and like it much better. Again, in part that could've been life stage since I was in grad school, which was more or less a two-year vacation. While I liked Austin, though, I wasn't that interested in staying after graduation. In part, it seemed like a city to me that is so geared to students that a "real adult" was a little out of place.

Then I moved to Denver, and it really spoke to me. I love Denver as a city. It has real neighborhoods with great architecture. It's got an interesting history. It's got a western horizon that's way cool. The city is big enough to have lots of culture, but small enough that it's not overwhelming. There are no neighborhoods that scare me. Yeah, there's the football team and the Cult of Elway, and that's sad, but it's just a pimple on a supermodel. You can overlook that.

The weather here is superb, too. Typically, you can take the temperatures in Missouri and subtract two degrees, and that's what you've got in Colorado. In the summer, though, our high desert climate means that, even if we have a 95 degree day, it'll cool down into the 50s at night. On the hottest days this summer, I tried to sleep out on our back deck, but came in each night because it got too cold. Try that in Missouri, and you'll just get eaten by bugs as you drown in your sweat. My house, in fact, had no cooling of any kind until we added a swamp cooler a few years back. And the snow in the winter? No big deal. A lot of our snow disappears quickly because it arrives on the cool nights and disappears the next day. Our climate is our best-kept secret.

Speaking of bugs, we don't have them here. It's too dry for fleas to survive, so my pets don't have to worry about them. I've heard people talk about roaches, but in 13 years here I've never seen one. The dry climate really controls the insect population. I can eat dinner outside here and not get swarmed like I would back in Missouri. It's amazing.

It may be a simple fact that the nature of Denver worked for me at the stage of life that I was in when I moved here. Or it may be that I would've always been happy here. I don't know. I can say, though, that as much as I enjoy the process of moving to a new place and recreating myself, I don't see a place I'd rather be than Denver.

I'm not so sure about that. Denver doesn't get as warm as Kansas City in the summer (at least not over such an extended time), but I'm not sure it's much colder than KC in the winter.

Denver has more sunny days than KC.

All in all, I prefer Denver's weather over Kansas City's. Even when it does snow, the sun often comes out the next day and melts it away (unless it was a four foot snowfall or something crazy like that).

Nice synopsis.

It really is a nice place, except for all the Broncos fans. I'm in KC this week, and this is the first time that I've been back that this hasn't felt like home.

Denver, for sure. I like the weather a lot better, the 20 minute drive to the mountains, the downtown district equals Westport, the roads are better, they even have better radio stations. JMO

My answer to the OP question is Denver.

Denver has better weather, better outdoor recreation (both summer and winter), more business opportunity (at least in the high tech sector) and it's further from Kansas. Kansas City has a better football team, less traffic and a bigger river.

I live in KC now because that's where family is, but I really liked living in Denver for the 9 months I was out there.

Lockheed Martin?

Denver hands down. Its a great city.

Yes, I forgot about the thunderstorms. They are the only good thing about KC weather besides the fact that we don't have hurricanes.

Here's what KC has over Denver:
history
deeper cultural ties
better traffic
lower cost of living
established architecture and neighborhoods (unfortunately much of it is in run down areas)
* and possibly food


* I haven't had the chance to explore Denver enough on this topic, and have had trouble replacing the good restaurants I knew about in KC.

No, I was a consultant at a cable company at the time (MediaOne).

Ah.

I'll admit that I haven't explored KC in any depth, but I'd be surprised if KC beats Denver in architecture. My part of town has lots of great old houses that are very nice neighborhoods, punctuated by some amazing old mansions. The silver and mining barons had a lot of money back around the turn of the previous century.

Denver gets a lot more snow but it's gone just as fast. I've lived close to Denver for 10yrs and the winters here are like a long fall. Most days the temp is in the 40's and 50's. Not like KC or Omaha where the weather can get REALLY cold in the winters.

Yeah, I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that KC has more culture or history than Denver. I've seen plenty of both every time I've been there. There are a lot of fantastic turn of the century houses up there that I like to look at as I drive around.