OPINION: A small town again
May 22-This is an opinion column intended to be read by townies. College students and occasional visitors are also welcome, but you're probably not here anyway and therefore paying less attention.
The rest of us have a little secret: We actually kinda like it when it gets quiet around here.
Not that we don't want you back. We do! We like the buzz, the excitement in the air in the fall, the fizz provided by 20,000 young people showing up, full of energy and questions and ideas and pure silliness. We get a big kick out of it. That's what makes Manhattan different from most places.
But...or rather, And...we also like it when the place empties out, which it just did. Right after graduation, when you all take off into the wild blue yonder, off to jobs and internships and/or Mom and Dad's basement in Overland Park. This is our gig: We get you ready to launch.
You might not know the Manhattan you left behind, the one where there are no lines at Target, where the parking lots are empty, where it's quiet, even on a weekend, even in Aggieville. It's really a small town. If you stick around through these quiet times for - let's just say - 40 years or so, you start to recognize a lot of people and they recognize you. That still happens in the jammed-up chips aisle in Dillons during a football weekend, but you really notice it now. All of a sudden you recognize darn near everybody.
This, of course, has its pluses and minuses. We all know that. If you grew up here, you eventually get annoyed by everybody knowing your business. You've got to get away, bust outta this one-horse town! Etc. etc.
That's good. You should. You might find your home on Wall Street or Hollywood, or Shanghai. Nothing wrong with any of that. That's certainly the case with most, whether driven by passion or simple necessity. We'd prefer to get to a point where necessity didn't drive it, but with north of 4,000 new grads every year, we're not going to get there anytime soon. Subtract the college kids, and this is a town of 30,000 people. Mellencamp put it: "My job is so small town/Provides little opportunity."
But when you come back, whether to visit or stay, you'll realize something about it. "I can breathe in a small town," Mellencamp said. I can be myself. People know me, and I know them, in many of the ways there are to know a person. Because we're all more complicated, more interesting, more flawed and beautiful, than one dimension. We are not our jobs, and we are not our kids, and not our parents; we're all of those things rolled up together, and we're also the volunteer baseball coach and the church organist and the woman who got arrested and the guy who donates blood every month.
This all becomes evident when this place becomes a small town again. Which it is right now, and will be until about Aug. 1, when fall leases kick in. By then, we'll be completely ready for the upsurge, because we're welcoming people, interested in new ideas and new people. That's the beauty of this place - we're both. We're not either-or. We're not "but." We're "and."
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This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 12:12 PM.