Super Bowl LVIII will put spotlight on Kansas City’s booming population, fountains and feasts vs. San Francisco’s urban blight as rampant drug use, homelessness and street crime overtake the city

It’s A Tale of Two Cities: one an up-and-coming Midwestern urban hub with a growing tourist economy, and the other a California cautionary tale of a once booming metropolis now in decay thanks to rampant public drug use, sky high rents, and soaring street crime.

Or as Charles Dickens put it: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…’ 

And this weekend, it’s not Dickens’s Paris and London that are being compared, it’s the varying fortunes of Kansas City and San Francisco that will be in the spotlight as the two metropolises’ football teams, the Chiefs and the 49ers, face off in Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas. 

The publicity generated from the massive event comes after a huge year for KC, which has morphed from a decaying industrial town into an attractive forward-looking city that saw its population spike by 17,462 between 2020 and 2022.

At the same time San Francisco saw the largest percentage drop  of any of the nation’s 333 cities with populations of more than 100,000. A staggering 65,000 fled the City by the Bay in those years.

The City of Fountains was even named as the top 10 places in the world to visit in 2024 by travel guide Lonely Planet alongside Paris, Prague and Montreal.

And while the Super Bowl buzz and fanfare isn’t necessarily new for the Chiefs – who have featured in three of the last four championship game – the very high profile romance between pop superstar Taylor Swift and the NFL team’s tight end Travis Kelce has undeniably boosted the team and city’s image to a new level. 

On the other side, San Fran has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons: vagrancy, rampant public drug use, and business closures.

‘It’s like the game will be between Taylor Swift on the one side and cheap fentanyl on the other,’ one dejected 49ers fan told DailyMail.com.

According to the Kansas City Area Development Council, Swift alone has helped boost interest in the city among younger educated people, with many of those choosing to make the move hailing from California.

Three thousand people swap California for Kansas City each year, including more than 600 coming from the Bay Area of which San Francisco, home of the 49ers, is part.

And you don’t have to look too far to find the reason why. 

While Kansas City boasts affordable rents and streets that are markedly free from encampments -–due to an ambitious $50million program called Zero KC which focuses on getting the 724 unhoused residents off the streets and into homes – San Francisco has the opposite.

The city has one of the highest homeless concentrations in the US, with upward of 7,700 people living rough. Last year it reported a record 800 deaths from accidental overdoses. 

San Francisco’s controversial decision to decriminalize drug possession means foils and pipes have become a common sight in the streets, with the city’s Tenderloin district becoming a cesspit of open drug dealing and festering trash. 

As a result, the Golden Gat City now has a grim office vacancy rate that measured 35.9% in December and has seen an exodus of businesses from the vagrant-plagued Union Square – once the city’s most glitzy shopping destination.

Adding to the growing issue is the eye-wateringly expensive cost of living in San Francisco – where the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $2,188 per month as of November 2023, more than double the $997 rent in Kansas City, according to data from Apartment List.

And it appears the problem even extends to the city’s sporting icons. 

While Kansas City’s star quarterback Patrick Mahomes owns a palatial estate in the city and teammate Kelce lives in a $6.9million 17,000 sq ft mansion, the 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy admits that he is sharing residence with offensive lineman Nick Zakelj. 

San Francisco is never far from the news, but Kelce’s romance with Swift and Sunday’s game has put the spotlight on Kansas City like never before – and residents say it’s about time.

‘I tell people all the time – I think it’s the best-kept secret in the world,’ Brett Norton, a 35-year-old former soldier turned Department of Corrections worker, told DailyMail.com.

The lifelong Chiefs fan added: ‘We’re in the middle of the US. We’ve got good food, good people, and good football. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather live.’

Much of the city’s food scene revolves around the famous Kansas City barbecue – a distinct style that takes in mouthwatering thinly sliced brisket, perfectly pulled pork, and delicately smoked chicken.

Carolyn Watts, co-founder of the Kansas City Barbecue Society, explained: ‘It’s a part of our heritage and it’s fun. You get to eat with your fingers, your hands, you get to play.

‘And it’s very much, in my view, it is a community of its own self. Kansas City barbecue, it’s all about food, family, fun, and friends.’

Among the best of the city’s plethora of barbecue joints is Joe’s Bar-B-Que – a much-loved local institution operating out of a bright colored former gas station. 

Even on a Wednesday lunchtime, it was packed with paying customers, all eager to tuck into one of the restaurant’s famous Z Man brisket sandwiches – a bargain at $11.29. 

And just like the rest of the city, which is currently festooned with Chiefs flags, the barbecue joint serves as another reminder that the Super Bowl isn’t far away, with a massive cardboard poster of Kelce dominating one end of the restaurant. 

According to Tim Cowden, the CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council, Kelce and co are partly responsible for the city’s booming economy – helped along by an incredible $15billion of foreign direct investment into Missouri and Kansas over the past five years.

He told DailyMail.com: ‘Having the world’s most popular music star basically endorse Kansas City and spend so much time in Kansas City, that’s fantastic.

‘We can’t minimize the impact, the positive impact of Taylor Swift and her romance with Travis Kelce on what we do and elevating the Kansas City brand globally.

‘Swifties are highly loyal and they are all in on Kansas City. Just as Taylor Swift is all in on KC.’

The chipper mood in Missouri’s largest city is in stark contrast to that in San Francisco – where, although they are just as excited about their team making it to the Super Bowl, the 49ers fanbase is far more downbeat about their city.

Last Thursday, DailyMail.com witnessed an all-too common sight downtown as a  homeless man high on fentanyl executed a real-life tackle, taking down another vagrant who swung a metal gate narrowly missing his head.

Around the corner, 30-year-old Michael Smith, a lifelong 49ers fan sporting an S.F. cap, stepped out of his tent to take a drag from his cigarette.

‘With all the death going around, it just feels depressing around here,’ Smith told DailyMail.com, Nevertheless, he was excited about the 49ers prospects. 

‘We’re going to win the Super Bowl. We need it, and hopefully it will bring some life back to this city,’ Smith, who has been homeless since he was 17, told DailyMail.com.

Nearby, a self-described ‘superfan’ who goes by the street name ‘Tenderloin Berretta,’ gleefully discussed the game and her plans to host a watch party for friends outside by hooking up to a TV to an extension cord. 

‘Win or lose, the TV is coming out,’ the feisty 65-year-old declared. ‘Four years ago, they whipped our a**es. The 49ers are going to whip their a**es like they stole something.’

But Beretta was less complimentary about the city’s politicians. 

‘They’ve just f**ked everything up with that Mayor London Breed,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘They gave the Tenderloin $6million for homeless people and we’re still waiting to see it. People are still on the  street with nowhere to live.’

JConr Ortega, 28, who works in the mall at the Psycho Bunny clothing store, said he walked around the area Thursday taking pictures of closed and for-lease stores, finding 170 in Union Square alone. 

Among them was the only store in the mall that devoted to selling 49ers jerseys, which closed last year due to retail theft.

‘We have this iconic team, the 49ers, and this iconic city, San Francisco,’ Ortega said. ‘But teams like Kansas City and Kansas City itself, they’re doing a lot better than us, both team wise and city wise.

‘We can boast not only our homelessness, number one in the nation, and also having the cheapest fentanyl in the country,’ he continued. 

‘Yes, it’s a very dark way to look at it, but at the same time, there’s no other way to look at it, especially given the fact that our city has been so neglectful in the handling of the crisis here.’

Of course, Kansas City is not without problems. Last year’s total of 182 homicides was a record and provided the city with the unfortunate accolade of having the eighth highest murder rate per head of population in the US.

By comparison, San Francisco which has 300,000 more people, had a total of a mere 53.

According to the DEA, Kansas City is a trafficking hub due to its central position – with the spike in killings largely the work of drug gangs keen to spread fentanyl around the US.

Unlike San Francisco, open drug use is not allowed there though, with possession punishable by up to five years in prison under Missouri law.

And the local authorities are taking steps to tackle the murder problem head on under new police chief Stacey Graves and Mayor Quinton Lucas – both of whom were elected on a program focused on public safety and boosting the number of cops on the street. 

Like San Francisco’s Mayor Breed, Mayor Lucas is a Democrat but while Breed is a classic California progressive, Lucas is a tough-talking administrator whose focus is on boosting housing and making the city more beautiful. 

In that he has succeeded: street art decorates the walls of downtown’s Art Deco skyscrapers while hardly a speck of trash can be seen anywhere.

Tracey Lewis, president of the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City and himself a transplant from New York, told DailyMail.com that local pride has also played a part.

He said: ‘When you think about the Midwest culture in general, there’s a lot of pride. They’re hardworking people, they focus on community and togetherness.

‘So, things like cleanliness, things like appropriate driving, courtesy on the streets, being nice to your neighbors, that culture is actually called Kansas City Nice. And we’re really proud of that. ‘That pride extends to our pride in our sports teams, our pride in our college community, our pride in just the way our city looks and the way we treat one another.

‘So you don’t see a lot of the rubbish and trash that you see in other metropolitan areas the same size as ours.

‘That’s a lot because we not only want to attract new residents to Kansas City, we want to keep the residents that we have in our community.’

Over in upmarket shopping destination Country Club Plaza – KC’s Spanish-style answer to Union Square – the shops are all bustling with not an empty shopfront in sight.

Among the shoppers was Diana Biriben, a 23-year-old Pilates instructor originally from St Louis.

‘I’ve always felt very safe here,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I moved here for college and I graduated two years ago but stayed on. I’m never going back to St Louis, no way!’

Like many Kansas City residents, she is delighted that the Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl and says the team has helped create real community spirit.

‘One of the best things about Kansas City is the community aspect and that’s because of the Chiefs. I’m so excited about Super Bowl – we’re spoiled to be able to go again.’

The same cannot be said for the 49ers who no longer play in their namesake city but an hour away in Santa Clara, a small community just outside San Jose. 

‘Their hats no longer say San Francisco, just S.F.,’ bemoaned Susan Reynolds, former editor in chief of the Marina Times community newspaper.

‘And they’re no longer showcasing the Golden Gate Bridge in publicity shots. I don’t know if that’s their way of distancing themselves from the city that clearly has problems.’

She added: ‘They’re certainly not showing the Tenderloin District. Now it’s, ‘Here we are in Levi Stadium in the Silicon Valley.’

‘I joke all the time that it’s about time they just change their name to the Santa Clara 49ers.’

Tom Wolf, 53, a recovery advocate in San Francisco and 49ers fan told DailyMail.com that while his team won’t give the Chiefs any quarter on Sunday, he is depressed by the state of the city.

‘Right now, we use terms like ‘doom loop’ to describe what’s happening in San Francisco,’ Wolf said. ‘We’ve never really bounced back from Covid, with remote work leaving our downtown empty and vulnerable, retail theft, the homeless crisis becoming more visible, open air drug markets and overdose deaths exploding.

‘Combined with extreme progressive politics, we haven’t been able to come up with a rational response to actually address these multiple crises that are happening at the same time,’ he said. ‘It’s created the perfect storm.’

Asked to compare San Francisco’s realities with those of Kansas City, he laughed.

‘I’m happy for Kansas City,’ Wolf said. ‘I kind of like Taylor Swift. Good for them. But you know, Kansas City is just not the same kind of town.

‘I mean, they only have 700 homeless people in all of Kansas City. They don’t have 70 to 80 kilos of fentanyl being seized off their streets like San Francisco does.’

Chiefs fans revel in the fact that Arrowhead Stadium is just a 10-minute drive from downtown and the NFL franchise is the beating heart of the city.

Game day sees hordes of fans arrive with smokers in tow – ready for a barbecue feast in the parking lot as they gear up to cheer on their team.

‘Everybody brings smokers on game day,’ Chiefs fan Thomas Ecklund, 27, told DailyMail.com. ‘The lot is always full of smoke and everything tastes so good.’

Although born in Kansas City, Ecklund is recently returned following a stint in Phoenix, Arizona and says he’s glad to be home.

‘It’s the people here. You’ve got that Midwest mentality. People are just more friendly.’ He added: ‘Kansas City has had some issues lately [with crime] but they’re rectifying that. They’re figuring it all out.’

It’s an upbeat assessment and one that Cowden agrees with. He told DailyMail.com: ‘I think in a way the United States is entering into the KC era.

‘Kansas City has been growing faster than towns like Denver and Salt Lake, Seattle and Miami. This authenticity, this welcoming attitude, this pride is permeating other areas of our country and people feel that people want to be where they feel welcome.

‘Frankly, we’re just getting started.’