Moving to Wichita

Aviation & aerospace manufacturing

Spirit AeroSystems, Textron Aviation (Cessna and Beechcraft), Airbus Americas Engineering Center, Bombardier's Wichita service operation, a deep tier-two supplier base

The reason this city exists in its present form. Cessna, Beechcraft, Stearman and Learjet were all founded here, and Wichita still builds a very large share of the world's general aviation aircraft plus major structures for commercial airliners. It is also a cyclical industry: the region's fortunes move with aerospace order books in a way few US metros do.

Aerospace research & engineering

Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research, the WSU Innovation Campus, Deloitte's Wichita centre, Airbus engineering

NIAR is one of the largest university aviation research organisations in the country and does certification testing, composites and digital-twin work for manufacturers worldwide. It is why an aerospace engineer can build a whole career in Wichita without leaving, and it anchors the graduate pipeline out of WSU.

Energy, commodities & conglomerates

Koch Industries, Koch Engineered Solutions, INVISTA, Flint Hills Resources

Koch Industries is headquartered in Wichita and is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, with refining, chemicals, fertiliser, electronics and finance arms. For a metro this size, having a corporate head office of that scale is an unusual amount of white-collar and technical employment concentrated in one place.

Food processing & agriculture

Cargill's protein business, meat and grain processors across south-central Kansas, agricultural equipment and input suppliers

Wichita is the commercial capital of a very large agricultural region — wheat, cattle and the processing around them — and Cargill's protein division runs from a downtown Wichita office. Agriculture here is an industrial supply chain rather than a rural backdrop.

Health care

Ascension Via Christi, Wesley Healthcare, Kansas Medical Center, the University of Kansas School of Medicine–Wichita

Wichita is the referral centre for the whole southern half of Kansas and much of the Oklahoma panhandle, which gives it deeper hospital capacity than a metro of 650,000 would otherwise carry. KU's Wichita medical campus supplies the physician pipeline.

Higher education & public sector

Wichita State University, Newman University, Friends University, Wichita Public Schools (USD 259), City of Wichita, Sedgwick County

Wichita State was the Municipal University of Wichita until 1964 and still levies a property tax of its own — about 1.5 mills on every Sedgwick County parcel — which is close to unique among American universities and a direct legacy of that municipal history.

Landmark · Confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas rivers, downtown

Blackbear Bosin's 44-foot Corten steel figure standing on a promontory where the two rivers meet, reached by two suspended footbridges, with fire pots at its base lit every evening.

Local tip: Go at dusk for the Ring of Fire — the pots burn for about fifteen minutes and the whole city treats it as a fixed appointment. The Native American cultural centre beside it is worth the hour beforehand, and the riverside path north from here is the best flat run in Wichita.

Nature · North-west Wichita, off the Big Arkansas

One of the largest and most visited zoos in the United States, built around immersive mixed-species habitats rather than cages — the Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley enclosure is among the biggest in North America.

Local tip: It is genuinely a national-standard institution in a city most Americans have never visited, and a membership pays for itself in about three trips. Go on a weekday morning in spring before the school groups and the heat arrive.

Neighborhood · East of downtown, between Douglas and 2nd

Twenty-odd blocks of restored brick warehouses on original brick streets — bars, restaurants, a cinema, the Saturday farmers market and the Museum of World Treasures.

Local tip: This is where Wichita goes out, and it is compact enough to do on foot, which almost nothing else in this city is. The Saturday market under the old warehouse canopies is the best single hour for meeting people if you have just arrived.

Neighborhood · West bank of the Arkansas, across from downtown

The old cattle-trail town that Wichita annexed — once notorious, now the city's most interesting independent strip of restaurants, bars and shops along West Douglas, with the ballpark at its eastern end.

Local tip: Delano is the closest Wichita comes to a walkable neighbourhood with its own life, and it is far cheaper to live in than Old Town. Walk the river path from here to the Keeper in ten minutes; it is the only stretch of the city where the river is properly used.

Culture · South-east Wichita, at the old Wichita Municipal Airport

The 1935 art deco terminal of Wichita's original airport, restored as a museum, with the control tower open and aircraft parked on the apron beside an active air force base.

Local tip: The building itself is the exhibit — a genuinely beautiful terminal from the era when Wichita was building the aircraft that used it. Go up the tower. You can watch McConnell's tankers taking off from the same runway, which is a better aviation experience than anything indoors.

Nature · Riverside, north-west of downtown

Eighteen acres of themed gardens beside the Arkansas — a Chinese garden, a Shakespeare garden and a butterfly house — backing onto Riverside Park, the zoo's original site and the Wichita Art Museum.

Local tip: Riverside is the loveliest older residential district in the city and this is its centre. Do the gardens, then walk the loop through Riverside Park to the art museum; the whole thing is flat, shaded and free apart from Botanica's ticket.