Few nicknames in American municipal geography are as distinctive as the one this city carries: the City of Fountains. Kansas City has more than 200 functioning fountains — the second highest total of any city in the world after Rome, and more per capita than anywhere on earth. That is not an accident or a coincidence.
It reflects a deliberate civic aesthetic rooted in the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century, when Kansas City's business and civic leaders decided that public beauty was a mark of urban sophistication and worth investing in seriously. The park and boulevard system that planner George Kessler designed for Kansas City beginning in the 1890s — 2,500 acres of parks connected by 76 miles of scenic boulevards — created the framework within which fountains could proliferate. Each major intersection of a boulevard, each entrance to a park, each civic plaza became an opportunity.
The fountains range from modest neighborhood installations to grand neoclassical monuments. Many were donated by private citizens; others were commissioned by the city. Together they create a water-threaded urban landscape that is unlike any other American city.
On a hot summer day in Kansas City, you are never far from the sound of running water.