It's essentially a cultural wasteland, and tech jobs are few and far between. The startup scene there is a joke too, they suck up new college grads too stupid to realize they can work elsewhere and pay them below market.
What you really mean, is that the Bay area got the "good diversity" (rich democrats), while Kansas City got the "wrong diversity" (poor white republicans).
I think those two places are similar in that regards. They are both polarized, and are both not that diverse in term of actual ideas.
Now if you want visible diversity (whatever that means), sure the bay Area got more people from a different origin but they usually all think in exactly the same way.
Source: I lived 2 years in St Louis and 4 years in the bay area.
Edit: Forgot that I would be downvoted, since it seems to be politically incorrect to say that visible diversity (what everyone is focusing on) is different than thought diversity.
If you look outside the wealthiest parts of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, you'll find that the Bay Area is full of working and middle class Democrats, and if you focus on it's wealthiest towns, you will also find concentrations of rich Republicans (Atherton, Blackhawk, Danville, etc).
On a slightly different note, having lived in places where the ocean is easily visible for almost a decade now I now find thoroughly landlocked places kinda depressing in a way that I can’t explain. I don’t even visit beaches all that often but there’s something uplifting about being able to look at an ocean filled vista.
As someone who has lived in both the Midwest and in a liberal coastal city, I almost thought you were complaining about SF being less tolerant. My experience was that while the Midwest did not have a greater diversity of opinions, they did have greater tolerance of the diversity. The obvious example (mentioned by many on HN): The bias I've seen against Republican voters (even before Trump) here. Whereas in the Midwest, I did not see any such disdain towards voters of either party.
I suspect, though, that the experience will vary depending on the city.
I could imagine larger population centers in the area not suffering the issue as badly, but I’ve never lived in midwestern city so I have no experience to corroborate that with.
You don't think non-whites live in Detroit/Chicago?
I'd argue SF isn't that diverse, especially some neighborhoods. It's mostly rich whites and asians. African Americans got chased out long ago or forced into Bayview.
This is a bit more accurate...
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Western_Addition:_A_B...
Huge disclaimer: This is probably easy for me to say, as I am about as "all american" looking as they come
Education could be a lot better here.
edit: not sure why I'm downvoted as my wife lived in the midwest and it was hard for her to practice her culture. She has fond memories of the area but knows how unpractical it was for her parents. Her family had to make a monthly 1.5 hour drive into Chicago to find Indian groceries, she got picked incessantly for being the only Indian kid in school, and her parents couldn't eat out because there so few options with vegetarian food. It's just hard living in a place where so few people have a similar skin tone, religion, or culture as you which is why most Indians move out of the midwest. People make fun of the racism of the South, but I grew up in a diverse metro in the South and didn't have to deal with any of this since about 25% of my school was Asian. Obviously, Chicago and some of the other large metros are ok. I'm just pointing out that in all these threads there is this argument to "move somewhere else" but there are huge regions of the country many have to rule out because they are ethnic minorities.