Traffic tie-ups are bad enough to warrant future construction of a mini-beltway to funnel vehicles away from the city. There's now a suburban feel to the place, with one of every eight people commuting daily to jobs in Kansas City (40 miles east) or Topeka (25 miles west). The population of Lawrence is booming - up 10 percent in the 1980s to 68,000. I have come home to Kansas as a semi-retiree after four decades in urban America. Kansans take some relish in never spending a nickel but they think it is a dime. As a student at the university 40 years ago, I remember a downtown where merchants catered to farmers who came to town on Saturdays to cluck over the price of shovels and wheelbarrows. Not until 1870 did buffalo disappear from Kansas.

Less than two centuries ago, Indian tribes wandered unhindered across the landscape and encamped on the banks of the Kaw River just to the north. From the west hills of Lawrence, Kansas, the Wakarusa Valley stretches off to a far horizon and gives the impression of endless space and plenty.