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Next Time You Travel To…Google, Kansas

So I have to say as spring break approaches Kansas doesn’t come to mind as a place to visit…..ever.  I mean what do they have there?  As far as I know, the only thing from Kansas is a dog named Toto.  I mean, I hate to say it but Nebraska sounds more fun, since they have a whole museum dedicated to Kool-Aid. 

However, the city of Topeka is trying to bring in not just tourists, but also bring in the major search engine Google.  And to entise everyone, Topeka’s mayor, Bill Bunten has renamed Topeka, the states capital, to Google, Kansas for the month of March. 

Last month, Google announced the Fiber for Communities program.  The company is looking to experiment by becoming an internet service provider and is searching the country for the perfect experimental city.  Topeka, or as I should say Google (Kansas), Duluth (Minnesota), Ann Arbor (Michigan), Palm Bay (Florida), Chapel Hill (North Carolina), and Seattle (Washington) are the top contenders in the experiment.

Bunten said that he’s the first to say outsiders likely view Topeka as “another Midwestern town with not a lot going on,” but according to a recent CNN article, he has been working extremely hard to change that.  The city now has a buzzing downtown with an up and coming music and bar seen.  Bunten said that bringing Google to the list would make the city more attractive to a younger crowd.

“To have this high-speed where people can sit down and have lunch and still keep working is a positive for young people,” he said. “The young people are the ones that caught onto this and go to the Internet and asked people in the city to sign on as supporting Google coming to Topeka.”