<table> </table> With his local status as a celebrity chef, Michael Smith could open his own restaurant anywhere he wanted.</p><p>So he and his wife located their 40 Sardines bistro in south suburban Leawood, the demographic gold coast of metropolitan Kansas City. But when Smith split off to start something new, he ended up in an entirely different locale: the Crossroads. He opened the eatery bearing his name last year.</p><p>It&#8217;s a testament to how far downtown has come back.</p><p>At the dawn of the decade, &#8220;the right thing to do was go south. Downtown wasn&#8217;t happening,&#8221; said Smith, winner with his former wife of a Best Chef Midwest award while at the American Restaurant. Now, though, &#8220;it&#8217;s cool, vibrant, with good vibes. It&#8217;s changed dramatically, 180 degrees.&#8221;</p><p>And how. In <em>The Star&#8217;s</em> report card of downtown progress, the statistics measuring quality of life &#8212; covering restaurants, bars, art galleries, even crime, among other things &#8212; show the most progress this decade.</p><p>Eight of the 10 quality-of-life indicators have changed for the better. That&#8217;s 80 percent, better than both other categories.</p><p>The number of bars was up by one-third. The number of restaurants was up, too, thanks to the recently opened Power &amp; Light District. Meanwhile, art galleries proliferated. And crime rates were way down.</p><p>Consequently, in Kansas City&#8217;s citizen surveys, perceptions about downtown have improved almost universally.</p><p>Jeannie Moore can relate. At the beginning of the decade she lived in the River Market. But she considered it &#8220;dead&#8221; and moved to suburban Gladstone to save money on rent. Now she&#8217;s back downtown, living in the Loop and enjoying happy hours at McFadden&#8217;s Sports Saloon, wine tastings at the Cellar Rat and concerts at the Sprint Center.</p><p>&#8220;I wanted to be back down here for all the things to do,&#8221; said Moore, who&#8217;s 39 and single. &#8220;I can eat sushi, I can have Irish food, I can go bowling &#8212; there&#8217;s plenty of stuff. It feels like I&#8217;m in a big city.&#8221;</p><p>There&#8217;s not just more to do, but a different air and feel to downtown. There&#8217;s now a wine bar. A few martini bars. Glass and metal sculpture exhibitions. Designer chocolates. Ultramodern home furnishings. Outdoor cafes. Collectively, they offer a new level of hip sophistication not really seen in this metropolitan area since Westport veered toward chic bohemian years ago.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s on the cutting edge,&#8221; as JP Wine Bar co-owner Ryan Maybee put it.</p><p>About the only lack of progress in downtown&#8217;s quality of life this decade has been with shopping. <em>The Star</em>&#8217;s analysis shows the number of shops is down. Even a few forthcoming stores in the Power &amp; Light District, including a long-awaited grocery, aren&#8217;t enough to offset that trend.</p><p>Earlier in the decade, the Downtown Council launched a retail recruitment program, offering loans and start-up assistance. But most of the businesses taking advantage of it were eateries. For many prospective retailers, downtown&#8217;s population hasn&#8217;t grown enough yet.</p><p>&#8220;Retailers aren&#8217;t coming yet because they can&#8217;t survive,&#8221; said Bill Dietrich, the Downtown Council&#8217;s president. &#8220;We still have a ways to go.&#8221;