i havent been to manhattan but its fairly close (2-3 hours) to lawrence and ive been there many times. lawrence is a nice medium sized city with some history and some cultural offerings, ummm, william s burroughs used to live there...some nice parks and whatnot, good concerts.
wichita (the largest city) is a complete sh!thole. other than that...umm its a pretty clean state. people seem to take pride in their state & land and not grotesquely trash it w/ litter. it most definitely woud be a culture shock going from san diego to manhattan, ks.