They had a big competition where lots of cities bid to be the first city, and they won. One issues was that all utilities in town are above ground on poles. They wouldn't have to bury any cables, just string them along the existing poles.

They solicited proposals from cities (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-ou..., http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/next-steps-for-our-ex...), and ended up choosing Kansas City as the initial site (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-broa...).

It looks like they wanted a market with between 50,000 and 500,000 subscribers as the initial one, so not NYC or SF or LA. And, wanted strong local support to avoid regulatory problems.

"wanted strong local support to avoid regulatory problems."

Probably the most genius part of this whole thing. It may the reason we're not hearing about the lobbying backlash someone like Uber received.

Not to mention the ridiculous cost of digging up something like NYC.

They courted communities about two years ago for this. The idea was to find an area that would work with them, and actively help. KC "won". It makes things easier, I would imagine, if an entire city council was lobbying for you.