Northland Population Growth

Talk about the ever expanding north side of KC.
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KCFan
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Northland Population Growth

Post by KCFan »

KC metro growth
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 41529.html

The Northland outgrew Johnson County for the first time I can remember. 5706 new people north of the rivers versus 5693 in Johnson County and that's with the Northland having only 58% of the population that JoCo does. Will be interested to see if growth up North increases or if it's a short term blip.

If you look, there's been a really dramatic shift back to growth in Missouri from Kansas. In 2010-11, Kansas captured 70% of the growth. From 2015-16, Missouri captured 63%.
https://kceconomy.org/2016/03/28/kansas ... ed-growth/

I just thought this was a good article on where the metro growth comes from. Huge surge in domestic in-migration last year.
https://kceconomy.org/2017/03/24/kcs-po ... g-economy/
flyingember
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by flyingember »

Twin Creeks is expected to draw 70,000 residents for the nortland. That's Platte County, KCMO, Platte County schools.

Current pace has the northland controlling half the KC council districts in the coming decades and to keep going. It's a question of which census it happens by not if.

Schools are a good benchmark for the area--
Platte County will gain three high schools just from Twin Creeks. I bet they'll need four more by 2050-2060.
NKC schools is on track to need a fifth high school, probably 20 years out.
Liberty is working on S. Liberty parkway. That's a third high school when combined with the rest of Shoal Creek inside the district.
Park Hill probably has a third coming when the west end of MO 45 develops.

Right now the near northland has students going to 9 high schools. That could go up to 15 in the next 30-40 years. It was 7 high schools just 10 years ago. So the northland is an effective doubling of population 2000 to 2050. There's a minimum of another 200,000 people in growth coming north of the river in the next half century. 70k for Twin Creeks, 30k in Liberty, 25k around Shoal Creek, 15k around Staley, 15k around Tiffany Springs, 15k along MO 45 and that's just the current growth areas. I haven't included between Liberty and Kearney, Smithville moving south, Platte City or infill growth in areas like along Englewood. The numbers coming will make the northland rival JoCo in size.


This means one of two things will happen
1. transit becomes a serious suburban issue bringing people downtown for work via train OR we widen the north loop and I-35 again to bring people downtown (goodbye closing the north loop in the second scenario)
2. Build a business district like College Blvd in the northland. Imagine the north side of the 435 loop looking like the south side of the loop with 100k jobs that aren't downtown.

Did anyone think that passing the Chastain rail plan was a bad idea? We need the line north sooner than later to begin building the 30-40 miles of track we need that direction.
KCFan
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by KCFan »

Liberty is tentatively planning to build a 3rd high school in the next 5-10 years. The school district is growing around 300 students per year and that's with virtually all the growth coming in the Kansas City side of the district. Liberty actually has a couple new neighborhoods starting plus there's tremendous potential to add all kind of residential around the South Liberty parkway. Plus, if Aviara ever gets off the ground, that's an 1100 acre master planned community for the northern part of Liberty.

There's a growing awareness of the quality schools in the Northland. I just wonder at what point does it become metrowide acclaim and the Northland is viewed as a legitimate rival/alternative to Johnson County? In my opinion, the Northland's biggest weakness is just not enough major employers. I know a lot of Northland residents that drive to Johnson County for their job. If the Northland would grow jobs more or if downtown would gain more private sector jobs again, I could see the Northland growth ratcheting up to even a higher level.

I think a lot of people would be surprised at how nice the schools are up north. I know I was shocked at how nice Liberty North and Staley high schools were.
chingon
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by chingon »

What's the north/south population split now?
KCFan
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by KCFan »

chingon wrote:What's the north/south population split now?
That data is really hard to find. I spent entirely too much time on google trying to figure it out. Below is a post from another message board was the best I could find. Not sure how accurate it is, but I always thought KCMO north of the river was a little more than 150,000 so this information would seem to go along with that. Obviously some of the numbers are projections, but I thought it was interesting.


2010
Entire City
459,544
Jackson (kcmo only)
302,414
Northland (kcmo only)
157,130

2020
Entire City
491,582
Jackson (kcmo only)
283,362
Northland (kcmo only)
208,220

2030
Entire City
541,705
Jackson (kcmo only)
265,510
Northland (kcmo only)
276,195
Northland (entire Northland)
377,022

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/kansas-c ... z4dxtVGnIN
flyingember
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by flyingember »

That matches what I found.

Here's 2000 to 2010
.............................2000 .........2010 ............Change

KCMO (Jackson County) .......322,747 ......302,499 ..........-6.3%
KCMO (Cass County) ..............104 ..........197 ..........89.4%
KCMO (Clay County) ...........83,972 ......113,415 ..........35.1%
KCMO (Platte County) .........34,725 .......43,676 ..........25.8%

Based on that, a council district will be about 81500 in 2021 and the northland would have 1.5 districts.

The place that adds a wildcard here is downtown through the plaza has gained population as density goes up. The city is shifting north and west in terms of it's population center with each decade.

I found this map showing 2000 to 2010 redistricting.
https://kcmaps.files.wordpress.com/2011 ... ummary.jpg
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

"Based on that, a council district will be about 81500 in 2021 and the northland would have 1.5 districts."

there are already two whole districts for the Northland, the 1st and 2nd, and part of a third, the 4th.
flyingember
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by flyingember »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:"Based on that, a council district will be about 81500 in 2021 and the northland would have 1.5 districts."

there are already two whole districts for the Northland, the 1st and 2nd, and part of a third, the 4th.
Bad typo. 2.5 districts up from ~2.2
Before the 2010 redistricting the northland had approx. 1.8 districts

So the northland will become half of KCMO by 2030. When and how fast Twin Creeks begins developing will determine the speed it happens by.
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by flyingember »

KCFan wrote:Plus, if Aviara ever gets off the ground, that's an 1100 acre master planned community for the northern part of Liberty.
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... ml?ana=twt
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by KCFan »

Unfortunately I don't have a BizJournal subscription, but I can at least get the gist of it from the first part. I'll be really interested to see how that turns out. Liberty is highly, highly motivated to grow residential. They really feel like they got left behind. It's probably been 4 years or so since I've seen the numbers, but in a year, Liberty only pulled like 32 or 34 residential building permits while the Kansas City side (in the Liberty school district) pulled 250 that year. And when you get just a little west of Shoal Creek Dr., it flips to NKC (Staley) schools.

So I'm really interested to see how this plays out. I know Liberty can do a no tax increase bond and get something like $150 million so they have the capacity to add a 3rd high school, but Liberty (the city) has been hamstrung because most of the commercial growth is on the KC side. The school district has been hampered because the west side of 35 (KC) is in a TIF; even much of KC's residential is in that Shoal Creek TIF. However, I'm thinking some of Shoal Creek should be coming out of that TIF in the next 5 years or so. I think some of the expansion started late 90s/early 2000s and TIFs are usually a 23 year deal I think.

My bet is Liberty schools will make Aviara pay a pilot and that will be the compromise. Liberty wants/needs the growth badly and is tired of seeing everything on the Kansas City side.
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by joshmv »

KCFan wrote: There's a growing awareness of the quality schools in the Northland. I just wonder at what point does it become metrowide acclaim and the Northland is viewed as a legitimate rival/alternative to Johnson County?
It's mostly about results, and around here the best metric is probably outgoing composite ACT scores.

Here are the most recent scores I could find.

Blue Valley (2016) - 25.9
Olathe (2016) - 23.9
Shawnee Mission (2016) - 23.9
Park Hill (2016) - 22.3
Liberty (2015) - 21.5
KCFan
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by KCFan »

I've generally looked at ACTs as well in the past because it's one way to gauge schools on a common test. One big difference in Liberty's case is every kid in school takes the ACT whether or not he/she has any intention or not of going to college. So when you have that many additional kids taking the test (that have no intention of doing well on it), it drags down the average. The typical percentage nationwide taking the exam is about 2/3. I'm not disputing that JoCo schools wouldn't still have higher scores, but if you're talking a point or two difference (and still easily above the national average), the school system isn't going to be holding your smarter students back or disadvantaging them. Liberty has won the Distinction in Performance award (state wide) every year that it's been given, which puts it in the top 6% of schools in the state. They're always doing something new and innovative (i.e. PLTW) and are generally an early adopter of new ideas (and they're constantly testing new ideas in one of their schools before implementing district wide).
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Re: Northland Population Growth

Post by joshmv »

I should have mentioned that 90% of BV seniors voluntarily sat for the ACT in 2016.

You were asking about perception so I'm trying to answer you from the viewpoint of a parent that was totally new to the metro as of ~3 years ago. We heard plenty of good stuff about Park Hill, but nothing really about Liberty. For all I know Liberty could have amazing schools, but I think it's safe to say that from a perception standpoint, it would take a while for them to be on the level of Olathe or SMSD. Park Hill, and specifically Park Hill South are probably already there. BV is currently the standout and hasn't shown any signs of cracking, but who knows in 10 years. I can tell you that more than anything, it's a self selecting bias. People have to pay a premium to live in BV and usually it's because they put an emphasis on academics.
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