All this KCK talk made me go out and investigate it myself. Took a bunch of pics. First let me say that KCK is better than I have been giving it credit for, but it's still a wierd place. There is much more to it than can be shot in the skyline, if all of KCK's highrises were in one area, it would have a repectable skyline for a city it's size. But the city is still a mess and there are few areas that are even remotely "nice". Nothing wrong with that, it's just a modest area with a lot of minorities that are just getting by.
I'm sorry, but I just don't get the strawberry hill thing, the area is pretty trashed out, there is one street with about a dozen homes overlooking KCMO's skyline and the rest is a mess. Go to urban St.Louis and check out the Hill area and this is what KCK NEEDS.
The city is ok around the KC med center, but it doesn't get to great till you cross State Line. As I left KCK, I was thinking, KCK is not so bad, then as I entered Midtown KCMO, I had a reality check. Driving through Midtown, I noticed that KCK and KCMO are just worlds apart. KCMO is dense and vibrant with few homes and lot of big "used" buildings and apartment buildings. KCMO is also far more diverse and has every kind of person living there. It also instantly feels like you are in the core of a big city where in KCK I felt like I was in StJoe or Topeka.
I did notice one thing, KCK is really missing out on an opertunity to create a great city. It's very hilly and could have some awesome cutural and ethnic districts if people would invest in the area more. Downtown has done a lot of upgrading as well with several new large buildings and a hotel. The city is on an upswing. The ghetto seems pretty concentrated in the Old NE area around Quindaro. Even though the rest of the city is not too pleasing to the eye either, it apears safe.
I'm sorry, but I just don't get the strawberry hill thing, the area is pretty trashed out, there is one street with about a dozen homes overlooking KCMO's skyline
I actually went to downtown KCK yesterday too. I walked through Strawberry Hill, observed, and that is what I thought. But I also thought Strawberry Hill has a lot of potential. It's a pretty dense area, as far as single family homes go.. they all have alleys.. most only have driveways/garages accessible from the alley.. and most aren't far enough apart for driveways inbetween. There are few commercial businesses in Strawberry Hill, but there is commercial building stock available within a short walking distance of all the houses. And the houses with a view, that's an awesome view of downtown.
As for other things in downtown KCK.. I was impressed with the hotel, BPU office building and the new townhomes. It's good to see the vacant lots and surface parking lots filled. Now they need to fill that block in the east half of downtown KCK, across from the BPU/Hotel.
Here is a shot of that "nice street" in Strawberry Hill. Notice One KC Place between the homes. BTW, I agree with the potential thing, but I think it would be a miracle, the area has been down for too long for it to be a nice ethnic area like StLouis's "The Hill". Something like that take decades of everyone taking a lot of pride in the area.
Spending a lot of time in KCK (home was where the NASCAR track is now and I went to school at Sumner Academy 8th & Oakland) from grade school till graduation of highschool, what I've experienced in KCK isn't all terrible but it will take a miracle to turn around downtown KCK...I'm not even sure the mayor cares. She sees the expansion possibilities on the 435 corridor and could care less if the rest of KCK dropped further (if that is possible).
Places I used to visit regularly are now either gone, closed, or completely trashed....it's really a shame. Now I can say all my years in downtown KCK, I was never harmed once.....car never broke into, no fights at school (you were booted from Sumner with one figh), etc.....now I did meet some interested people and people with a varied background but I wouldn't trade that for anything...it taught be tolerance and understanding that going to school at Blue Valley NW could never teach.
I hope the best for KCK but I just don't see it happening...mostly because nobody over there cares....everybody just accepts it for what it is....now maybe Western WyCo will pick up the tax base and help out downtown KCK but there will need to be much more help than Strawberry Hill.
As a individual who spent the bulk of my years (the most important ones) living in KCK, I seriously think the city will turn itself around. Of course there will always be crime and poverty in the area, but I've read about some interesting projects in the downtown area that have been proposed for Strawberry Hill, Quindaro and the core of downtown.
The Pendergast Poltergeist Project!
I finally divorced beer and proposed to whiskey, but I occassionally cheat with fine wine.
As a individual who spent the bulk of my years (the most important ones) living in KCK, I seriously think the city will turn itself around. Of course there will always be crime and poverty in the area, but I've read about some interesting projects in the downtown area that have been proposed for Strawberry Hill, Quindaro and the downtown core.
The Pendergast Poltergeist Project!
I finally divorced beer and proposed to whiskey, but I occassionally cheat with fine wine.
I don't know how central KCK will boom again, unless the MoKan area experiences a Denver-like boom in real estate prices.
In late 1990s Denver, real estate prices in deisrable urban neighborhoods were increasing as much as 50% a year. Many young professionals, including myself, wanted to live in walkable urban neighborhoods with a hard-to-define character, but most were priced beyond the reach of mortal men; in places like Wash Park and Park Hill, 1,000 square foot bungalows were selling for $300,000 to $500,000. So, middle income urban wannabes took the next best thing; questionable yet urban-feeling neighborhoods on the edge of the desirable areas.
I bought a small bungalow in Berkeley, a demographically mixed but predominantly Hispanic-feeling neighborhood about two miles northwest of LoDo. Most businesses along the neighborhood's main drag, 38th Avenue, catered to the shrinking Mexican-American population, but a few blocks south on 32nd, there was a mini-Brookside. Homes that were sold inevitably went to young professionals. The neighborhood was in its second stage of gentrification; the starving artists and stocky Subaru Forester-driving womyn-folk arrived a few years earlier, and middle-income young professionals were now flooding in. A few months after I arrived, the third stage began ... full-blown e-business yuppies, huge SUVs, teardowns and pop-tops, and smooth jazz. Middle-class professional homebuyers were pushed out of the neighborhood, and up into Regis, which was even more marginal than Berkeley was when I moved there. Young professionals were even moving into African-American communities north of City Park, where there were plenty of brick bungalows that could still be had for around $150K. KC, at least, has far more pre-WWII urban-feeling neighborhoods than Denver.
If the same market dynamics applied in KCMO, KCK might experience something similar. Imagine a KC that is EXPLODING Denver-style, with a growing population of middle-class young profesionals that want shortwaist houses and neighborhood commercial districts. Brookside, Hyde Park, Valentine, Waldo, all priced beyond the reach of most prospective white-collar residents. Little two bedroom, one bathroom houses in Mission, Roeland Park and downtown OP selling for $250K. Warehouses abandoning North Kansas City, because the land is worth more when it's redeveloped for high-end houses. Only then will there be a flood of homebuyers that will look east of Troost, in Scaritt, or in old KCK, see old shirtwaist houses and A&C bungalows, find commercial strips with a mix of check cashing stores and new age bookstores, and think "in three or four years, this will be a great neighborhood.
Ture, but KCK is isolated from the popular urban districts of KCMO, that is one of KCK's biggest problems. This trend of urban renewal will first have to absorb most of urban KCMO before jumping the river into KS. I think KCK will always be the place where the lower income minorities settle.
KCK has plenty of urban potential, but KCMO is just far more desirable for young urban minded residents and probably always will be. KCK serves a very important market, providing low income working families a place to live.
KCK's future is suburban development. Although western KCK is still not building many homes compared to most other metro cities, I think that area is about to boom residentially.
KCgridlock wrote:Ture, but KCK is isolated from the popular urban districts of KCMO, that is one of KCK's biggest problems.
That's not stopping Denver. There's extensive gentrification in Englewood and Littleton, and old Aurora is now considered "hot." Crappy little houses in Commerce City (which makes KCK's industrial districts look like a shiny new office park in comparison) are now quite pricey, too -- it's not gentrification, but just the market.
When I was living there, Denver was turning inside-out; lower-income residents were pushed out into so-so 1960s/1970s suburban areas, while inner city areas were being invaded by the rich. If KC was like Denver, Raytown and Blue Springs would be poor Hispanic communities, and most of north Prairie Village and Overland Park would be plowed under and replaced with shiny new tract mansions.
That is happening in KC, yet KCK is still the place lower income people are being pushed to. NE JoCo and Western KCMO have already done this, Raytown is becoming a nice black suburb. The hispanics are going to Old Northeast and KCK in droves. Lower income people are still being pushed out of Westport, Valentine etc and now it's happening to the east side as entire areas are being leveled for market rate homes.
I'm not a fortune teller, anything could happen. I would love to see KCK become an urban oasis, but I just don't see it happening for a long time.
KCgridlock wrote:I'm not a fortune teller, anything could happen. I would love to see KCK become an urban oasis, but I just don't see it happening for a long time.
Probably nothin' in the near future, but give it a decade or so...
The Pendergast Poltergeist Project!
I finally divorced beer and proposed to whiskey, but I occassionally cheat with fine wine.
