Guess the suburb!

[GRID]

Kansas has basically created a new metro of about 500-700k, the Johnson County metro area nearly fully at the expense of KCMO and “KCs” national importance has suffered because of it. JoCo takes takes takes from and uses uses uses KCMO to build its own Kansas side metro area. They still have some big city attractions and culture (in kcmo) to claim as their own, but they have zero interest in funding any of it and most would just assume all of it be duplicated on the KS side and the MO side just go away all together.

What’s happening is KS is getting its economic engine has been able to build a new metro area. Nobody in Kansas cares about the KC metropolitan area or its health. It’s only what new taxes can come to Kansas.

It’s killed KC and despite all the wonderful things that KCMO has done over the past decade, I don’t think KC will ever be the city it could be or once was again. KC is now and forever two competing metros that do more harm than good to each other.

Meanwhile, a light rail line between Minneapolis and St Paul will open soon. Guess who is growing faster as a region?

[aknowledgeableperson]

Teachers strikes caused suburban flight. Ha.

Just a factor, one of many.

The growth of the suburbs in the late 1940's and 1950's began suddenly and has continued largely unabated. I get that you seem to love semantic arguments, but this point is really beyond dispute.

I guess when Mr Sweeney developed Santa Fe Hills in the 1920's in an area that was outside of KCMO at the time that was because of a fear of Blacks. JC Nichols started Prairie Village in 1941.

People have been moving out (away) from the downtown area for years. People move away and the "core" expands. At one time the "core" was from the river to roughly 18th St. People move out of the city limits and the city annexed. And people moved out again and the city annexed. A lot of that stopped with WW II but after the war the GI came home. New houses were being built and he could move his family to a new house. And many did because that is what they wanted. A fear of Blacks? Why? Until 1954 they were confined to a small area of the city because of education was segregated and that is where the Black schools were. So

Meaning, what? That suburban expansion before 1954 wasn't racially driven?

Yes. As stated "White" people were moving out before WW II for whatever reasons and that continued after the war. Why would the reasons change before 1954?

we both know that the KCMSD did a nice job of partitioning attendance boundaries along Troost

Guess what street the city still uses to separate most of the 4th and 6th Council Districts from the 3rd and 5th Districts?

Teacher strikes: 1974, 1977

You forgot the one in 1972.

but they came almost 20 years after white flight began

What do you call the movement of families that occurred before your so-called start of white flight?


Again, I am not denying there is an animal called "white flight" but to call all of the growth of the suburbs after WW II the result of white flight or fear of Blacks is just wrong. This is one take.
educationnext.org/finding-the-right-remedy/

But a good deal had changed between 1954 and 1977, when the Kansas City Metropolitan School District (KCMSD) brought its case. Eighteen percent minority in 1954, the schools were more than 60 percent minority in 1977. Blacks were moving into cities; whites with schoolchildren were disproportionately moving to suburbs outside city boundaries. Some whites undoubtedly moved because they resisted sending their children to schools with a majority of blacks, some moved because they economically were able to and preferred the suburbs, and some feared growing urban crime in the 1960s and 1970s.

Question. What do you call the movement of Blacks from the city's core that's been occurring for a few decades? A result of a fear of Blacks?

I read an article years ago that lakes (say Shawnee Mission Park size) were proposed in the 1960s in the area of what is now Indian Creek parkway and College. They supposedly were never built partially over fear of "them" coming from the inner city to Leawood to use such lakes.

Yes there were 4 lakes proposed for Johnson County that would have been roughly the size of Longview and Blue Springs Lakes at the same time these lakes were proposed and built. They were killed by JoCo because the county preferred development over flood control that would benefit those downstream. From a report:

1.modification of the lower 13.6 miles of stream channel (63rd Street to the mouth) in the more heavily developed section of Kansas City including the industrial district, and

2.construction of four large water retention lakes in the upper watershed. The USACOE is currently working with the city of Kansas City, Missouri (local sponsor) on channel modifications in the lower section of the Blue River.

Most of this work will have negative impacts on aquatic life as the stream channel is widened and straightened. The proposed watershed lakes would have totaled 3,100 acres at conservation pool. At flood pool, they would have totaled 5,250 acres and provided 68,100 acre-feet of flood water storage (USACOE 1974). Unfortunately, the lakes were not constructed and the opportunity has been lost due to urban sprawl into the proposed lake sites. Controlled water releases from these lakes would have reduced erosion of stream banks and maintained stream flows more beneficial to aquatic fauna. Many smaller water retention lakes would have to be constructed to provide the same flood protection as the proposed large lakes. Efforts to provide effective flood control in the Blue River basin have progressed very slowly. A major problem has been the coordination of a large number of municipalities in two states that must agree to a watershed management plan. Coordination problems will continue to be a major barrier to effective stream management.

[brewcrew1000]

Kansas has basically created a new metro of about 500-700k, the Johnson County metro area nearly fully at the expense of KCMO and “KCs” national importance has suffered because of it. JoCo takes takes takes from and uses uses uses KCMO to build its own Kansas side metro area. They still have some big city attractions and culture (in kcmo) to claim as their own, but they have zero interest in funding any of it and most would just assume all of it be duplicated on the KS side and the MO side just go away all together.

What’s happening is KS is getting its economic engine has been able to build a new metro area. Nobody in Kansas cares about the KC metropolitan area or its health. It’s only what new taxes can come to Kansas.

It’s killed KC and despite all the wonderful things that KCMO has done over the past decade, I don’t think KC will ever be the city it could be or once was again. KC is now and forever two competing metros that do more harm than good to each other.

Meanwhile, a light rail line between Minneapolis and St Paul will open soon. Guess who is growing faster as a region?

This metro would be a lot different if the Kansas State Line was the Missouri River to Kaw Point and the Blue River or whatever you call it that runs near the Stadiums/Swope Park/435 as its eastern border. It makes a lot more sense geographically to have the Kansas State Line this rather then some arbitrary line that is State Line Road. Most of the Urban Core part of KC would be on the Kansas Side and the Suburbs on the MO side could and would probably act as an Illinois type suburbs like in St Louis.

[zlohban]

Kansas has basically created a new metro of about 500-700k, the Johnson County metro area nearly fully at the expense of KCMO and “KCs” national importance has suffered because of it. JoCo takes takes takes from and uses uses uses KCMO to build its own Kansas side metro area. They still have some big city attractions and culture (in kcmo) to claim as their own, but they have zero interest in funding any of it and most would just assume all of it be duplicated on the KS side and the MO side just go away all together.

What’s happening is KS is getting its economic engine has been able to build a new metro area. Nobody in Kansas cares about the KC metropolitan area or its health. It’s only what new taxes can come to Kansas.

It’s killed KC and despite all the wonderful things that KCMO has done over the past decade, I don’t think KC will ever be the city it could be or once was again. KC is now and forever two competing metros that do more harm than good to each other.

Meanwhile, a light rail line between Minneapolis and St Paul will open soon. Guess who is growing faster as a region?

This metro would be a lot different if the Kansas State Line was the Missouri River to Kaw Point and the Blue River or whatever you call it that runs near the Stadiums/Swope Park/435 as its eastern border. It makes a lot more sense geographically to have the Kansas State Line this rather then some arbitrary line that is State Line Road. Most of the Urban Core part of KC would be on the Kansas Side and the Suburbs on the MO side could and would probably act as an Illinois type suburbs like in St Louis.

Your theory would most likely have moved the city center further east on the Missouri River. Don't forget Missouri's political influence was established along the river long before train travel. Had the border been further east, Independence and Liberty, already established, would have been more densely populated and Westport and Kansas City south of the river (within your theorized boundaries) would have remained mostly vacant until Kansas became a state. Perhaps Kansas City would have developed on the north side of the river in Clay County.

Another twist is the Platte Purchase.

[pash]

.

[zlohban]

I might be in denial but I can't identify KC's dismal performance as a city. I also much prefer our "City Beautiful" features with boulevards, parks and suburban like neighborhoods close to the city center. Haven't you noticed that many of the "true" suburbs copied and repeated these elements throughout the metro?

Kansas City is best described by an old billboard that said:

75 Communities

11 Counties ??

2 States

One KC

[pash]

.

[chaglang]

Just a factor, one of many.

Ugh. If you want to believe that the unprecedented development of massive suburban housing tracts further from jobs and the urban core but also unavailable to blacks, at the very moment that the longstanding boundaries ghettoizing blacks to certain parts of the city were crumbling, can be explained in a way that doesn’t make race the major, primary motivation, then that’s on you. At best, I think you’re willfully misreading history.

[pash]

.

[chaglang]

I'm not often one to go in for AKP's radical doubt, but I'm likewise not convinced that race per se was "the major, primary motivation" for white flight from Kansas City, at least not to the exclusion of other major motivations. I'm too young to really know how things went down, but there are a whole lot of variables that were (and still are) conflated with race that obviously played a role (and still do). If you shove a whole bunch of poor kids from bad schools into Pleasantville High School, plenty of Pleasantvillagers are going to consider moving the family a half-mile down the road to Affableville, no matter what color everybody is.

And it's not like there aren't lots of other entirely unrelated reasons that KC's suburbs became more attractive places to live relative to KCMO proper.

Take a look at Kevin Fox Gotham's book on KC. It's a pretty dirty story.

[grovester]

<classic GRID railing against Johnson Count>

In other words, PGC is a failed suburb for largely the same reasons that KCMO is a failed city (to the extent that it is). To use PGC as an example of the impending doom of suburbs is laughable because it is the exceptional example of a suburb afflicted by the same problems that have spelled the doom of American cities over the past six decades. PGC is KC now and then, not JoCo in the future.

There is a phrase "slums of johnson county" referring to many areas north of 95th street. Some inner ring suburbs will be saved by decent housing stock and proximity to amenities by young money, but some will need complete revitalization to be saved from low income populations and all that will involve in the future.

[brewcrew1000]

^The housing stock in PG is pretty crappy, some of the homes are smaller then waldo ranches

[aknowledgeableperson]

Kansas City was always a city that moved out instead of up. The city had a wealth of electric streetcar lines but most of those lines were built not to get people around in the city but to get city people out to someplace outside the limits (usually a park) and then development followed along the line (outside the limits). And those lines were built by developers, not by someone just interested in transit.

As I said, the city has been pushing out for a long time, way before race came into play. And what followed after the way was the same as before. If race wasn't an issue the moving out would have still occurred. Probably at a slower pace, not much slower, but still moving out.

[zlohban]

Kansas City was always a city that moved out instead of up. The city had a wealth of electric streetcar lines but most of those lines were built not to get people around in the city but to get city people out to someplace outside the limits (usually a park) and then development followed along the line (outside the limits). And those lines were built by developers, not by someone just interested in transit.

As I said, the city has been pushing out for a long time, way before race came into play. And what followed after the way was the same as before. If race wasn't an issue the moving out would have still occurred. Probably at a slower pace, not much slower, but still moving out.

Exactly. Just reading history you find many of our original settlers had the intent to go westward for vast expanses of land. Many got to western Kansas looked around, got scared, and returned to settle in this area. Look at the very earliest photos and you will see the houses scattered far apart. Granted Kansas City has had racial problems but our lack of density has no connection to race.

Also, consider the older housing stock was out of fashion after WWII due to high heating costs, small yards for the baby boomers, lack of garages for the bigger autos, low interest rates encouraged building new, etc.. My grandmother just wanted a modern ranch with central heat and modern plumbing. I never heard my grandparents discuss race or schools. Never. I once asked her of all the invention that she experienced what was her favorite? TV right. Wrong she replied, central heat, not having to get up in the night to feed the fire.

Another point never mentioned, men enjoyed driving to work away from their homes and away from their families.

[chingon]

PG County aside, my point was that the Kansas suburbs of KC despite being the closest to the city, are some of the most hostile and anti-cooperation suburbs I have seen in any metro. The KS burbs take things much further than friendly economic competition with KCMo and frankly I think that is the primary reason that KC often is rather stagnant in growth for a large established metro west of the Mississippi. Metro KC is so busy handing out tax breaks to companies to move around the metro (mostly subsidizing sprawl at the urban core’s expense), that nothing much else gets done.

JoCo has pretty much ruined KC and kept the metro as a whole down regardless of what’s going on in JoCo (because so much of it has just moved from kcmo over the past 40 years). KC has one of the most affluent and fastest growing large suburban counties in the nation and yet the metro as a whole has almost fallen off the national map. While at the same time, JoCo has refused to cooperate with the rest of the region in almost any way and more often than not has only inflicted harm on kcmo and even kck or even its own inner ring burbs. How is it even possible for a city like KC to go from being like the 18th largest metro to the 30th? KC is not Buffalo. There is a reason cities like MSP and Denver have blown past KC and cities like Charlotte, Nashville, Indy, even OKC are breathing down its neck. It didn't have to turn out like that, but everybody in KC thinks everything in KC is just fine because JoCo is doing great. Now even the crap by the speedway is praised as a great thing. No...it's not a great thing. It's an island of heavily subsidized sprawl 20 miles outside the city and you drive past 20 miles of blight to get there. I can't possibly see how that area is impressive to anybody outside of Kansas or the nascar/anti-city/exurban-country demographic.

The two largest counties in the metro can’t even get a decent bus route established along one of the main east west arterials.

People in KC just don’t realize just how bad the state line situation is there and how much it has affected the greater KC area’s ability to compete as a region on a national playing field.

How then to explain the host of other cities with better suburban/core city cooperation that are falling faster and harder than KC in terms of metro population ranking/relevance. Like everywhere else in the core of the midwest?

[chingon]

<classic GRID railing against Johnson Count>

There are quite clearly a lot of reasons other than the existence of the state line that have contributed to the decline of KCMO and the KC metro relative to cities like Minneapolis and Denver.

Yes, some of the KC-specific problems are compounded by state-line issues. But most of the problems are unrelated at heart. For example, Minneapolis and Denver never experienced federally mandated bussing to desegregate their schools, which was the prime driver of the flight of the white middle classes to the Kansas-side suburbs here.* Those cities were also able to keep their school districts above board by establishing independent and chartered public schools decades ago; KC has been prevented from doing so by law and politics, both due directly to deseg.

And aside from schools and other problems closely related to race and demographics, there are many other readily identifiable reasons KC's suburbs have sapped the life out of its core. For one, KC has infamously built more lane miles of highway per capita than any other large metro—an astounding 39% more highway capacity per person than even Dallas in the number two spot. KC has—drumroll please—87% more highway capacity than Minneapolis and 123% more capacity than Denver! No wonder KC's suburbs have taken over! For decades, and continuing to this day, KCMO's leaders, in cahoots with the feds and two states, have done everything they can to minimize the downsides of suburban living (long commutes, traffic-enforced isolation) at the expense of the city itself. They've knocked down vast swathes of the core to put up freeways, and, worse, have engendered a car culture that has wreaked havoc on our urban infrastructure. We're left with tiny little sidewalks abutting bleak, bombed-out blocks with fewer buildings left standing than have been torn down to satisfy our primal need for convenient parking. Meanwhile, all the most successful cities in this country have made life increasingly miserable for drivers—which in those places means suburbanites—and more pleasant for their own citizens, who mostly rely on transit—another enormous failure in KC—and their own two feet.

I don't pretend to know all the reasons behind KC's dismal performance as a city, nor could I relate them all here if I did. But I would put the state line solidly in the category of "compounding factor" rather than primary cause of any of KC's worst failures.


* - By the way, to tie into another tangent upthread, in 1977 federal courts also ordered bussing to desegregate the schools in Prince George's County, Maryland, which were lilly white in stark contrast to the schools in neighboring DC. So poor black kids were shipped in from the District, in what I believe was the only instance of cross-border bussing. And that is always cited as the driver of white flight from PGC and the beginning of its hollowing out, followed later by its filling up with poor black folk from first an increasingly blighted, later a gentrifying DC—and with them, of course, all the problems of urban poverty. In other words, PGC is a failed suburb for largely the same reasons that KCMO is a failed city (to the extent that it is). To use PGC as an example of the impending doom of suburbs is laughable because it is the exceptional example of a suburb afflicted by the same problems that have spelled the doom of American cities over the past six decades. PGC is KC now and then, not JoCo in the future.

Yet Kansas City is still as dense, both as a metro and as a core city, as most other midwest metros with soo much less lane-miles/capita. Why? And its not hollowing out any faster (or slower) than Cincy, StL, Cleveland etc.? So what gives?

[pash]

.

[Highlander]

In other words, suburbanization is associated with declining metro areas and core city growth is associated with growing metros.

I do not know how true this is or not. Here in Houston, the burbs are growing in dramatic fashion but so is the "core". People pay good money to be inboard because of the odious commute from the burbs.

The 9% drop in core population per interstate spoke must not have considered Texas cities. Look at the sheer scale and size of I-10. An already huge highway bounded on both sides by two mini-interstate frontage roads with 3-4 lanes each. Incredibly, that stretch is still gridlocked from about 6 AM to 8 AM daily. In fact, I wonder when that sat image was taken - Christmas day? - I've never seen that stretch near that empty.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Ugh. If you want to believe that the unprecedented development of massive suburban housing tracts further from jobs and the urban core but also unavailable to blacks, at the very moment that the longstanding boundaries ghettoizing blacks to certain parts of the city were crumbling, can be explained in a way that doesn’t make race the major, primary motivation, then that’s on you. At best, I think you’re willfully misreading history.

Found a history of the metro area population, plus KCMO. Kinda interesting to see the growth pattern of the area. For our CSA the area had a population of 809,000 in 1920, 943,000 in 1930, and 948,000 in 1940. Most of that growth was in Jackson and Wyandotte counties with the rest of the counties showing the same or declining population numbers. During that time KCMO's population grew from 324,000 to 400,000. So of that 139,000 growth number of the metro 76,000 or over half came from KCMO alone. What is interesting in that KCMO number is that none of the growth came from annexations, all from growth within the city as it stood in 1909 - almost 60 sq miles.
In 1950 the CSA stood at 1,063,000, KCMO at 456,000. The CSA grew by 115,000 with 56,000 (almost half) coming from growth in KCMO. The city grew just over 2 sq miles with a 1947 annexation at took it from 77th street to 85th street. Also from 1940 to 1950 JOCO almost doubled in population and Clay County grew by 50%.
The 1960 numbers tell a lot. The area population grew by 253,000 to a total of 1,316,000 but KCMO grew by only 19,000 to a total of 475,000. KCMO though also grew in size with 4 different annexations, more than doubled in size to almost 130 sq miles, and for the first time went north of the river in 1950. I think it would be safe to say that the population of the city within it's boundry of 1909 declined for the first time. JOCO and Clay County doubled in population and Platte County showed a large percentage growth.
The area growth slowed in the 60's. For 1970 the Metro grew by 174,000 to a total of 1,490,000 and KCMO's numbers were growth 32,000, total 507,000 with annexations totaling over 186 sq miles to a total area of 314 sq miles. And likely a second decade of declining population within it's 1909 borders.
The 70's saw another decade of slower growth for the metro. In 1980 the area population stood at 1,561,000 with KCMO's declining to 448,000. JOCO's population growth of 50,000 was more than half of the area's growth of 71,000. This decade also showed a decline in population for Jackson and Wyandotte Counties for the first time.
Area growth accelerated some in the 80's. The metro grew by 134,000 to a 1990 total of 1,695,000. KCMO's total declined again to 435,000.
The 90's brought another boom period in the metro area growth. Wth a total of 1,901,000 in 2000 the area grew by 206,000. KCMO reversed it's population decline by growing 6,000 to a total of 441,000. Various small annexations since 1985 brought KCMO to the size of almost 318 sq miles.
Since the metro population has doubled since 1940 I think it would be safe to say that is a good reason for the growth of the area's suburbs. Does race play 'a' factor in the population decline within the 1909 boundries of KCMO? Of course. But the growth of the KCMO suburbs has more to do with the overall population growth.

[pash]

.