As opposed to suburbanites like Metro or AKP who revell in tearing down urban areas and urban living at every opportunity.
As Tweety would say (paraphased) "He don't know me well, do he?" To support your statement go ahead and find those posts. Basically I have said it isn't for me, not tearing it down. And don't confused my disagreement of some city council decisions with an anti-urban bias.
I feel there is a social responsibility to be rather blunt and confrontational about the evils of suburban living.
What the hell is "suburban living"? Is it living at 75th and Wornall? Or 90th? Or 131st? Don't forget Brookside, when developed, would have been considered suburban. I would take your bias as anything that is not in KCMO is suburban. And as GRID said, every city has its suburbs, so get over it
Then KCMO has not done itself any favors either. The city should have never annexed outside of 435 or north of the river. The city has still not recovered from that. It's spread too thin and it can't figure out what it wants to be. A city or a suburb. It tries to be both and fails at both in many cases.
Although I would agree with "most" of what you have said in your recent posts this is one item I with which I would disagree. Those annexations were meant to give the city areas to grow and to control so it would not become a landlocked city. If area development would have occurred the way things were envisioned by the city in the 50's and 60's then KCMO would be a crown jewel instead of wondering what went wrong. But what happened to KCMO happened to every US city in the 70's and 80's. The development that happened in JoCo during the 70's and 80's could have occurred in the northland around and south of the airport but the city failed to improve the infrastructure in the area ahead of development much like JoCo did. And if KCMO was restricted to the area you defined then it would be in far worse shape thanit is now. It's dominate school district would still be the KCMOSD, the population maybe around 225,000 to 250,000 if that, and with a tax base that wouldn't support much of what it has now in that defined area.
Suburban growth and development happens at the expense of urban communities.
Suburban growth and development happens because of the failures or urban communties, and to a degree because of human nature. Urban communities were and are their own worse enemies. Whether it was race riots, busing, poorly run school districts, streetcar lines running to areas outside the city, GI Bill, urban housing shortages after the war, population shifts, whatever it was the failure of the urban communities to provide for its citizens to the level that many if its citizens desired. Urban areas as a whole have come back or are coming back and that has occurred over a period of time. Will it ever be like it was? Well, I guess that depends on what one thinks what it was like at some time in the past. There is an old saying about one never being able to go back home. We may physically be able to go back but it will never be the same.
the suburban mindset that has absolutely destroyed this city for 60 years
Sorry to say but the so-called suburban mindset has been around for way more than 60 years. When was the CC Plaza started? When was the first interurban line in the area built? Cities and/or suburbs have been expanding for well over 100 years now, ever since a man could take a horse drawn or a motorized streetcar to work instead of walking.
Nobody NEEDS a 7 bedroom, 5 car garage with 3 SUVs parked in it....
What about those big mansions along Ward Parkway?
I may be right. I may be wrong. But there is a lot of gray area in-between.
