KC metro growth and migration stats

[beautyfromashes]

East Side will pop at some point. I’ve watched houses east of 71 go from $25k to $125k now. We just have to get to the point where new construction en masse becomes viable. I think you’ll see whole developments of streets/neighborhoods (30-40 houses) where there are currently only 1-2 houses left. It would have happened already except for fear of the gentrification tag. The best way to do it would be to paint it as “we’re reversing the redlining evil of the past”.

[Cratedigger]

East Side will pop at some point. I’ve watched houses east of 71 go from $25k to $125k now. We just have to get to the point where new construction en masse becomes viable. I think you’ll see whole developments of streets/neighborhoods (30-40 houses) where there are currently only 1-2 houses left. It would have happened already except for fear of the gentrification tag. The best way to do it would be to paint it as “we’re reversing the redlining evil of the past”.

I agree with this.

Hopefully the city uses this potential to make it easy for small multifamily (duplexes to 8plexes) to be built in this area. Could be transformational

[beautyfromashes]

Hopefully the city uses this potential to make it easy for small multifamily (duplexes to 8plexes) to be built in this area. Could be transformational

The bigger fear should be that the houses will be suburban style. There is so much land, you need to keep standard lot sizes and orientation. Double lot builds with big garages on the front would likely kill any expansion of the urban core. Unfortunately, many builders on the East side are taking more of their influences from Lee’s Summit and Raytown than Brookside or Hyde Park. Politicians and neighbors will fight any push to lock in urban design.

[FlippantCitizen]

Let’s put it like this- if it weren’t for the KC urban core, Jackson County would be going the way of StL. So because they made the right moves the past 20 years they’re still afloat with the potential to come up even further here in 5-10 years.

You see and that's just not true either. I still don't think people have any idea how many people live in Jackson County outside the urban core.

Lee's Summit 104,000 growing quickly
Blue Springs 60,000 growing quickly
Grain Valley 17,000 growing quickly
Independence 122,000 growing slowly
Raytown 30,000 stable
Grandview 26,000 stable
And areas like Redbridge, Martin City, Watts Mill etc in KCMO are very suburban and stable if not growing slowly.
Then you have exurbs like Oak Grove, Lone Jack, Greenwood etc which are stable or growing.

These stable to growing areas of Jackson County outside the urban core are 450k plus of the 700k in Jackson County.

All the more reason to have a strong county government.

Yeah. It's Downtown, It's Midtown, it's the newer suburbs which are growing. The inner ring is basically stable but care needs to be taken so they stay that way or can grow smartly. It is the East Side which is where the negative growth is. That is the biggest shame because next to RCP it is where the most sustainable, smartest, and densest growth should and could be occurring due to existing infrastructure and grid system. But exactly the opposite is what we have right now.

And Grid, I agree on the transit issue. Where is the county in the whole east/west streetcar discussion? Start making some loud noises about wanting a streetcar/LRT on Indy Ave or Truman Road to go all the way to Independence. Rattle the cage about Rock Island Corridor and HWY 40 corridor. Jackson County could make the state take notice and be treated as co-equal with the big St. Louis counties. But it simply doesn't.

The shame is that the geography would just make sense to galvanize a constituency within Jackson County on the right issues in a way that it just doesn't with KC south of river and KC north of the river. The struggling and depopulated East Side lies right between the revitalized and and growing urban areas and the stable to growing suburbs. A narrative of connectivity and growth could be crafted and sold with Jackson County leadership that involves investing in the East Side because necessarily it's not good to have a crater of disinvestment right smack in the middle of your jurisdiction.

Getting JaxCo to lead on east/west transit in KCMO just seems logical because obviously the Northland is going to have no interest in something that is peripheral to them and doesn't serve them. A line to the airport is probably not enough to galvanize the Northland in the pro camp of some regional funding vote for transit. Feels to me like building a big enough pro transit block amongst the Urban parts KC both East and West along with the working class inner ring of Raytown and Independence within the county seems more doable in many ways than trying to build the right block within KCMO city jurisdiction. The vision and the competence to pursue a vision like that clearly doesn't exist at the county level though.

[FlippantCitizen]

Hopefully the city uses this potential to make it easy for small multifamily (duplexes to 8plexes) to be built in this area. Could be transformational

The bigger fear should be that the houses will be suburban style. There is so much land, you need to keep standard lot sizes and orientation. Double lot builds with big garages on the front would likely kill any expansion of the urban core. Unfortunately, many builders on the East side are taking more of their influences from Lee’s Summit and Raytown than Brookside or Hyde Park. Politicians and neighbors will fight any push to lock in urban design.

Agree that this is a massive danger

[GRID]

Let’s put it like this- if it weren’t for the KC urban core, Jackson County would be going the way of StL. So because they made the right moves the past 20 years they’re still afloat with the potential to come up even further here in 5-10 years.

You see and that's just not true either. I still don't think people have any idea how many people live in Jackson County outside the urban core.

Lee's Summit 104,000 growing quickly
Blue Springs 60,000 growing quickly
Grain Valley 17,000 growing quickly
Independence 122,000 growing slowly
Raytown 30,000 stable
Grandview 26,000 stable
And areas like Redbridge, Martin City, Watts Mill etc in KCMO are very suburban and stable if not growing slowly.
Then you have exurbs like Oak Grove, Lone Jack, Greenwood etc which are stable or growing.

These stable to growing areas of Jackson County outside the urban core are 450k plus of the 700k in Jackson County.

All the more reason to have a strong county government.

Yeah. It's Downtown, It's Midtown, it's the newer suburbs which are growing. The inner ring is basically stable but care needs to be taken so they stay that way or can grow smartly. It is the East Side which is where the negative growth is. That is the biggest shame because next to RCP it is where the most sustainable, smartest, and densest growth should and could be occurring due to existing infrastructure and grid system. But exactly the opposite is what we have right now.

And Grid, I agree on the transit issue. Where is the county in the whole east/west streetcar discussion? Start making some loud noises about wanting a streetcar/LRT on Indy Ave or Truman Road to go all the way to Independence. Rattle the cage about Rock Island Corridor and HWY 40 corridor. Jackson County could make the state take notice and be treated as co-equal with the big St. Louis counties. But it simply doesn't.

The shame is that the geography would just make sense to galvanize a constituency within Jackson County on the right issues in a way that it just doesn't with KC south of river and KC north of the river. The struggling and depopulated East Side lies right between the revitalized and and growing urban areas and the stable to growing suburbs. A narrative of connectivity and growth could be crafted and sold with Jackson County leadership that involves investing in the East Side because necessarily it's not good to have a crater of disinvestment right smack in the middle of your jurisdiction.

Getting JaxCo to lead on east/west transit in KCMO just seems logical because obviously the Northland is going to have no interest in something that is peripheral to them and doesn't serve them. A line to the airport is probably not enough to galvanize the Northland in the pro camp of some regional funding vote for transit. Feels to me like building a big enough pro transit block amongst the Urban parts KC both East and West along with the working class inner ring of Raytown and Independence within the county seems more doable in many ways than trying to build the right block within KCMO city jurisdiction. The vision and the competence to pursue a vision like that clearly doesn't exist at the county level though.

Yes! You get it! KCMO within Jackson County should be working with the growing suburbs of Jackson County.

Lee's Summit/Blue Springs/Grain Valley alone is the same size as Overland Park. That area could be leveraged for funding and serving commuters or cultural visits to the city via transit. Then you have Independence, Raytown, Grandview etc which could all use transit investment, better bike/ped trails etc. You have the healthy southwest KCMO area south of brookside to martin city and then you have the growing River Crown Plaza corridor of KCMO. What do you have between? The east side and Southeast KCMO and Old Northeast. All need to get to jobs in the east suburbs or in the RCP. How about some transit investment to connect those areas to both the thriving parts of KCMO and the growing eastern and southeastern suburbs? All while making places like Raytown fantastic inner ring transit friendly suburbs for starter homes.

And right in the middle of it all you have Arrowhead stadium which right now is surrounded by crap. Clean that area up with county leadership and help from the state, KCMO, Independence, and Raytown. I honestly find it hard to believe KC is about to show off that area to people from all over the world. I just hope people keep the blinders on till they are right in front of the stadium because getting to the stadium from any direction is actually kind of embarrassing for KC especially to people from large world class cities.

Jackson County could be a nice county. That's why it pisses me off so much.

[KCtoBrooklyn]

Independence 122,000 growing slowly
Raytown 30,000 stable
Grandview 26,000 stable

Are you basing that off of 2020 census data? It appears that all of those are shrinking at a decent clip since 2020:
Independence: -2%
Raytown: -3.5%
Grandview: -3.5%

This according to worldpopulationreview.com

I know non-census year estimates can be questionable, but that is what this whole topic of Jackson County population is based on.

[GRID]

All three of those cities fluctuate around those populations going up and down like that, but they have been about that same size forever. They are pretty stable.

It would be interesting to see what SKC is doing, Hickman Mills, Ruskin, the areas west of Raytown etc. Those areas have been losing population and its those areas that dragged down the reputation of Raytown and Grandview.

[GRID]

Back to Jackson County real quick and then I will move on. I pulled up FB and this post popped up.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BlueSpr ... 444700887/

I mean is it really so bad that people are organizing volunteer cleanups from private citizens? There is a problem with infrastructure maintenance from the county/city/state. This is where good county government can step in and make something happen on their own or with the help from the state and cities. But come on. This sounds ridiculous. From the comments it sounds like things are pretty bad.

[FlippantCitizen]

Independence 122,000 growing slowly
Raytown 30,000 stable
Grandview 26,000 stable

Are you basing that off of 2020 census data? It appears that all of those are shrinking at a decent clip since 2020:
Independence: -2%
Raytown: -3.5%
Grandview: -3.5%

This according to worldpopulationreview.com

I know non-census year estimates can be questionable, but that is what this whole topic of Jackson County population is based on.

Yeah the 2010-2020 numbers are what Grid's original comments reflect. My suspicion is that those inner ring suburbs probably are feeling a modest post Covid population challenge that goes beyond the modest fluctuations census cycle to census cycle.

Yes! You get it! KCMO within Jackson County should be working with the growing suburbs of Jackson County.

Lee's Summit/Blue Springs/Grain Valley alone is the same size as Overland Park. That area could be leveraged for funding and serving commuters or cultural visits to the city via transit. Then you have Independence, Raytown, Grandview etc which could all use transit investment, better bike/ped trails etc. You have the healthy southwest KCMO area south of brookside to martin city and then you have the growing River Crown Plaza corridor of KCMO. What do you have between? The east side and Southeast KCMO and Old Northeast. All need to get to jobs in the east suburbs or in the RCP. How about some transit investment to connect those areas to both the thriving parts of KCMO and the growing eastern and southeastern suburbs? All while making places like Raytown fantastic inner ring transit friendly suburbs for starter homes.

And right in the middle of it all you have Arrowhead stadium which right now is surrounded by crap. Clean that area up with county leadership and help from the state, KCMO, Independence, and Raytown. I honestly find it hard to believe KC is about to show off that area to people from all over the world. I just hope people keep the blinders on till they are right in front of the stadium because getting to the stadium from any direction is actually kind of embarrassing for KC especially to people from large world class cities.

Jackson County could be a nice county. That's why it pisses me off so much.

Grid, I've always agreed with your take on the role the county government could play and the centrality of Jackson County to some regional problems. We've broadly hashed out that agreement in one of the transit threads. I think you often make good points but I see why your tone can really grate on some of the users here. I can understand though because I can be pessimistic at times too.

The problem with this thought we both share about the county is that it is not even part of the discourse. I could be off base here but I think everyone broadly agrees on the incompetence of the county who has an opinion on such a thing. But what I never hear much about is cleaning house and reinvigorating it as a governing entity, making it a structure to service some actual goals that would not only be a boon to all of Jackson County but also the broader region. And it should be more obvious because to me I see greater incentive alignment within Jackson County as a whole than within KCMO as a whole. There just doesn't seem to be any nascent vision out there, not that I've heard the rumblings of at least. And the current crop is too rotten. But we should look to our history, Harry Truman came out of Jackson County government, the ten year plan and all of that. What Jackson County has now is a sorry excuse.

But circling back to the topic of the thread. The healthiest population growth for the KC metro would be Jackson County growth but in fact it's one of only two big metro counties that is losing population. We have to reckon with that and think it's a problem worth fixing.

[langosta]

Hiring the EX city manager was the first step in the right direction.

[Cratedigger]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... ities.html

Interesting article in NYT today on how coastal cities in the United States, such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and New York, are experiencing a significant outflow of college-educated workers. This "brain drain" trend started about a decade ago but has accelerated during the pandemic. Potentially a flight to warmer, cheaper metros?

When measured over 3 time periods (2010-14 | 2015-19 | 2020-21) KC looks solid. While Kansas City's growth is not as rapid as some of the leading metros, it is still positive and suggests a stable and moderately growing population. Comparing Kansas City's performance to the other "Benchmark" metros KC Rising defined, it falls within the mid-range in terms of population growth. Unsurprisingly, metros such as Austin, Charlotte, Denver and Nashville have consistently experienced higher growth rates, with Austin showing particularly strong growth in all three periods. However, KC is outpacing Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus.

[TheUrbanRoo]

Makes sense. However, the third tangent (20-21) could be starkly different than the others. I think so far this decade KC is actually beating out Denver. They’ve done horrible post-Covid.

[Cratedigger]

Makes sense. However, the third tangent (20-21) could be starkly different than the others. I think so far this decade KC is actually beating out Denver. They’ve done horrible post-Covid.

Since 2020 Denver has attracted +17,000 college graduates. KC is +7,000 over that same window. According to this, Denver is doing pretty well

Edit to add the numbers:

[FangKC]

Moderate growth is fine for Kansas City. We are growing but not at a rate that is causing housing prices to go up too fast for current residents to deal with, or causing significant displacement. We have some problems with low-income residents finding affordable housing and we don't want to add to that problem.

[TheUrbanRoo]

According to that chart, in the 2020's KC is ranked 9th overall out of the 41. That's really really good. I'd call that better than moderate.

[earthling]

Sorted by 2022 largest city proper. KCMO slightly grows, only a few midwest large cities had growth over last year.





Sorted by 2022-2021 % loss/gain of large cities...



https://www2.census.gov/programs-survey ... 2-POP.xlsx

[GRID]

Interesting stats. Indy and Nashville are surprisingly low (especially Indy) considering the size of their city limits in relation to their metros.

Seattle just continues to boom despite all the continued talk of the city dying. And I guess everybody is either leaving CA or moving to the valley suburbs.

I'm a little surprised KCMO didn't do a little better, but at least it didn't lose people. Northland growth might be slowing since new construction single family housing has been sluggish in general across the country.

And St Louis City just keep losing a lot. I would imagine even St Louis County is losing people now. All the "growth" in metro StL seems to be migration to exurbs.

[KCtoBrooklyn]

And St Louis City just keep losing a lot. I would imagine even St Louis County is losing people now. All the "growth" in metro StL seems to be migration to exurbs.

Yep. In the latest estimate, the County lost .78% in the prior year. The metro as a whole lost about .4%, or 11k people.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... cfd7a.html

[TheUrbanRoo]

The positive thing here for KC is that it seems to be growing better the further we get away from Covid, unlike many of the other Midwest cities.