Sad...

[DColeKC]

Austin has hit a major snag and have actually started to see home values decline and rent deals are abundant as they struggle to fill up apartments they built at a frantic pace.

You say this like it is a bad thing…we should be shooting for this

I don’t really have an opinion on good or bad. I can see it being both as applied to KC. We only get more apartment towers when demand is there and as a property owner I never want to see home values decline. I can understand the positive side for the consumer as well.

[GRID]

Austin has hit a major snag and have actually started to see home values decline and rent deals are abundant as they struggle to fill up apartments they built at a frantic pace.

You say this like it is a bad thing…we should be shooting for this

I don’t really have an opinion on good or bad. I can see it being both as applied to KC. We only get more apartment towers when demand is there and as a property owner I never want to see home values decline. I can understand the positive side for the consumer as well.

It always seems like the cities that overbuild (office or residential) come out ahead in the long run. Conservative cities that under build fall behind. I have watched it over and over in places like Denver, Dallas, Charlotte, Seattle, Miami etc. People freak out when those cities get way too much office or residential built and then two years later, they are right back at it.

A city like Austin will have downs, but the momentum is still there and they will quickly rebound and have the housing and office space ready to go when they do. Places like KC don't and so it's a very slow start up process when things to look up that never really gets going.

And StL seems to be doing about as much or more construction in their urban core KCMO over the past few years. Their downtown core is still a bit slow, but the rest of the city through midtown and clayton do pretty well for a metro that is losing people. KC seems to still lack aggressive developers or maybe it's too hard to work with KCMO?

Urban KCMO is a great city and with the tram line extension, I just don't get it. There should be a LOT more construction going on in that "river crown plaza" corridor of KCMO.

[Midtownkid]

Anyway back to Austin, I was just saying that policies such as ending minimum parking requirements, eliminating single-family zoning and allowing up to three homes on each residential lot have helped encourage development which resulted in a small decrease in housing costs.

I don't see either of the policies going well with Kansas City.

Eliminate parking requirements for things in the loop and along the streetcar...maybe. Outside of that area? Doesn't make much sense for us. People will just skip doing stuff in the city and drive to where they can park.

Eliminate single-family zoning? Allow for 3-dwellings on a residential lot? Man that would change the character of the city. I don't think for the better. We live in a part of the country where we have space! Let's allow ourselves to enjoy that. I'd rather see the east side fill in before we shove 3x as many people into our beautiful SFH neighborhoods.

[rxlexi]

The reason a lot of those cities overbuild in the first place is because they have macro factors driving booming development during the good times - primarily job and population growth that encourage the types of national (or even international) investment that doesn't exist in the midwest (outside core Chicago).

Sunbelt is the new "affordable midsize" investment center and has been for 20+ years. I don't know that changing zoning or otherwise encouraging well-meaning urban or economic policies necessarily moves the needle on the larger macro trends that have shaped that.

KC has to do the all little things right to encourage good urbanism and biz growth (zoning, streamlined permitting, walkability) and also capitalize on every single opportunity for big capital infusions in the core, because they come so rarely and no one outside the region is drooling over investment opportunities here (yet).

Some of those cities certainly get credit for having ambitious, forward looking leadership, but that's so much easier to accomplish when you're managing growth, companies that are looking to invest, and a populous comprised of many folks that have chosen to move to your city for lifestyle (Denver, Seattle, SLC, Austin, Nashville) or for a desirable job (Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, etc.), or both.

Further, with STL across the state and the dispersed state capitals and universities, we are also aren't quite the super-regional center for the rural hinterland that a Minneapolis or even Indy are (i.e. the "big city" in the state and default destination for many in outlying areas). If anything, this should be the goal for KC, IMO.

At least that's my perception. Still a great to place to live, with great potential. A very attractive city with a compact core. But it's not really "surprising" that KC doesn't have 10 skyscrapers u/c downtown - we need to do our best to bend the big trends our way to see a little bit more growth, and for the love of god get out of our own way re: development approvals, city council, KC tenants, stadium, and on and on....

[Highlander]

The reason a lot of those cities overbuild in the first place is because they have macro factors driving booming development during the good times - primarily job and population growth that encourage the types of national (or even international) investment that doesn't exist in the midwest (outside core Chicago).

Sunbelt is the new "affordable midsize" investment center and has been for 20+ years. I don't know that changing zoning or otherwise encouraging well-meaning urban or economic policies necessarily moves the needle on the larger macro trends that have shaped that.

Those cities that get overbuilt tend to be fast growth cities where its difficult to gauge the market because it's changing so rapidly. Because they have high growth rates, the overbuilt space whether residential or commercial tends to get absorbed eventually.

KC's more of a mid growth city but I think there are several factors that impact KC's urban core.

The first is that our urban core just isn't very big in terms of space. We don't have the large residential areas in the city with good housing stocks like cities such as Houston, Dallas and Denver. That part of the city is just too compressed between Troost and State Line. It's too small. Most of that large contiguous residential area that most cities have adjacent to the urban core is not in KCMO, it's in Kansas. You can see this clearly on Google Maps. KC's biggest middle/upper class community is north of the river and they simply are not vested in the urban core. KC cannot improve that situation without massive gentrification and there is too much resistance in KC (which brings us to your final point....)

We just cannot get out of our way. We make extremely poor decisions as a city which go back to the 1950's out of expedience, obstinance or political maneuvering. The most recent being the Cerner incentives for a SE KC campus and we will make another soon by pushing the Royals out of Jackson County (if not the metro). KC Tenants and the KC school district constantly get in the way of new development in the core but they only have political power because most of the wealth in the metro resides in that contiguous residential area which is mostly in Kansas (and a few small areas outside of that).

And given that most of the wealth is in Kansas, most of the new development in the city goes there as well. And to a lesser extent to other suburban locations where there its cheaper to build and no need for incentives because the investments are less risky and there's no anti-development groups in the way. Which creates an even more suburban mindset in the metro (including Jackson County) which makes getting a downtown stadium even that much more difficult.

Perfect positive feedback loop. Which is what we see over history because for the most part, development in KCMO's urban core only really happens on a small scale with occasional generational steps forward like Crown Center, the 80's skyscraper boom and Power and Light District. But for the most part, we experience slow organic growth in the core.

[Chris Stritzel]

We’ve hit a road block of sorts in terms of new development, but we have a few things getting ready to start. Think 3rd and Grand, City Harvest, 303 Broadway, renovations of some buildings in the West Bottoms (and the pitiful replacement for Weld Wheel), 1818-22 Main, and the Parade Park Redevelopment. That large redevelopment at Independence and Hardesty is moving ahead and we’re hearing talk about the old Federal Reserve and the garage at 8th and Grand becoming housing.

Greater St. Louis (includes Clayton) has no 10-story high-rise under construction. The only high-rise under construction is the Queeny Tower replacement at Barnes Hospital (Central West End, St. Louis City), but if they mentioned it, the green dot would be for the city, not Clayton.

So by these metrics, KC will show up on there soon with 3 high-rises over 10-stories under construction (303 Broadway, City Harvest and 1818-22 Main). Greater St. Louis will have two projects over 20-stories (one in Clayton and one in Downtown West). There could be a third if Albion breaks ground. But for cities of our size, these aren’t bad. We need a ton of smaller projects to advance right now to build up density elsewhere. The high-rises will come at a certain point.

Correction to my bolded comment here...
The City Foundry apartment building is 14-stories, but half of that is parking. It does count per the metrics they use in this map. So that means the city has two high-rises under construction, but the county remains at zero.

[Chris Stritzel]

Anyway back to Austin, I was just saying that policies such as ending minimum parking requirements, eliminating single-family zoning and allowing up to three homes on each residential lot have helped encourage development which resulted in a small decrease in housing costs.

I don't see either of the policies going well with Kansas City.

Eliminate parking requirements for things in the loop and along the streetcar...maybe. Outside of that area? Doesn't make much sense for us. People will just skip doing stuff in the city and drive to where they can park.

Eliminate single-family zoning? Allow for 3-dwellings on a residential lot? Man that would change the character of the city. I don't think for the better. We live in a part of the country where we have space! Let's allow ourselves to enjoy that. I'd rather see the east side fill in before we shove 3x as many people into our beautiful SFH neighborhoods.

This comment is why KC's infrastructure obligations will bankrupt the city in the coming years. 6100 linear miles of roads (likely more now) in a city of over 300 square miles. Population of just around 515,000. Not sustainable.

You need to increase density a shit ton to get to the point where things start to make sense. And by that, I mean doubling the population. Only way you're going to do that is if you up zone the entirety of the East Side and those "beautiful single-family home neighborhoods" in the oldest parts of the city. The current development trends up north would have to be changed at the planning department level to prevent winding roads and sprawling single-family neighborhoods that'll never produce enough property taxes to pay back the costs of building new roads and running new water, sewer and electrical to a green field site.

Let's further lay the ground work by...
- Mandating new subdivisions resemble old neighborhoods down in the city. Have a mix of detached single-family, row homes, and small apartment buildings lining new streets that are laid out in a grid.
- Main avenues should automatically be higher-density instead of just strip malls with way too much parking.
- City-wide, cut back on parking requirements all around. Reform the commercial parking requirements to shrink the sizes of parking lots and reduce parking minimums for apartments to a maximum of 1:1.
- Incentivize strip-mall owners to subdivide their unused parking and land to create more housing, hospitality, and office spaces. These buildings don't need to be massive, but they should be decent enough sized to make this worth it. New gas stations and drive-thru joints should be looked down upon like the drain on society they are.
- Implement land value taxes in the urban core, and across the city, to prevent land speculation to force one's hand to develop or sell to someone who will. Let's return vacant buildings and land to productive usages.

If we don't do any of this, we'll be needing to talk about significant city in city services, sharp increases in taxes, and dealing with a lot of pissed off residents. It becomes a death spiral.

Doubling-down on sprawling neighborhoods because "we have the land" is an atrocious take. I'm not advocating for KC to become NYC, but I don't want it to continue down the path it's going. It's simply unsustainable.

[aknowledgeableperson]

"Let's further lay the ground work by...
- Mandating new subdivisions resemble old neighborhoods down in the city. Have a mix of detached single-family, row homes, and small apartment buildings lining new streets that are laid out in a grid.
- Main avenues should automatically be higher-density instead of just strip malls with way too much parking.
- City-wide, cut back on parking requirements all around. Reform the commercial parking requirements to shrink the sizes of parking lots and reduce parking minimums for apartments to a maximum of 1:1.
- Incentivize strip-mall owners to subdivide their unused parking and land to create more housing, hospitality, and office spaces. These buildings don't need to be massive, but they should be decent enough sized to make this worth it. New gas stations and drive-thru joints should be looked down upon like the drain on society they are.
- Implement land value taxes in the urban core, and across the city, to prevent land speculation to force one's hand to develop or sell to someone who will. Let's return vacant buildings and land to productive usages."

Pipe dream

[herrfrank]

^ interesting considerations

KC has for 80+ years featured those "beautiful single-family neighborhoods" -- I believe we are discussing Brookside and "Country Club"/ Sunset Hill. For the first 40 years of existence, those same 'hoods had an excellent high school (KC Southwest). Not anymore. They also pay a significant tax burden.

They nevertheless have typical suburban maintenance needs. The KC stub road that Tomahawk (from Mission Hills/ Prairie Village) empties into is 63d Terrace. One long block uphill to Meyer Circle. This road, which I have traveled once probably every other day I am in KC, has Not Been Repaved since at least 1975. I remember dodging the same manhole dips from those days -- the same potholes are still there. 50 years without new asphalt.

I don't understand the (off-)cycles of KC maintenance. Perhaps it has to do with the big road mileage out in the county. But these high-tax neighborhoods have really been let down IMHO. Some streets do seem to get more attention. Ward Parkway itself gets repaved at least every third year. Same with Southwest Trafficway. Other parts of the same 'hoods not so much. (The bridge from WP to SW Tfwy over Brush Creek for example has been crumbling for 15 years).

[Anthony_Hugo98]

"Let's further lay the ground work by...
- Mandating new subdivisions resemble old neighborhoods down in the city. Have a mix of detached single-family, row homes, and small apartment buildings lining new streets that are laid out in a grid.
- Main avenues should automatically be higher-density instead of just strip malls with way too much parking.
- City-wide, cut back on parking requirements all around. Reform the commercial parking requirements to shrink the sizes of parking lots and reduce parking minimums for apartments to a maximum of 1:1.
- Incentivize strip-mall owners to subdivide their unused parking and land to create more housing, hospitality, and office spaces. These buildings don't need to be massive, but they should be decent enough sized to make this worth it. New gas stations and drive-thru joints should be looked down upon like the drain on society they are.
- Implement land value taxes in the urban core, and across the city, to prevent land speculation to force one's hand to develop or sell to someone who will. Let's return vacant buildings and land to productive usages."

Pipe dream

That’s the fucking spirit.

Policy got us into this mess, no reason to believe some tweaking can’t start to guide development trends in the opposite direction.

[KC_Ari]

^ interesting considerations

KC has for 80+ years featured those "beautiful single-family neighborhoods" -- I believe we are discussing Brookside and "Country Club"/ Sunset Hill. For the first 40 years of existence, those same 'hoods had an excellent high school (KC Southwest). Not anymore. They also pay a significant tax burden.

They nevertheless have typical suburban maintenance needs. The KC stub road that Tomahawk (from Mission Hills/ Prairie Village) empties into is 63d Terrace. One long block uphill to Meyer Circle. This road, which I have traveled once probably every other day I am in KC, has Not Been Repaved since at least 1975. I remember dodging the same manhole dips from those days -- the same potholes are still there. 50 years without new asphalt.

I don't understand the (off-)cycles of KC maintenance. Perhaps it has to do with the big road mileage out in the county. But these high-tax neighborhoods have really been let down IMHO. Some streets do seem to get more attention. Ward Parkway itself gets repaved at least every third year. Same with Southwest Trafficway. Other parts of the same 'hoods not so much. (The bridge from WP to SW Tfwy over Brush Creek for example has been crumbling for 15 years).

We should be focusing on those older neighborhoods, they likely generate more revenue for the city than the greenfield in the northland ever will. This includes all of the east side as well as the neighborhoods you mention south of the plaza.

I think the main one to focus on is the proper east side, where there are massive holes where former houses used to be due to the mistakes of "Urban Renewal". Much of these are zoned R-1.5 or R-2.5 so building any sort of multi-unit structure isn't possible, even if it might be economically viable. Multiunit structures could be smaller footprint; townhomes, duplexes, rowhomes, Bungalow Courts, etc. But at the same time wouldn't tower over the neighborhoods.

[Cratedigger]

^ interesting considerations

KC has for 80+ years featured those "beautiful single-family neighborhoods" -- I believe we are discussing Brookside and "Country Club"/ Sunset Hill. For the first 40 years of existence, those same 'hoods had an excellent high school (KC Southwest). Not anymore. They also pay a significant tax burden.

They nevertheless have typical suburban maintenance needs. The KC stub road that Tomahawk (from Mission Hills/ Prairie Village) empties into is 63d Terrace. One long block uphill to Meyer Circle. This road, which I have traveled once probably every other day I am in KC, has Not Been Repaved since at least 1975. I remember dodging the same manhole dips from those days -- the same potholes are still there. 50 years without new asphalt.

I don't understand the (off-)cycles of KC maintenance. Perhaps it has to do with the big road mileage out in the county. But these high-tax neighborhoods have really been let down IMHO. Some streets do seem to get more attention. Ward Parkway itself gets repaved at least every third year. Same with Southwest Trafficway. Other parts of the same 'hoods not so much. (The bridge from WP to SW Tfwy over Brush Creek for example has been crumbling for 15 years).

We should be focusing on those older neighborhoods, they likely generate more revenue for the city than the greenfield in the northland ever will. This includes all of the east side as well as the neighborhoods you mention south of the plaza.

I think the main one to focus on is the proper east side, where there are massive holes where former houses used to be due to the mistakes of "Urban Renewal". Much of these are zoned R-1.5 or R-2.5 so building any sort of multi-unit structure isn't possible, even if it might be economically viable. Multiunit structures could be smaller footprint; townhomes, duplexes, rowhomes, Bungalow Courts, etc. But at the same time wouldn't tower over the neighborhoods.

+1

Also looking into some of the areas of the east side still zoned for light industrial that were clearly put there to further separate redlined districts

[beautyfromashes]

We should be focusing on those older neighborhoods, they likely generate more revenue for the city than the greenfield in the northland ever will. This includes all of the east side as well as the neighborhoods you mention south of the plaza.

I think the main one to focus on is the proper east side, where there are massive holes where former houses used to be due to the mistakes of "Urban Renewal". Much of these are zoned R-1.5 or R-2.5 so building any sort of multi-unit structure isn't possible, even if it might be economically viable. Multiunit structures could be smaller footprint; townhomes, duplexes, rowhomes, Bungalow Courts, etc. But at the same time wouldn't tower over the neighborhoods.

There is a social/political divide issue with focusing on the east side though. If you try to create proper urban housing there you get labeled with gentrification. Of course, the other problem is there is already a major gentrifying exodus (not sure what to call it) where families on the east side are abandoning the area for the low-level suburbs. Wanting better schools and what was traditionally out of reach for those on the east side (yards, 'modern' housing, grocery stores, etc) residents are moving to Raytown, Grandview and Lee's Summit. So, you have a situation where people are leaving but those coming in are rejected. This creates a completely dead area. And if people do decide to stay and build housing, they want the housing they see from their friends in Lee's Summit, totally non-urban. My guess is the demand from more built up urban areas like Hyde Park and Brookside will eventually break into those areas en masse. It will be portrayed as a pushing out of minorities when, in fact, it will be a decades long exodus that left a vacuum filled by urban demand.

[Midtownkid]

Anyway back to Austin, I was just saying that policies such as ending minimum parking requirements, eliminating single-family zoning and allowing up to three homes on each residential lot have helped encourage development which resulted in a small decrease in housing costs.

I don't see either of the policies going well with Kansas City.

Eliminate parking requirements for things in the loop and along the streetcar...maybe. Outside of that area? Doesn't make much sense for us. People will just skip doing stuff in the city and drive to where they can park.

Eliminate single-family zoning? Allow for 3-dwellings on a residential lot? Man that would change the character of the city. I don't think for the better. We live in a part of the country where we have space! Let's allow ourselves to enjoy that. I'd rather see the east side fill in before we shove 3x as many people into our beautiful SFH neighborhoods.

This comment is why KC's infrastructure obligations will bankrupt the city in the coming years. 6100 linear miles of roads (likely more now) in a city of over 300 square miles. Population of just around 515,000. Not sustainable.

You need to increase density a shit ton to get to the point where things start to make sense. And by that, I mean doubling the population. Only way you're going to do that is if you up zone the entirety of the East Side and those "beautiful single-family home neighborhoods" in the oldest parts of the city. The current development trends up north would have to be changed at the planning department level to prevent winding roads and sprawling single-family neighborhoods that'll never produce enough property taxes to pay back the costs of building new roads and running new water, sewer and electrical to a green field site.

Doubling-down on sprawling neighborhoods because "we have the land" is an atrocious take. I'm not advocating for KC to become NYC, but I don't want it to continue down the path it's going. It's simply unsustainable.

I am not arguing against density or the need for it in many part of our city. I am arguing that simply making everything super dense will not help our city. We need to control where the density happens.

Our city has a terrible way of over-building and/or re-building areas that are already working well. If we aren't carful, we will lose what makes those areas attractive. Building new houses between every house in Country Club, Hyde Park, or Roanoke would not help our city. Some people want to live in the city while at the same time enjoy a nice yard and garden. In many cities, that is not a possibility. (at least without being extremely rich). We have a unique draw here with relatively affordable homes on relatively large lots.

I was responding to the idea of changing our established areas to allow 3 homes on one lot. Can you imagine what that would look like? We have space to build (within the 'urban' area). We have a million empty lots all over the city. I am arguing that we should fill those in, build towers along Main and Broadway, & build some new bungalow and townhome neighborhoods east of Troost. Do all that. Then by 2150, we ~might~ actually need to start encroaching upon our historic neighborhoods.

Yes, our new neighborhoods north and south could use better planning and more density. I'm not arguing for continued sprawl. I just want to preserve what makes a lot of people love living in KC: the gracious historic homes along wide boulevards with descent yards. You can't get that in NY or Chicago. If I want to live in a crowded city with no space, I probably won't choose to do that in KC. I choose KC because it is not overly crowded!

[aknowledgeableperson]

"Let's further lay the ground work by...
- Mandating new subdivisions resemble old neighborhoods down in the city. Have a mix of detached single-family, row homes, and small apartment buildings lining new streets that are laid out in a grid.
- Main avenues should automatically be higher-density instead of just strip malls with way too much parking.
- City-wide, cut back on parking requirements all around. Reform the commercial parking requirements to shrink the sizes of parking lots and reduce parking minimums for apartments to a maximum of 1:1.
- Incentivize strip-mall owners to subdivide their unused parking and land to create more housing, hospitality, and office spaces. These buildings don't need to be massive, but they should be decent enough sized to make this worth it. New gas stations and drive-thru joints should be looked down upon like the drain on society they are.
- Implement land value taxes in the urban core, and across the city, to prevent land speculation to force one's hand to develop or sell to someone who will. Let's return vacant buildings and land to productive usages."

Pipe dream

That’s the fucking spirit.

Policy got us into this mess, no reason to believe some tweaking can’t start to guide development trends in the opposite direction.

The point is you have to get the public behind these ideas to make it happen. And for now and the foreseeable future that ain't gonna happen, especially in KC.

[TheLastGentleman]

KC has so much empty space in the core that I’m not sure older neighborhoods, SFH or not, need to be on the chopping block quite yet. One issue I have with the more extreme corners of yimbyism is the desire to go for the jugular instead of filling in empty or undercooked areas first

[Highlander]

^ interesting considerations

KC has for 80+ years featured those "beautiful single-family neighborhoods" -- I believe we are discussing Brookside and "Country Club"/ Sunset Hill. For the first 40 years of existence, those same 'hoods had an excellent high school (KC Southwest). Not anymore. They also pay a significant tax burden.

They nevertheless have typical suburban maintenance needs. The KC stub road that Tomahawk (from Mission Hills/ Prairie Village) empties into is 63d Terrace. One long block uphill to Meyer Circle. This road, which I have traveled once probably every other day I am in KC, has Not Been Repaved since at least 1975. I remember dodging the same manhole dips from those days -- the same potholes are still there. 50 years without new asphalt.

I don't understand the (off-)cycles of KC maintenance. Perhaps it has to do with the big road mileage out in the county. But these high-tax neighborhoods have really been let down IMHO. Some streets do seem to get more attention. Ward Parkway itself gets repaved at least every third year. Same with Southwest Trafficway. Other parts of the same 'hoods not so much. (The bridge from WP to SW Tfwy over Brush Creek for example has been crumbling for 15 years).

We should be focusing on those older neighborhoods, they likely generate more revenue for the city than the greenfield in the northland ever will. This includes all of the east side as well as the neighborhoods you mention south of the plaza.

I think the main one to focus on is the proper east side, where there are massive holes where former houses used to be due to the mistakes of "Urban Renewal". Much of these are zoned R-1.5 or R-2.5 so building any sort of multi-unit structure isn't possible, even if it might be economically viable. Multiunit structures could be smaller footprint; townhomes, duplexes, rowhomes, Bungalow Courts, etc. But at the same time wouldn't tower over the neighborhoods.

Many of the areas on the east side of KC that are vacant lost their homes due to neglect. The derelict homes were demolished. KC has a very wide swath of poverty in its "urban core". Unfortunately, that swath of poverty comprises the majority of the urban core of Kansas city (that is where the area of Kansas south of the river has continuous and contiguous development whether commercial or residential without any major breaks - like the Big/Little Blue Rivers). If you look at at that contiguous area, in the KC metro, most of the middle class portion is in Kansas. Kansas City maintains a thin strip of middle class and higher incomes from Troost to State Line within that contiguous area. The remainder of KC's middle class is north of the river for most part, people pretty unattached from the core - but still demand services in their dispersed low density burbs.

I hate to sound callous but many of the improvements to KC that people list in this thread cannot happen without re-densification of the urban core and, more importantly, displacement and gentrification of poverty in the core by a more widespread middle and upper class within the city. For one thing, the school system will never change without that. KC lost a huge portion of its middle class to the burbs in the 60's through 90's, and I think its unrealistic to think the city can ever attain its former density and wealth without bringing a good portion of those people back into the urban core (or at least the contiguous part of the city). Sure, the northland is growing but that adds to the same sprawl, dispersal and economic inefficiency that makes it difficult for the city to fulfill its obligations now. We lag way behind most other cities in terms of the number of functioning middle class neighborhoods in the city itself - just take a look at what Denver or even sprawled out Houston and Dallas offer in that regard. While most other cities have been able to concentrate wealth in the city over the last 2-3 decades, KC has moved inexorably in the other direction.

[beautyfromashes]

I hate to sound callous but many of the improvements to KC that people list in this thread cannot happen without re-densification of the urban core and, more importantly, displacement and gentrification of poverty in the core by a more widespread middle and upper class within the city. For one thing, the school system will never change without that. KC lost a huge portion of its middle class to the burbs in the 60's through 90's, and I think its unrealistic to think the city can ever attain its former density and wealth without bringing a good portion of those people back into the urban core (or at least the contiguous part of the city). Sure, the northland is growing but that adds to the same sprawl, dispersal and economic inefficiency that makes it difficult for the city to fulfill its obligations now. We lag way behind most other cities in terms of the number of functioning middle class neighborhoods in the city itself - just take a look at what Denver or even sprawled out Houston and Dallas offer in that regard.

No political will for it. It's almost like they'd rather those areas die than develop but with gentrification.

[Cratedigger]

For such a terrible thread title this has been a very interesting discussion

[moderne]

From reading these comments it appears most are not aware of what is happening in the "near" east side, that is between Troost and 71 . Younger would be homeowners(white, black and anything else) priced out of other parts of the city are moving in. Some into flips, some by sweat equity. More and more new infill is happening even by normally suburban builders at prices that are too high for most first time homeowners. I do not think the SFH inner blocks need to be rezoned. There is plenty of space available on the arterials where there is already historic mid rises to be lots more mid rise to re-densify the area.