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That said, KC overall seems to be doing better than St. Louis. Both downtowns are somewhat stagnant, and perhaps the next building boom will be residential, but there needs to be an attraction to live downtown in both. I understand there are efforts in both in this regard, but until projects actually break ground, I wonder.
"Until projects actually break ground"?
Downtown KC's had one in place for a few years now. I wrote about it three summers ago:
Since then, the second high-rise apartment tower associated with this project has been completed.
(There are three sidebars associated with this story: one covers the 18th and Vine Jazz District, the second the downtown starter streetcar line, and the third is a personal reflection on the city I grew up in and the one I returned to to research that feature.)
Quote:
The airports are another issue. St. Louis was once a hub for TWA, and then American, but no longer. KC was to be a TWA hub, but that ended quickly as the airport was poorly designed for today's aviation. I understand there are plans for a complete rebuild of MCI, but I doubt it will become a hub anytime soon.
KCI looks like it does because TWA insisted on its design. Kansas City's hometown airline thought that "drive to your gate" was the future of airports.
It didn't quite work out the way TWA thought it would once it opened in 1973, and the airline asked the city to make some major modifications to it. The city, citing the high cost of the airport it built, refused to make them. TWA then moved its hub cross-state to Lambert Airport.
Cool, I'm happy for this development in KCMO. Again, I have a strong comparison structure to my hometown, Seattle, so I am perhaps coming at this from an unfair comparison.
I do understand the KC airport situation. I think the new plans for KC airport are right on target. Build a terminal that is user-friendly for now, with potential for major expansion. That is the best plan right now.
While both cities have "good bones", you just can feel the former "bigness" of St. Louis more than KCMO. I won't directly compare it to Detroit, because they are very different. But one similar trait is you feel that these cities were once very important in the country.
While both cities have "good bones", you just can feel the former "bigness" of St. Louis more than KCMO. I won't directly compare it to Detroit, because they are very different. But one similar trait is you feel that these cities were once very important in the country.
1950 city population:
St. Louis 857K, KCMO 457K, (Detroit 1.85M)
1960 city population:
St. Louis 750K, KCMO 476K, (Detroit 1.67M)
1970 city population
St. Louis 622K, KCMO 507K, (Detroit 1.51M)
1980 city population
St. Louis 453K, KCMO 448K, (Detroit 1.2M)
1990 city population
St. Louis 397K, KCMO 435K, (Detroit 1.03M)
2000 city population
St. Louis 347K, KCMO 442K, (Detroit 945K)
2010 city population
St. Louis 319K, KCMO 460K, (Detroit 714K)
Go further back, to 1900, and while St. Louis was still bigger, Kansas City was one of the nation's 20 largest cities.
This remnant of its relative importance can be found on checks drawn on banks based there.
In the top right corner of every paper check, the old bank numbering system set up when the Federal Reserve System was created in 1914 appears.
That number takes the form of a fraction with a hyphenated numerator. The number before the hyphen denotes the city or region where the bank is based. The 20 largest cities got their own number based on their population rank, while the rest of the country got a regional identifier of two digits.
An "18" before the hyphen indicates a bank based in Kansas City. (For purposes of comparison, "3" indicates a bank based where I live now, Philadelphia.)
These numbers are no longer used to route checks; they've been replaced by the nine-digit American Bankers Association routing number - the first set of magnetically coded numbers at the bottom left of your check.
Go further back, to 1900, and while St. Louis was still bigger, Kansas City was one of the nation's 20 largest cities.
This remnant of its relative importance can be found on checks drawn on banks based there.
In the top right corner of every paper check, the old bank numbering system set up when the Federal Reserve System was created in 1914 appears.
That number takes the form of a fraction with a hyphenated numerator. The number before the hyphen denotes the city or region where the bank is based. The 20 largest cities got their own number based on their population rank, while the rest of the country got a regional identifier of two digits.
An "18" before the hyphen indicates a bank based in Kansas City. (For purposes of comparison, "3" indicates a bank based where I live now, Philadelphia.)
These numbers are no longer used to route checks; they've been replaced by the nine-digit American Bankers Association routing number - the first set of magnetically coded numbers at the bottom left of your check.
I think the history here is important, so thanks for that. Yes, both St. Louis and Kansas City were important in the early 20th century.
What is interesting to me is that while St. Louis has steadily declined in population from 1950 to today, KC has stayed relatively steady. (The Detroit example is just for comparison purposes, but one could argue that both Detroit and St. Louis suffered population loss at about the same rate, unfortunately.)
My main point is you can drive around Detroit and St. Louis and really feel the loss of a "great" city, more than Kansas City. This actually is good news for Kansas City at the end of the day.
I think the history here is important, so thanks for that. Yes, both St. Louis and Kansas City were important in the early 20th century.
What is interesting to me is that while St. Louis has steadily declined in population from 1950 to today, KC has stayed relatively steady. (The Detroit example is just for comparison purposes, but one could argue that both Detroit and St. Louis suffered population loss at about the same rate, unfortunately.)
My main point is you can drive around Detroit and St. Louis and really feel the loss of a "great" city, more than Kansas City. This actually is good news for Kansas City at the end of the day.
You do understand that the reason KC’s population “remained relatively stable” during a period in which STL declined is because KC annexed more than 5 times its physical area between 1940-1970, right? Look it up. Its original city boundaries declined like most other aging cities during that period- the growth was primarily in suburban, semi-rural and straight up rural areas that are now considered KC proper. St. Louis’s boundaries haven’t changed since 1876. If STL annexed the same expansive area, there is no DOUBT it would have a lot more people and density from border to border.
You do understand that the reason KC’s population “remained relatively stable” during a period in which STL declined is because KC annexed more than 5 times its physical area between 1940-1970, right? Look it up. Its original city boundaries declined like most other aging cities during that period- the growth was primarily in suburban, semi-rural and straight up rural areas that are now considered KC proper. St. Louis’s boundaries haven’t changed since 1876. If STL annexed the same expansive area, there is no DOUBT it would have a lot more people and density from border to border.
Fair enough, but these are the numbers that are presented today. You can explain away population increase by annexation, but it doesn't change the city totals as they present currently.
Fair enough, but these are the numbers that are presented today. You can explain away population increase by annexation, but it doesn't change the city totals as they present currently.
Your statement is comparing apples to oranges and is therefore only meaningful if raw numbers with no context are spewed to people too ignorant to understand them. You make it sound as if KC didn’t suffer massive abandonment itself. Any city could fudge its numbers by adding MASSIVE amounts of land to its boundaries. The only reason KC was able to do that so easily is because a HUGE chunk of the annexed land was totally undeveloped and there was no one to oppose the action. St. Louis, on the other hand, is MUCH older and more developed and was landlocked by established suburbs that have resisted annexation since the borders were closed in the 19th century. These are two dramatically different cities and governments and urban histories. Face value numbers are so misleading and anyone knowledgeable about cities and urban evolution should know better than to post such nebulous and inconsistent information without a disclaimer.
Yet, city populations are based on inherent annexations. You can indeed stop the clock when cities annex, but it does change the total population of the city today, which is what I am reporting on. Not "nebulous and inconsistent". Just reporting real numbers. Annexations are real, and they offer real population growth to cities who choose to annex. I am not sure what your argument here is.
Your statement is comparing apples to oranges and is therefore only meaningful if raw numbers with no context are spewed to people too ignorant to understand them. You make it sound as if KC didn’t suffer massive abandonment itself. Any city could fudge its numbers by adding MASSIVE amounts of land to its boundaries. The only reason KC was able to do that so easily is because a HUGE chunk of the annexed land was totally undeveloped and there was no one to oppose the action. St. Louis, on the other hand, is MUCH older and more developed and was landlocked by established suburbs that have resisted annexation since the borders were closed in the 19th century. These are two dramatically different cities and governments and urban histories. Face value numbers are so misleading and anyone knowledgeable about cities and urban evolution should know better than to post such nebulous and inconsistent information without a disclaimer.
I think I made the same points you made in some other posts earlier.
The middle of the older built-up portion of Kansas City (pre-WW2 city limits: Missouri River on the north (save for Harlem and Municipal Airport north of it), the state line on the west, the Blue River on the east and 79th Street on the south) has emptied out just as much, and as dramatically, as St. Louis' northwest side or about half the territory within the Detroit city limits. I took a photo for one of my sidebars to that Next City feature on the Power & Light District from a rise at 22nd and Woodland. There were absolutely no structures standing in the foreground of the photo save one. I would have been standing in someone's house had I stood where I stood in 1974.
As I think I also said, if KC were still constrained to those city limits, its population today might well be about what it was in 1900.
The tragedy in St. Louis was that the damage was self-inflicted. But you can't really blame the city fathers for not knowing that the 20th century would bring with it rapid suburban expansion when they chose to separate St. Louis City from St. Louis County in 1871. I understand that people still talk of undoing "the Great Divorce" today.
Kansas City did annex some small incorporated communities over the course of about a century: Westport in 1898, Marlborough in 1944. But you are right that most of the sizable ones did not permit themselves to be annexed, hence the square cutout north of the river (Gladstone and the Oaks Villages) and that dent on the east side where Independence and Raytown intrude.
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