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^Very well written, and exactly right for the most part.
In what sense were the northern JoCo suburbs more closely tied to KCK than KCMO? Can you provide evidence of this? My understanding is that the NE JoCo suburbs were birthed before KCK was even developed to its southern edge. Which would mean that they were spillover from KCMO's southern development, not KCK's.
I like this, and I can relate to it. Although it's not really fair to Kansas City Kansans. When out and about, they will also say "I'm from Kansas City" without designating the state. The interesting wrinkle in this geographic problem is that, yes, people on the Missouri side don't want to be automatically associated with Kansas, but people in Wyandotte and Johnson counties don't necessarily want to, either. Not because they're ashamed of their state necessarily, but because people from other regions make certain assumptions about you if you say you're from Kansas. And virtually no one living in the KC metro area will fit those assumptions, mainly because they're living in a metro area, and not on a farm.
Even today, KCK's southern edge is not very well developed nor connected to JoCo suburbs. I just don't see how KCK could be considered anything other than a blue collar suburb that happens to have a more urban history than many newer suburbs. How many people even work in downtown KCK? Not many, especially now that the EPA has left. Most are county, state and a few fed government jobs left. It's just not a regional employment center outside the Fairfax industiral district.
Even today, KCK's southern edge is not very well developed nor connected to JoCo suburbs. I just don't see how KCK could be considered anything other than a blue collar suburb that happens to have a more urban history than many newer suburbs. How many people even work in downtown KCK? Not many, especially now that the EPA has left. Most are county, state and a few fed government jobs left. It's just not a regional employment center outside the Fairfax industiral district.
Right. Just like Blue Springs is not a suburb of Independence, and Olathe is not a suburb of Overland Park.
Even in metro areas with two central cities (like MLPS or DFW) I don't think people refer to the suburbs on the lesser side as "suburbs of St Paul" or "suburbs of Ft Worth" although I'm open to being proven wrong on that.
Either way, KCK is just not a central city of the metro the way St Paul or Ft Worth are. If our metro did have one of these, it would probably have to be Independence, since that city is actually older than KCMO. But its growth stopped so far short of KCMO's that it didn't work out that way.
Conclusion: KCMO is the only central city of the metro. Therefore, all metro municipalities are technically suburbs of KCMO. It doesn't matter that many of them existed before KCMO got big. As I stated before, some are actually older. But the point is that almost all of them would still be small towns if not for KCMO.
This doesn't mean you have to like KCMO. But it's a waste of time to pretend that it's not our central city.
Right. Just like Blue Springs is not a suburb of Independence, and Olathe is not a suburb of Overland Park.
Even in metro areas with two central cities (like MLPS or DFW) I don't think people refer to the suburbs on the lesser side as "suburbs of St Paul" or "suburbs of Ft Worth" although I'm open to being proven wrong on that.
Either way, KCK is just not a central city of the metro the way St Paul or Ft Worth are. If our metro did have one of these, it would probably have to be Independence, since that city is actually older than KCMO. But its growth stopped so far short of KCMO's that it didn't work out that way.
Conclusion: KCMO is the only central city of the metro. Therefore, all metro municipalities are technically suburbs of KCMO. It doesn't matter that many of them existed before KCMO got big. As I stated before, some are actually older. But the point is that almost all of them would still be small towns if not for KCMO.
This doesn't mean you have to like KCMO. But it's a waste of time to pretend that it's not our central city.
I have not looked that the numbers, but I would guess that the KU med area is a much larger regional employment center than Downtown KCK is. KU Med is actually more of an extension of Midtown KCMO, but since it's technically in Kansas, KU med may as well be in Johnson County for all practical purposes even though it's technically KCK. Lol, that was a mess of a post, but I'm sure you understood it.
Conclusion: KCMO is the only central city of the metro. Therefore, all metro municipalities are technically suburbs of KCMO. It doesn't matter that many of them existed before KCMO got big. As I stated before, some are actually older. But the point is that almost all of them would still be small towns if not for KCMO.
This doesn't mean you have to like KCMO. But it's a waste of time to pretend that it's not our central city.
Agreed. My only modification would be to observe that had the state line not existed, what we now know as Kansas City, Kan., would be part of Kansas City, Mo.
But can I throw a monkey wrench into the argument from core and satellite cities based on what I know about the region I now call home?
Let me do it by way of an observation on the KC metro as currently defined by the Census Bureau:
Why was it that, for many years, Leavenworth County, Kan., was not part of the metropolitan area, and Douglas County still isn't?
I think most of you should be able to answer this question.
Here's the reason: Leavenworth County had its own employment center in the form of the Federal penitentiary and Army base. Douglas County's analogue is the University of Kansas.
I know from my own youth that there were Kansas Citians - like my mother - who would travel to Lawrence in order to do work (in her case, pursue her master's in nursing) at KU. I would even head there to spend the occasional Saturday night at the home of a Pem-Day classmate who lived there.
Now, none of this would make any part of Greater Kansas City "suburbs" of either Leavenworth or Lawrence. But it does make both places "satellite cities" with their own commutersheds. Were there municipalities adjacent to them - as there is in Leavenworth's case with Lansing - I think it would be fair to call those adjacent communities "suburbs" of the satellite city.
The best examples I can come up with in the Philadelphia MSA are Wilmington, Del., and Chester, Pa.
Wilmington, the largest city in the state of Delaware, has its own commutershed from surrounding New Castle County and parts of Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania that are immediately adjacent to the Delaware state line.
There are a number of communities that border on Chester - the boroughs of Brookhaven, Parkside, Trainer and Upland plus Chester Township - that clearly function(ed, given the decline of Chester's economy) as "suburbs" of that industrial community, the oldest (and now poorest) in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This despite the city's location in a county where most residents who work outside it do so in Philadelphia.
Because those next-door-neighbor cities (counting Fort Worth in this number despite the roughly 30 miles and two incorporated cities that separate its downtown from Dallas') are too close to have their own identifiable commutersheds, they take a back seat to the larger core city. So do KCK and Independence here. But put enough distance between a smaller city and the core city and you stand a good chance of developing a satellite.
Agreed. My only modification would be to observe that had the state line not existed, what we now know as Kansas City, Kan., would be part of Kansas City, Mo.
I think you're probably right. Although it's very hard to guess how things might have happened, under different circumstances.
Note that North Kansas City is an independent municipality. KCMO, as a municipality, didn't bother expanding to the north for a long time, because it was much more natural to expand to the south and east where there were no geographic obstacles. Since there is also a geographic obstacle to the west, namely the Kansas River, it's possible that KCK might have developed autonomously like NKC, albeit under a different name (perhaps "West Kansas City"). But at least giving it a different name would have helped avoid some of the confusion we deal with.
I think you're probably right. Although it's very hard to guess how things might have happened, under different circumstances.
Note that North Kansas City is an independent municipality. KCMO, as a municipality, didn't bother expanding to the north for a long time, because it was much more natural to expand to the south and east where there were no geographic obstacles. Since there is also a geographic obstacle to the west, namely the Kansas River, it's possible that KCK might have developed autonomously like NKC, albeit under a different name (perhaps "West Kansas City"). But at least giving it a different name would have helped avoid some of the confusion we deal with.
In which case, place the blame squarely on the people who engineered the merger of the cities of Wyandotte, Armourdale, Argentine, Rosedale and Old Kansas City (yes, that was the name of the small municipality located on the Kansas side of the West Bottoms), Kan., in 1885 or thereabouts.
They opted to capitalize on the building boom then taking place on the east side of the state line by giving the new municipality the same name as its next-door neighbor.
It's true that there's lots of farmland and agriculture in Missouri - and it's also true that there's both heavy and extractive industry in Kansas. (In the case of heavy industry, Wichita probably is better known for it outside the state thanks to its role as a hub for the general aviation industry.) Yet the image of Kansas in the popular imagination is more thoroughgoingly rural (think "Wizard of Oz") than Missouri's is (think the Robert Altman film "Kansas City," an homage to the director's hometown in its Jazz Age heyday). That IMO does influence even the way Kansans describe the Kansas City area when outside it.
I hear more about crime in Chicago than I do crime in Kansas City on the TV news on those rare occasions when I watch it. Online, the difference is even starker: I'd have to go to KC-specific media sites to find news about crime there, while I've definitely seen stories about violent crime spiraling out of control in Chicago in a number of places.
If people are basing their image of Kansas on a fictional movie from 1939, they are idiots. Might as well base all images of Missouri on 1870s and 1880s Missouri since Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were based on Hannibal, Missouri.
I don't describe Kansas City in terms of its jazz history when I'm outside of Kansas City. Wouldn't have even occurred to me. Because no one outside of Kansas City really cares.
There is more crime in Chicago than there is in Kansas City, so that makes sense. But there is still a LOT of national news that spotlights Kansas City (including articles that point out that it has one of the highest crime rates in the nation) and St. Louis (in large part because of Michael Brown/Ferguson). So the image of Kansas City and Missouri nationwide is not so great.
I don't describe Kansas City in terms of its jazz history when I'm outside of Kansas City. Wouldn't have even occurred to me. Because no one outside of Kansas City really cares.
The American Jazz Museum may not be the tourist draw its backers envisioned it to be, but trust me, if you like jazz, you care. It's not my fault that you don't, or don't appear to.
It's like barbecue, and you can't tell me that no one outside Kansas City cares about barbecue.
The American Jazz Museum may not be the tourist draw its backers envisioned it to be, but trust me, if you like jazz, you care. It's not my fault that you don't, or don't appear to.
It's like barbecue, and you can't tell me that no one outside Kansas City cares about barbecue.
Some people like jazz. Some people like barbecue. They don't especially know or care about Kansas City jazz or BBQ.
If people are basing their image of Kansas on a fictional movie from 1939, they are idiots. Might as well base all images of Missouri on 1870s and 1880s Missouri since Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were based on Hannibal, Missouri.
Both of the films I mentioned are fictional, and the Altman film was set in the early 1930s - on the eve of a municipal election in 1934, to be specific. (That too was a bit of historical license, as city elections then took place in the same year as the national ones.) The name "Pendergast" was never uttered by anyone in the film, which probably didn't register with most of those who saw it, but anyone familiar with the city's history would have known who the machine politician whose wife was kidnapped in the film was connected to.
But past or present, fact or fiction, I challenge you to find a work of popular culture that portrays the Sunflower State as urban. And no, Evan Connell's novels "Mrs. Bridge" and "Mr. Bridge" don't count, nor does the 1980 film based on both books. While exactly where in the city's silk-stocking precincts the Bridges lived is not specified and their country club had to have been in Mission Hills, the couple are clearly identified as Kansas Citians, and well-to-do Kansas Citians sure didn't live in Wyandotte County. (IOW, had they lived in Mission Hills, I think Connell would have said as much.) That would make it one of several cultural works that are set in or celebrate Missouri's cities, including "Goin' to Kansas City," "St. Louis Blues," "Meet Me in St. Louis" and even the country song "Kansas City Lights." By contrast, ISTR the "Wichita Lineman" worked for "the county" and spent his time on the road rather than in the city named in the song.
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