Don't go east of Troost!!! (Kansas City, St. Louis: condo, crime, houses)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So I was reading this thread about KC and what is it with everybody in KC saying "don't go east of troost"?
Really? Because there are probably about 600,000 people in Jackson County alone that live east of troost.
This is just a terrible thing for people to say. Troost is not even that bad of a street. I know I have never thought twice about driving down it or in most areas of the east side of kcmo. There are pockets of areas one might avoid, but wow, everything in kcmo east of troost is not some sort of war zone, especially much of troost iteself. Same goes for areas around Swope Park.
What's it going to take for KC area people to stop saying "don't go east of troost"? Do people understand they are describing a huge area of the city when they say that? How is the popularity of Brookside, Union Hill, Hyde Park, Volker etc ever going to evolve into a larger area with such a barrier?
I know this Troost dividing line goes way back to the civil rights days and that's fine. But is there any way to correct this problem now?
In Chicago they say, 'don't go west of Western'. In LA, it's 'don't go to Compton or South Central'. In STL, it's N of Delmar. Many cities have that 'bad area' some will say stay away from. Don't think it will change even though there are many parts of the area that may be doable.
I have no problem saying 'don't go E of Troost' at least in certain areas. Depends on who you're telling. Reality is though, 5 zipcodes E of Troost tend to have over half of the cities homicides. Another 1/3 of remaining is in other E Side zipcodes.
Is fair to tell someone to stay away from really bad areas but can be unfair for the parts of that area that aren't as bad.
Can't ask this question just to KC though. Many cities have dividing lines.
In Chicago they say, 'don't go west of Western'.
Can't ask this question just to KC though. Many cities have dividing lines.
Yes, of course. In DC it's east of the Anacostia or even worse Georgia Ave. which apparently even includes PG County, which combined is well over a million people.
Don't lie to them Troost is terrible. There's gunshots every other night if not every night. The folks who live around here are immune to it. There is more than just a few mental patients running loose on the streets. There is drug dealers and thugs. There's ladies of the night too. People walk around casing vehicles. There's plenty of cars just parked yet so many people walking. The area is terrible and the residents make it that way by condoning the horrendous behaviors. The police will respond but it never makes the morning news. The city doesn't care to improve the situations. Don't lie to new comers saying its ok. There's no profitable businesses in the area to make tourists come either. Stay on the plaza or go to KS. Everyone near Kansas City suburbs know this area is bad.
So I was reading this thread about KC and what is it with everybody in KC saying "don't go east of troost"?
Really? Because there are probably about 600,000 people in Jackson County alone that live east of troost.
This is just a terrible thing for people to say. Troost is not even that bad of a street. I know I have never thought twice about driving down it or in most areas of the east side of kcmo. There are pockets of areas one might avoid, but wow, everything in kcmo east of troost is not some sort of war zone, especially much of troost iteself. Same goes for areas around Swope Park.
What's it going to take for KC area people to stop saying "don't go east of troost"? Do people understand they are describing a huge area of the city when they say that? How is the popularity of Brookside, Union Hill, Hyde Park, Volker etc ever going to evolve into a larger area with such a barrier?
I know this Troost dividing line goes way back to the civil rights days and that's fine. But is there any way to correct this problem now?
I agree. Also, the 18th and Vine Jazz District is located east of Troost Ave., and it's one of Kansas City's important cultural neighborhoods. Really, not every part of Troost is bad.
Spent plenty time around Troost while my wife was going to college at Rockhurst, was up there almost every weekend. With the exceptions of the Fraternity Houses East of Troost, and one stop to pick up an engine for a rebuild I never really went East of there. My wife used to cut through backstreets to get towards I-70 and I advised her against it...she finally wised up a bit when a friend of hers was almost carjacked at a redlight in the middle of the day.
When my wife lived on Harrison she'd walk across the street to campus, often at night for graduate classes and I was never a big fan of that, but at least the walk was short, and she'd always be within an ear shot of Rockhurst Police. While living on Harrison, I can remember one instance where we came home to find police officers running up and down the block, I stopped one of the officers to find out what was going on and he explained that some idiot was running around with an AK-47 so they were advising all the residents to "stay inside!".
My other favorite moment during college was eating pizza on the floor of her dorm room while we listened to a "battle" outside the window. It was a few blocks away, but gunfire continued for almost 10 minutes before you could finally hear police sirens. Started off with semi-automatic pistols, then shotguns, followed by fully automatic weapons...So yeh, east of Troost is Kabul...but it's not that far off.
Just what we need, more hyperbole about hearsay and incidents that "almost" happened on Troost.
My 60+ year old mother-in-law has lived by herself east of Troost near Rockhurst for nearly 20 years now and has never had an indecent and never feels afraid. She rarely locks her front door. She loves her neighborhood.
I live just a couple blocks from Troost and I am never afraid to walk, bike, or drive down it.
Location: Unlike most on CD, I'm not afraid to give my location: Milwaukee, WI.
1,789 posts, read 4,152,345 times
Reputation: 4092
Quote:
Originally Posted by WiseOwlSaysHoot
My 60+ year old mother-in-law has lived by herself east of Troost near Rockhurst for nearly 20 years now and has never had an indecent and never feels afraid.
Don't lie to them Troost is terrible. There's gunshots every other night if not every night. The folks who live around here are immune to it. There is more than just a few mental patients running loose on the streets. There is drug dealers and thugs. There's ladies of the night too. People walk around casing vehicles. There's plenty of cars just parked yet so many people walking. The area is terrible and the residents make it that way by condoning the horrendous behaviors. The police will respond but it never makes the morning news. The city doesn't care to improve the situations. Don't lie to new comers saying its ok. There's no profitable businesses in the area to make tourists come either. Stay on the plaza or go to KS. Everyone near Kansas City suburbs know this area is bad.
This. I see this in many different forums here on C-D, not just this one. People constantly prop up areas that are downright dangerous, with many of the following statements: "oh it just depends on the street" "oh not this little tiny neighborhood in here" "it's not THAT bad, just make sure you don't go out at night, board up your house, have 911 on speed dial, and don't make eye contact with obvious sketchy looking people".
The thing is, why should any person moving to the KC area have to even worry about doing all that? Granted yes crime can happen anywhere, but would you seriously recommend someone live on the east side of KC, when there are tons of much safer areas all throughout the metro?? Of course there's the copout "well crime can happen anywhere". Of course it can, as the occasional kidnapping such as Kelsey Smith points out. But you ******* whiners make it out like Overland Park is as dangerous as KC's east side, which is a complete farce.
Because of the bad areas, KC is ranked #9 most dangerous. Without KC being able to dilute its crime stats by having annexed nearly the entire freaking state it feels like, it would be #1 for sure if KC had a more compact urban boundary kind of like St. Louis (which is #1). The only time I could ever justify living in a somewhat dangerous area, is possibly in southern California, where the only remotely affordable areas are at least sketch.
The truth is Troost is not the boundary. Holmes is, as Troost itself is really dangerous. I always tell people don't go east of Holmes within the 435/MO river boundaries. While UMKC itself isn't all that dangerous, when I went there, every week there would be campus email reports of students getting mugged at the Go Chicken Go or other business on Troost. Students went there because there were no cheap safe options for dining nearby. When I wanted something other than that nasty Einstein Bros, Chick-fil-a, Qdoba or Chipotle on Main, I often had to drive fairly deep into JoCo for more options, rather than take my life into my own hands at the fast food joints east of campus. Sorry, Kin Lin is the worst restaurant I've ever been to, of any type. Muddy's was pretty cool though while it was there.
The people that recommend unsafe areas either 1. are from there and have memories of when the place actually was good or 2. bought into these neighborhoods thinking it was a "bargain". The problem with #2 is, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
I am for once actually offended here, kcmo you are a troll, end of story. I am offended because for one, my mother worked like crazy for many years to escape crime like this. She grew up in what is now the worst part of KCK, and while attending UMKC, lived in a house around 55th and Holmes. She had her house broken into at least four times in a span of two years. She worked like crazy and I grew up in a home in Lenexa that in the 20 years we have lived there, our entire neighborhood has had a grand total of one break-in. And that was the relatively crappier part of Lenexa. As for myself, I graduated engineering school at UMKC and now have a good career where I can live on my own in a similarly safe area.
This will be my last post in this forum. I've kept quiet against all the trolling for awhile now, but I just had to rant this time. I don't care, in fact, I wish the moderators would ban me from posting, as clearly I must be a heretic or something. The entire purpose of the KC subforum is to promote not only the liberal agenda, but midwest mediocrity. JoCo attempts to fight against both, and no duh it gets slammed in every single thread here.
This. I see this in many different forums here on C-D, not just this one. People constantly prop up areas that are downright dangerous, with many of the following statements: "oh it just depends on the street" "oh not this little tiny neighborhood in here" "it's not THAT bad, just make sure you don't go out at night, board up your house, have 911 on speed dial, and don't make eye contact with obvious sketchy looking people".
The thing is, why should any person moving to the KC area have to even worry about doing all that? Granted yes crime can happen anywhere, but would you seriously recommend someone live on the east side of KC, when there are tons of much safer areas all throughout the metro?? Of course there's the copout "well crime can happen anywhere". Of course it can, as the occasional kidnapping such as Kelsey Smith points out. But you ******* whiners make it out like Overland Park is as dangerous as KC's east side, which is a complete farce.
Because of the bad areas, KC is ranked #9 most dangerous. Without KC being able to dilute its crime stats by having annexed nearly the entire freaking state it feels like, it would be #1 for sure if KC had a more compact urban boundary kind of like St. Louis (which is #1). The only time I could ever justify living in a somewhat dangerous area, is possibly in southern California, where the only remotely affordable areas are at least sketch.
The truth is Troost is not the boundary. Holmes is, as Troost itself is really dangerous. I always tell people don't go east of Holmes within the 435/MO river boundaries. While UMKC itself isn't all that dangerous, when I went there, every week there would be campus email reports of students getting mugged at the Go Chicken Go or other business on Troost. Students went there because there were no cheap safe options for dining nearby. When I wanted something other than that nasty Einstein Bros, Chick-fil-a, Qdoba or Chipotle on Main, I often had to drive fairly deep into JoCo for more options, rather than take my life into my own hands at the fast food joints east of campus. Sorry, Kin Lin is the worst restaurant I've ever been to, of any type. Muddy's was pretty cool though while it was there.
The people that recommend unsafe areas either 1. are from there and have memories of when the place actually was good or 2. bought into these neighborhoods thinking it was a "bargain". The problem with #2 is, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
I am for once actually offended here, kcmo you are a troll, end of story. I am offended because for one, my mother worked like crazy for many years to escape crime like this. She grew up in what is now the worst part of KCK, and while attending UMKC, lived in a house around 55th and Holmes. She had her house broken into at least four times in a span of two years. She worked like crazy and I grew up in a home in Lenexa that in the 20 years we have lived there, our entire neighborhood has had a grand total of one break-in. And that was the relatively crappier part of Lenexa. As for myself, I graduated engineering school at UMKC and now have a good career where I can live on my own in a similarly safe area.
This will be my last post in this forum. I've kept quiet against all the trolling for awhile now, but I just had to rant this time. I don't care, in fact, I wish the moderators would ban me from posting, as clearly I must be a heretic or something. The entire purpose of the KC subforum is to promote not only the liberal agenda, but midwest mediocrity. JoCo attempts to fight against both, and no duh it gets slammed in every single thread here.
Much of your post is brilliant. But toward the end, once you started talking about having to go to JoCo for restaurants, it was downhill from there with an unnecessary personal attack and hysteria.
Your opinion, which is obviously shaped by your past experience, is completely valid when you suggest folks go overboard when countering the "east of Troost is dangerous" rhetoric. I very much agree. People do go overboard in regard to many things when countering them. However, I do understand where they are coming from. I understand their side. Personally, I teeter totter on the issue a bit - as I do on many issues, which can be confusing - but at least I can see things from both sides.
As far as restaurants - dude, I think you need to learn the city and how to navigate it a bit better. There are all kinds of places to eat in the city. Tons of places. They may not pop out and be as obvious as the signature cartoonish buildings in the suburbs, but they are there. The city may just take a bit more sophistication to navigate. And, oh, you might have to park and physically walk in somewhere without the convenience of a driveway - God forbid!
All that said, I'm curious. I'm from KCK. In which part did your mother grow up that, in your opinion, is the worst part?
And, dude, the user 'kcmo' is one of the best Kansas City contributors on all of the web.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
really?
