What Do You Hate About Kansas City (St. Louis, St. Joseph: insurance, employment)

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by TabulaRasa

You've been to NE Johnson Country's more working class communities, right?

I've lived MO side and KS side, and if you picked me up and blindfolded me and dropped me off on a random neighborhood street near downtown Mission (where I've lived) or a random neighborhood street near downtown Lee's Summit (where I've also lived), if not for auto license plates, it wouldn't be obvious at a glance which state I was in.

Really, you'll find a heck of a lot more by way of McMansion-style development in various annexations of Lee's Summit than you will anywhere in Mission.

Mission is tiny when compared to most of JoCo and most people that visit or work in JoCo only see the newer sprawl, which is everything south of about 103rd. And there is a pretty significant difference between Downtown Mission and Downtown LS. LS feels much more like a real historic downtown while mission just feels like an older commercial corridor. I get what you are saying though. Johnson County has lots area areas that are not mcmansion sprawl.

I always find is funny that people assume all the mcmansions are in JoCo. The Northland north of about 72nd St is exactly the same as JoCo south of 435. Much of Eastern Jackson county is also full of mcmansions.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I know that there are working-class communities in Johnson County, especially along its northernmost tier next to Wyandotte County. Mission, Merriam, Shawnee's northern half, and Roeland Park especially.

But on the whole, JoCo's more affluent than eastern Jackson County. McMansions in Lee's Summit? Okay. I'd be stunned to learn that Raytown has them, though. Independence, the former county seat, struck me as very middle-middle class, along the lines of the Northland, when I was growing up. Has that changed?

OTOneH, I suspect that Ruskin Heights could pass for a good chunk of Overland Park appearance-wise. OTOther, find me eastern KC's answer to Mission Hills, or Leawood, or even Fairway. It's those latter communities that set JoCo apart in the public perception - and in the region's socioeconomic reality too.

Independence has some pretty affluent areas near the border of Lee's Summit and Blue Springs. But yea, it's mostly a very working class and modest suburb. Lee's Summit is full of huge homes along the 470 corridor and south of Colbern Road (both sides of 50). The sprawl in Lee's Summit along 50 towards Warrensburg is more track housing stuff, new but a bit lower end. Blue Springs has some really nice and huge homes that I don't think most people know about. A lot of Chiefs and Royals have lived in areas of Blue Springs.

[lepoisson]

I'm a big fan of KC, but one thing I do strongly dislike about the city is that a good chunk of the city is really ghetto. It's really annoying when you are trying to find a rental because one street will be good, then the next one will be super sketchy.

Also, the MO side suburbs are kind of lame compared to the KS side.

[westender]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Maybe all that was also the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement. But I didn't feel like I didn't belong there, even if Gov. Warren Hearnes sent the National Guard there in 1968 when we were torching 35th and Prospect. And I remember walking into the J.C. Nichols Company offices in high school and complaining to Barbara Barickman that the changes JCN was making at the time were taking away "my Plaza." "There's still The Landing," was her response. Yeah, right. (And we shopped there too. It had a pretty nice restaurant, a Macy's, a Chasnoff, a branch of Adler's, and Eddie Jacobson's men's store - Jacobson was the business partner in Harry Truman's unsuccessful haberdashery.)

Mrs. B is doing well btw. Saw her at Village Church a few Sundays ago when I was in KC. Just an FYI in terms of posting about living people by name.

I think you and I share similar perspectives about the Plaza -- although I may be a few years younger. I'm in my 40s and attended SME rather than Pem-Day/ Pembroke Hill.

The giant mural which was on the wall of that JC Nichols office is available in poster form. It is so offensive to be almost laugh-out-loud funny. Its depiction of the Kansas City prewar milieu always reminds me of those two Mr. and Mrs. Bridge books by Evan Connell (another MH kid, sadly and recently gone).

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by westender

Mrs. B is doing well btw. Saw her at Village Church a few Sundays ago when I was in KC. Just an FYI in terms of posting about living people by name.

I think you and I share similar perspectives about the Plaza -- although I may be a few years younger. I'm in my 40s and attended SME rather than Pem-Day/ Pembroke Hill.

The giant mural which was on the wall of that JC Nichols office is available in poster form. It is so offensive to be almost laugh-out-loud funny. Its depiction of the Kansas City prewar milieu always reminds me of those two Mr. and Mrs. Bridge books by Evan Connell (another MH kid, sadly and recently gone).

1) So noted. Glad to hear she's doing OK. Her son Jamie was PCD '75. I'm '76, so yes, I've got a few years on you.

2) I'd love to have a poster of that mural. Do they also have one of the map that showed the Country Club District with all the streetcar lines?

3) I read "Mr. Bridge" but not "Mrs. Bridge" in high school. I did, however, see the movie based on both books.

[westender]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

1) So noted. Glad to hear she's doing OK. Her son Jamie was PCD '75. I'm '76, so yes, I've got a few years on you.

2) I'd love to have a poster of that mural. Do they also have one of the map that showed the Country Club District with all the streetcar lines?

3) I read "Mr. Bridge" but not "Mrs. Bridge" in high school. I did, however, see the movie based on both books.

Small world. They lived across the street from us as kids. The Merchant-Ivory film (about which I have many stories while it was filming in 1989) takes a bit of liberty with the books. But the way Evan Connell wrote -- those short vignettes -- kind of forced the screenwriter (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who btw wrote a great book about the Raj "Heat and Dust") to flesh out the dialog.

The poster reproduction of that mural is available online at the following link:

Link HERE

[westender]

Here is another link that doesn't require authentication (and you can buy a print of it!):

Map of the Country Club District (Kansas City, Missouri) - David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by westender

Here is another link that doesn't require authentication (and you can buy a print of it!):

Map of the Country Club District (Kansas City, Missouri) - David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

Yep, that's the one!

Even though it bears a 1930 copyright, some of the information besides the streets is a little off. "Jewish Memorial Hospital" (where I was born) had that name while it was being built, but it opened in 1929 as Menorah Hospital. Work would not begin on the building that houses what we now rightly call the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art until 1931.

There are several funny and curious references on this map. "Country Club Car Line - for the 80 percent"? Looking down our noses at mass transit riders, are we?

Also, that "I think a stadium should come first" on the "Site of the proposed University of Kansas City" (which opened in 1933).

Apropos of nothing, I attended William Rockhill Nelson School from kindergarten to 6th grade. (Mom wanted me to get the best education she could get for me, so applied to the Kansas City (Mo.) School District for an out-of-district transfer as I approached kindergarten age.) In retrospect, given my career interest - and where I had my first paying job in the field - this was karmic.

"Safeguarded by the most scientific protective restrictions known." Some of that "science" was mere prejudice.

"...studied by the foremost city planning authorities in the world." Probably true. Though the family endowed it, it's probably fitting that the Urban Land Institute's highest national honor for "visionaries in urban development" bears Jesse Clyde's name:

J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development | Urban Land Institute

Winners are referred to as "Nichols Laureates," and there's a seminar attached to the prize, held annually at the Nelson-Atkins.

Thanks for the link. I'd really like a poster-sized version of this, but at that price, I'll probably have to drop strong hints to someone or take up a collection.

[8won6]

-transplants complaining about Kansas City. example: people from small crappy towns in mid Missouri/Kansas move to KC then complain that it's not New York. They move to NY/Chi/LA....fail...move back to KC...act like they love it here all of a sudden.


-Gentrification. Grew up east of troost my whole life. Now with all the recent hipsters/ younger millenians all wanting to live plaza to rivermarket corrider...those that can't fit there or cant afford to live there spill over in the black neighborhoods and drive the prices up. Funny thing is now I live in Indep because I found a cheap apartment there. People should read about J.C. Nichols and how these HOA's would make sure blacks who could afford to leave poorer neighrborhoods were blocked from living in certain areas.


-People complaining about how boring it is here....any place is what you make it. See my first entry. People expect their life to be like a scripted reality show.


-East of Troost is an economic desert. Most people from that side of town want to work, and how no problem working but most of the jobs are not in those areas and transportation in and out of that side of town is horrible. You look in those employment magazines and all the jobs are in Lenexa and Overland park. It's stupid. And it's hard as hell to make it up outta that. And the worst part is it was designed that way back in those early city planning days.

[lovekcmo]

Originally Posted by 8won6

-transplants complaining about Kansas City. example: people from small crappy towns in mid Missouri/Kansas move to KC then complain that it's not New York. They move to NY/Chi/LA....fail...move back to KC...act like they love it here all of a sudden.


-Gentrification. Grew up east of troost my whole life. Now with all the recent hipsters/ younger millenians all wanting to live plaza to rivermarket corrider...those that can't fit there or cant afford to live there spill over in the black neighborhoods and drive the prices up. Funny thing is now I live in Indep because I found a cheap apartment there. People should read about J.C. Nichols and how these HOA's would make sure blacks who could afford to leave poorer neighrborhoods were blocked from living in certain areas.


-People complaining about how boring it is here....any place is what you make it. See my first entry. People expect their life to be like a scripted reality show.


-East of Troost is an economic desert. Most people from that side of town want to work, and how no problem working but most of the jobs are not in those areas and transportation in and out of that side of town is horrible. You look in those employment magazines and all the jobs are in Lenexa and Overland park. It's stupid. And it's hard as hell to make it up outta that. And the worst part is it was designed that way back in those early city planning days.

There shouldn't be any "black " area of the city, it should be mixed with whites. If people don't have the transportation they need to get to work then they should move to where the transportation will take them to work. If one get's a job in Overland Park and lives east of Troost but can't get to work on the bus to Overland Park, well then, move to Overland Park. People want jobs, well move to where they are. Because, those businesses aren't going to move to 39th and Prospect.