Overland Park tower to be imploded (hotel, places to live, suburb)

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by luzianne

Someone mentioned that some people want to live in a higher density area, but without the crime and decay. Well, with higher density comes crime and decay.

This is one of the silliest things you have said in a while. You might want to do some research. Cities and even many suburbs are building high density mixed use development to replace blight and lower crime which is often singe family homes past their prime, low density apartments that have fallen below market rate and aging strip malls that have fallen to class b or worse. It's called gentrification.

Sure you might have slightly more crime with a large 500 unit apartment complex and retail compared to a office building and parking lot simply because crime has a chance to happen around retail or residential, but it's no more likely than at a retail strip mall and apartment complex behind it.

Have you looked around metro KC at any area older than 10 years old? Strip malls don't age well. A high quality, higher density development will likely long outlast typical KC suburban development and improve the overall region including single family neighborhoods.

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by kcmo

This is one of the silliest things you have said in a while. You might want to do some research. Cities and even many suburbs are building high density mixed use development to replace blight and lower crime which is often singe family homes past their prime, low density apartments that have fallen below market rate and aging strip malls that have fallen to class b or worse. It's called gentrification.

Sure you might have slightly more crime with a large 500 unit apartment complex and retail compared to a office building and parking lot simply because crime has a chance to happen around retail or residential, but it's no more likely than at a retail strip mall and apartment complex behind it.

Have you looked around metro KC at any area older than 10 years old? Strip malls don't age well. A high quality, higher density development will likely long outlast typical KC suburban development and improve the overall region including single family neighborhoods.

I disagree. More people = more crime. More apartments/higher density housing = more crime.

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by luzianne

I disagree. More people = more crime. More apartments/higher density housing = more crime.

Yes, more people equals more crime. But you're thinking of it in terms of incidents per square mile, not incidents per capita.

Of course, what most people care about, in terms of crime, is their own probability of being victimized. In that sense, per capita crime is the only statistic to pay attention to. And statistics show that, when comparing two neighborhoods with similar demographics and socio-economic factors, higher density equals lower per capita crime.

Here's an article about that from The Atlantic. And here's a quote from that article:

To offer a policy observation, higher density helps reduce street crime in an urban environment in two ways. One is that in a higher density city, any given street is less likely to be empty of passersby at any given time. The other is that if a given patch of land has more citizens, that means it can also support a larger base of police officers. And for policing efficacy both the ratio of cops to citzens and of cops to land matters. Therefore, all else being equal a denser city will be a better policed city.

The reason you believe higher density equals higher crime is that you're comparing neighborhoods with (or surrounded by) a low-income population to neighborhoods with almost uniformly middle- to high-income residents. This is apples and oranges, and doesn't tell us anything about the effects of density.

[kcmo]

And there went a big chunk of the Overland Park skyline!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYTTkWhG6xM

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by kcmo

And there went a big chunk of the Overland Park skyline!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYTTkWhG6xM

It wasn't a big chunk of the Overland Park skyline. It was an easy to miss building. I drove past it almost every day. And I drove by the rubble today and the area doesn't look much different.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by luzianne

It wasn't a big chunk of the Overland Park skyline. It was an easy to miss building. I drove past it almost every day. And I drove by the rubble today and the area doesn't look much different.

OP only has a few buildings over 10 stories. It was a big building for the area.

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by kcmo

OP only has a few buildings over 10 stories. It was a big building for the area.

I actually agree with Luzianne here (I know.) It was one of the taller buildings in OP, but it was too far from Corporate Woods to be considered part of the OP skyline. To me, the test of what's included in a skyline is whether you can get the buildings all together in one photo. In this case, there was no possible way. They're too far apart.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by rwiksell

I actually agree with Luzianne here (I know.) It was one of the taller buildings in OP, but it was too far from Corporate Woods to be considered part of the OP skyline. To me, the test of what's included in a skyline is whether you can get the buildings all together in one photo. In this case, there was no possible way. They're too far apart.

OP doesn't really have a skyline. It's too spread out. So I said that wrong. So I guess you can pretty much tear down any building along 435 and it wouldn't really change a skyline that doesn't really exist. My point is that it's a huge building or at least a pretty tall building for OP and all of South KC's 435 corridor.

I wouldn't say anybody would "miss" it now that it's gone. It's not a big enough building to miss. But it's a big building for that area and as low density as that area is, I'm just surprised it was torn down. That's all.

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by kcmo

OP doesn't really have a skyline. It's too spread out. So I said that wrong. So I guess you can pretty much tear down any building along 435 and it wouldn't really change a skyline that doesn't really exist. My point is that it's a huge building or at least a pretty tall building for OP and all of South KC's 435 corridor.

I wouldn't say anybody would "miss" it now that it's gone. It's not a big enough building to miss. But it's a big building for that area and as low density as that area is, I'm just surprised it was torn down. That's all.

Not trying to be contentions, but I would say that Overland Park DOES have a skyline. It's just not a good skyline. Basically it's Corporate Woods, and you get a pretty good glimpse of it from 435 at Metcalf. If you take the photo from the right angle, in the right weather, it can look halfway decent.

[luzianne]

Suburbs are supposed to have skylines? Who knew?