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I just google street viewed those areas and looks like we may have missed West 39th District, I think? But yes, that's more of what I am looking for! It looks like Volker + Roanoke + Westport area would suit me. I know we drove all around there but we weren't strategic enough about it to get a sense of where we were in relation to nearby businesses.
I will reference back to this reply if we do end up getting more serious about moving there. Thanks!
The Volker neighborhood and its corridor, 39th Street, came to mind immediately. Also Westport Road (which follows the 43d street alignment in this area). With the hospital across State Line to the west and Westport proper to the east, this is definitely one of the most archetypal "urban" neighborhoods in KC.
I think that of all the KC neighborhoods I'm familiar with, Brookside comes closest to meeting that ideal.
What people mean when they talk about Missouri valuing Kansas City is this:
Like the state I call home now, Missouri is split along multiple fault lines. One of the principal ones is the gap between the large cities at either end of the state. Historically, Kansas City has played Pittsburgh to St. Louis' Philadelphia. But in terms of the "mindshare" they have among other Missourians, St. Louis laps Kansas City several times (in contrast to Pennsylvania, where residents of the less urban "T" tend to regard Philadelphia with a mix of suspicion and contempt, and until a couple of decades ago, residents of Philadelphia's own suburbs did the same).
Part of this comes from the orientation of the two cities, as reflected in their economies too. I refer to St. Louis as "the last great city of the East" and KC as "the first great city of the West." St. Louis grew prosperous on its own homegrown industry (Monsanto, Ralston Purina, Mallinckrodt Chemical, McDonnell Aircraft, Anheuser-Busch...) and Mississippi River cargo shipping, which flows south from the city. Meanwhile, Kansas City grew prosperous by funneling cattle raised and grain grown on the High Plains through meatpacking plants (Armour and Swift mainly), mills and bakeries (the company later known as Sunshine Biscuits grew from the Kansas City-based Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, and The Ullman Company remains a player in the consumer and commercial flour market), then shipped east via the railroads that converged on it.
Thus KC tends to look West, towards Kansas, for its hinterlands, while most of St. Louis' lie within the state of Missouri. During the Boss Tom Pendergast era, this cleavage didn't matter, for at its peak, the Pendergast machine controlled the state too (Missouri's only President was a product of the machine even though he rose to national prominence based on his demonstrating his independence from it). But since then, St. Louisans tend to rise further in Missouri politics than Kansas Citians do.
Meanwhile, Kansas City, Mo., is arguably the most important city in Kansas, eclipsing the cities actually located in the state, including the one named Kansas City.
The bigger issue with KC's "value" to Missouri stems from how wealth is divided in the KC metro area. While KCMO does have some extremely high end neighborhoods, much of the KC's metro's wealth resides in Kansas including the large contiguous areas of high end residential. In KC, there are the micro neighborhoods in the urban portion of the city along with Brookside and the swath of mansions along Ward Parkway inboard and a handful of nice suburban areas in the northland and to a lesser extent, Lees Summit and south KCMO. On the Kansas Side, the semi urban and suburban swaths are much larger and the school districts much better endowed with both money and ambitious students. That has a knock-on impact on each states flagship university; the KC metro is much better represented at KU than it is at the University of Missouri. Hence, the greater impact of KU on the city of Kansas City (which also comes with proximity) than MU has. St Louis, the larger of the two metro's (for the time being) has most of it's wealth in Missouri and the majority of the state's fortune 500 companies and hence a greater impact on the state's politics and university policies.
The bigger issue with KC's "value" to Missouri stems from how wealth is divided in the KC metro area. While KCMO does have some extremely high end neighborhoods, much of the KC's metro's wealth resides in Kansas including the large contiguous areas of high end residential. In KC, there are the micro neighborhoods in the urban portion of the city along with Brookside and the swath of mansions along Ward Parkway inboard and a handful of nice suburban areas in the northland and to a lesser extent, Lees Summit and south KCMO. On the Kansas Side, the semi urban and suburban swaths are much larger and the school districts much better endowed with both money and ambitious students. That has a knock-on impact on each states flagship university; the KC metro is much better represented at KU than it is at the University of Missouri. Hence, the greater impact of KU on the city of Kansas City (which also comes with proximity) than MU has. St Louis, the larger of the two metro's (for the time being) has most of it's wealth in Missouri and the majority of the state's fortune 500 companies and hence a greater impact on the state's politics and university policies.
Add it all up though. The wealth on the KS side pretty much only Johnson County. The wealth on the MO side is not as continuous and doesn't look as good on paper because they don't have entire zip codes full of wealthy people, but they have just as much spread across the MO side.
The MO side is simply more diverse. Wealthy people live closer to middle class and even the poor, while in KS, they all generally live together in the same place.
The Northland has more than a few neighborhoods of very high wealth. There are many up there. Briarcliff, Old Briarcliff (which is actually very close to some very modest neighborhoods), many areas of southern Platte county like the Cliffs and Riss Lake and out along Route 45. Lots of high end stuff along Line Creek, up by the airport etc. Again, mixed with more middle class homes. Shoal Creek has some high end stuff. If yo go out east, even Independence and Blue Springs have some very high end homes. Southern Blue Springs has homes that easily rival Hallbrook. But they get lost in the numbers because most of Blue Springs is more middle class. Lee's Summit is the same way. Lakewood, Raintree, and a ton of others scattered all around the city mixed with various low to upper middle class areas. South KCMO near Leawood. Same deal. Lots of high end homes, but mixed with more middle class. Lock Lloyd is ultra high end, but shares zip codes with some lower stuff in Belton.
Urban KCMO is the same way. Million dollar condos in the middle of the city and the plaza area only blocks from some very poor areas. South Plaza and Brookside and even Waldo have some high end homes, but mixed with more moderate homes to the east in same zip codes.
The highest rents for apartments are in central KCMO and they keep going up. So the wealthy renters are choosing KCMO right now over Kansas.
Add all this up and you will see why there are typically more MO cars parked in high end retail places in JoCo than KS cars. There is just as much, if not more wealth on the MO side. It's just not as continuous or in one county (Wyandotte has almost no wealth outside a few homes at lake quivira.). The MO side has wealth spread across the suburbs of three counties (Cass too with Raintree and Raymore). and a solid amount of wealth from the river market all the way to Martin City along state line.
It's an urban myth in KC that all the wealthy people live in KS. Same with the corporate community. It's about 50/50 now.
This is why the metro area's high end retail should be at the plaza, but it has gone mostly to subsidized shopping centers in Kansas. The Plaza is actually a more central location for the region's wealth, not southern JoCo. But the numbers look better down there and people in southern JoCo don't have to get too close to people in lower income brackets. There is a reason people choose to live deep in JoCo layers and miles away from other demographics. Wealthy people on the MO side don't seem to need such distancing.
It used to be more like 70/30 in favor of the MO side, so it has shifted to KS, but it's not all over there and the wealth has been shifting back to the MO side now for at least 10 years.
Edit.
Honestly, I would choose Cincy over KC just to not have to deal with people from Johnson County again. Never in my life have I met so many people so full of themselves than people from JoCo. They think KC revolves around them. Funny thing is, there is nothing even remotely special or interesting about the place. It's a suburb in Kansas. I mean the suburbs around DC blow JoCo out of the water in just about every way possible, and yet I don't see anywhere near the snobbishness from them towards DC or other suburbs. Northern Kentucky actually works with Cincy on regional issues. They don't have a "border war" or economic war like KC does. There might be some competition, but KY doesn't seem to want to harm Cincy for their own short term gain like KS does with KCMO.
Add it all up though. The wealth on the KS side pretty much only Johnson County. The wealth on the MO side is not as continuous and doesn't look as good on paper because they don't have entire zip codes full of wealthy people, but they have just as much spread across the MO side.
The MO side is simply more diverse. Wealthy people live closer to middle class and even the poor, while in KS, they all generally live together in the same place.
The Northland has more than a few neighborhoods of very high wealth. There are many up there. Briarcliff, Old Briarcliff (which is actually very close to some very modest neighborhoods), many areas of southern Platte county like the Cliffs and Riss Lake and out along Route 45. Lots of high end stuff along Line Creek, up by the airport etc. Again, mixed with more middle class homes. Shoal Creek has some high end stuff. If yo go out east, even Independence and Blue Springs have some very high end homes. Southern Blue Springs has homes that easily rival Hallbrook. But they get lost in the numbers because most of Blue Springs is more middle class. Lee's Summit is the same way. Lakewood, Raintree, and a ton of others scattered all around the city mixed with various low to upper middle class areas. South KCMO near Leawood. Same deal. Lots of high end homes, but mixed with more middle class. Lock Lloyd is ultra high end, but shares zip codes with some lower stuff in Belton.
Urban KCMO is the same way. Million dollar condos in the middle of the city and the plaza area only blocks from some very poor areas. South Plaza and Brookside and even Waldo have some high end homes, but mixed with more moderate homes to the east in same zip codes.
The highest rents for apartments are in central KCMO and they keep going up. So the wealthy renters are choosing KCMO right now over Kansas.
Add all this up and you will see why there are typically more MO cars parked in high end retail places in JoCo than KS cars. There is just as much, if not more wealth on the MO side. It's just not as continuous or in one county (Wyandotte has almost no wealth outside a few homes at lake quivira.). The MO side has wealth spread across the suburbs of three counties (Cass too with Raintree and Raymore). and a solid amount of wealth from the river market all the way to Martin City along state line.
It's an urban myth in KC that all the wealthy people live in KS. Same with the corporate community. It's about 50/50 now.
This is why the metro area's high end retail should be at the plaza, but it has gone mostly to subsidized shopping centers in Kansas. The Plaza is actually a more central location for the region's wealth, not southern JoCo. But the numbers look better down there and people in southern JoCo don't have to get too close to people in lower income brackets. There is a reason people choose to live deep in JoCo layers and miles away from other demographics. Wealthy people on the MO side don't seem to need such distancing.
It used to be more like 70/30 in favor of the MO side, so it has shifted to KS, but it's not all over there and the wealth has been shifting back to the MO side now for at least 10 years.
Edit.
Honestly, I would choose Cincy over KC just to not have to deal with people from Johnson County again. Never in my life have I met so many people so full of themselves than people from JoCo. They think KC revolves around them. Funny thing is, there is nothing even remotely special or interesting about the place. It's a suburb in Kansas. I mean the suburbs around DC blow JoCo out of the water in just about every way possible, and yet I don't see anywhere near the snobbishness from them towards DC or other suburbs. Northern Kentucky actually works with Cincy on regional issues. They don't have a "border war" or economic war like KC does. There might be some competition, but KY doesn't seem to want to harm Cincy for their own short term gain like KS does with KCMO.
Add it all up though. The wealth on the KS side pretty much only Johnson County. The wealth on the MO side is not as continuous and doesn't look as good on paper because they don't have entire zip codes full of wealthy people, but they have just as much spread across the MO side.
The MO side is simply more diverse. Wealthy people live closer to middle class and even the poor, while in KS, they all generally live together in the same place.
[...]
Urban KCMO is the same way. Million dollar condos in the middle of the city and the plaza area only blocks from some very poor areas. South Plaza and Brookside and even Waldo have some high end homes, but mixed with more moderate homes to the east in same zip codes.
The highest rents for apartments are in central KCMO and they keep going up. So the wealthy renters are choosing KCMO right now over Kansas.
The funny thing is, KCMo's wealthiest neighborhoods do cluster together; it's just that the cluster straddles two ZIP codes.
The Country Club Plaza lies at the northeast corner of the cluster, which is bounded roughly by Brush Creek on the north, Meyer Boulevard on the south, Main Street on the east and State Line Road on the west.
55th Street, Loose Park's southern boundary, is also the ZIP code boundary. The north half of the cluster (and the Plaza itself) lie in ZIP code 64112. The south half lies in ZIP code 64113.
Brookside, which is merely affluent, takes up the eastern end of 64113. Brookside Boulevard runs from the Plaza up the east side of both ZIP codes, and the neighborhoods it runs through are all affluent, as are those to the east of Oak Street in neighboring 64110, which borders both of those ZIP codes on their east, until you get to Troost Avenue (Google "Troost Wall" for the significance of this street. The wall is crumbling, but it still retains a great deal of explanatory power). Troost splits 64110 neatly in two longitudinally.
Next door to the west of these two ZIP codes are ZIP codes 66205 and 66208 in Johnson County, Kan. 66205 includes blue-collar Roeland Park, middle-middle-class Westwood/Westwood Hills, and fairly affluent Fairway, while most of 66208 consists of Prairie Village, J.C. Nichols' somewhat more upscale version of Levittown, but 66208's northeast corner consists of Mission Hills, one of the wealthiest communities in JoCo. To Prairie Village's south, in 66206, lies Leawood, Mission Hills' rival.
This district that straddles the state line and spreads across five ZIP codes is pretty much Money Central in KC. But as kcmo noted, not all the money lives in it. But there are differences: Briarcliff in the Northland has been Money for years. Lee's Summit was a sleepy little town separated from the city by a bunch of farms and Unity Village when I grew up there. The Money arrived there much more recently.
Just curious: what are the neighborhoods you include in "central Kanas City" where apartment rents are rising? I assume you don't necessarily mean the south bank of Brush Creek opposite the Plaza, which is home to most of the city's urban cliff dwellers and its swankiest apartment buildings.
Quote:
Honestly, I would choose Cincy over KC just to not have to deal with people from Johnson County again. Never in my life have I met so many people so full of themselves than people from JoCo. They think KC revolves around them. Funny thing is, there is nothing even remotely special or interesting about the place. It's a suburb in Kansas. I mean the suburbs around DC blow JoCo out of the water in just about every way possible, and yet I don't see anywhere near the snobbishness from them towards DC or other suburbs. Northern Kentucky actually works with Cincy on regional issues. They don't have a "border war" or economic war like KC does. There might be some competition, but KY doesn't seem to want to harm Cincy for their own short term gain like KS does with KCMO.
I went to school from grades 7 to 12 with a lot of boys who lived in 66208. Living as I did in 64130 (which was home to all but three of Pembroke-Country Day's roughly 15 Black students in the Upper School when I went there), I was an outlier.
I think it's gotten worse since then, and it was pretty bad then.
My cousins tend to refer to JoCo with a three-word phrase consisting of the county name with a word beginning with F inserted between the two words of the name. I'm surprised that the county is letting the KCATA run its bus system now, given that it was Johnson County pulling out of the KCATA to begin with (over complaints that the agency didn't provide enough service in the county) that started the fragmentation of public transportation in the Greater Kansas City area after the KCATA was formed around the nucleus of the old Kansas City Transit (nee Kansas City Public Service Company) in 1969.
Regarding JoCo, I share your sentiment.
Edited to add: But regarding the "border war," the Kansans finally got fed up with it two years ago after Republican Gof. Sam Brownback's faith-based "job creation" strategy not only cratered the budgets of the school districts Johnson Countians prize but also wreaked enough havoc on the state treasury that the legislature, controlled by the Governor's own party, finally overrode his veto of a tax hike (which he had a pathological aversion to). Kansas voters replaced his chosen successor with a Democrat in the fall of 2018. They also just rejected that guy again when he sought the GOP nomination for the open Senate seat the Republicans have held for more than half a century.
That new Democratic governor finally agreed to a truce years after Missouri sued for peace.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 08-09-2020 at 12:32 AM..
Just curious: what are the neighborhoods you include in "central Kanas City" where apartment rents are rising? I assume you don't necessarily mean the south bank of Brush Creek opposite the Plaza, which is home to most of the city's urban cliff dwellers and its swankiest apartment buildings.
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Downtown mostly, but I'm sure the Plaza area is also rising. The below graph averages everything and the central city has a lot of lower end apartments too.
That district isn't a "cluster" of neighborhoods. It's a single neighborhood, the crowning achievement of master developer Jesse Clyde Nichols, who did more to shape modern Kansas City than any other single individual.
The neighborhood was and is known as the "Country Club District," the "1000 Acres Restricted" Nichols began developing in the first decade of the 20th century.
(1912 photo from the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri)
How was it "restricted"? This ad copy from 1909 (in the Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library's collection) describes one way:
Quote:
Restricted to single residences only, ranging in value from $3,000 to $10,000 and up. Large lots and acre tracts with city conveniences. No monotonous repetition of the same design of houses. Ample parkways and boulevards provided in advance of the growth of the city. Street improvements, permanently and uniformly constructed. Straight south from the center of the city. Direct [street]car service--25 minutes from 12th and Main.Surrounds Country Club for coming quarter century.
The "Country Club" that gave the district its name was the Kansas City Country Club. In 1927, Jacob L. Loose's wife Ella bought it and turned it into the park that bears his name. (Loose was a master baker who founded both a precursor of Nabisco and the company that many of us knew as Sunshine Biscuits, since absorbed into the Keebler Company, which is now part of Kellogg's.)
But here's the other way in which it was "restricted": Deed covenants attached to every house lot in the district forbade sale of the property to Blacks or Jews. Nichols was an ardent promoter of racially restrictive covenants, which was the real estate industry's attempt to implement the American apartheid that zoning laws could not after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial zoning un-Constitutional in 1917. Nichols referred to these covenants as "the most scientific protections" in his marketing, but there was nothing "scientific" about them at all.
I understand that Nichols' descendants, who no longer have control of the company, disavowed J.C.'s promotion of racially restrictive covenants, which the Supreme Court ruled unenforceable in 1948. But his championing of them is the reason the city Parks Board just took Nichols' name off the fountain at the gateway to the Country Club Plaza and restored the original name of the north-south boulevard that runs past it — in the beginning and once again now Mill Creek Parkway. (I think Nichols Road remains on the Plaza itself.)
Wow - MarketStEl - thank you for this information. I truly enjoyed it. I fell in love with Kansas City and I was only there a year. My wife and I's favorite part of the city was the Country Club Plaza. We'd drop in to a bar/restaurant there whose name escapes me - it was one that had repetition in its name - like Rah-Rah-Rah's - no, that's not it. But we loved going there for a beer or two, then walking down the street eastward to Barnes and Noble to look for something interesting to read. Barnes and Noble is literally packed with every kind of magazine ever printed.
When I was driving through or past Country Club Plaza I felt I was a part of Kansas City, and, what's more, I felt safe. And I felt secure. My job in Lenexa could be mine again, according to my boss there. We are settled down here in southern New Mexico, though, so that will probably never come to fruition, but Kansas City will alway remain in my mind as a fantastic place ta be.
Oh, Swopes Park Zoo was a very fun place ta be, too. Everyone you saw there were really enjoying the different animals. There was a male Siberian Tiger that was just epic there. He'd come up to you, about 3 feet away inside his cage, and just stare at you. It was as if he was thinking "yeah, I'm pretty important." That taught me instantly that the zookeepers there took exceptional care of their animals.
Keep up the excellent contributions to this thread, kcmo and Market StEl.
Wow - MarketStEl - thank you for this information. I truly enjoyed it. I fell in love with Kansas City and I was only there a year. My wife and I's favorite part of the city was the Country Club Plaza. We'd drop in to a bar/restaurant there whose name escapes me - it was one that had repetition in its name - like Rah-Rah-Rah's - no, that's not it. But we loved going there for a beer or two, then walking down the street eastward to Barnes and Noble to look for something interesting to read. Barnes and Noble is literally packed with every kind of magazine ever printed.
When I was driving through or past Country Club Plaza I felt I was a part of Kansas City, and, what's more, I felt safe. And I felt secure. My job in Lenexa could be mine again, according to my boss there. We are settled down here in southern New Mexico, though, so that will probably never come to fruition, but Kansas City will alway remain in my mind as a fantastic place ta be.
Oh, Swopes Park Zoo was a very fun place ta be, too. Everyone you saw there were really enjoying the different animals. There was a male Siberian Tiger that was just epic there. He'd come up to you, about 3 feet away inside his cage, and just stare at you. It was as if he was thinking "yeah, I'm pretty important." That taught me instantly that the zookeepers there took exceptional care of their animals.
Keep up the excellent contributions to this thread, kcmo and Market StEl.
(emphasis added)
Mine too.
When I was in grade school, I bowled in a league that met at King Louie Plaza Lanes, on Nichols Road between the Muehlbach's supermarket and the Woolworth's (the Embassy twin theaters were located beneath the latter). Sometimes I'd have lunch at that Woolworth's lunch counter (I'm a beneficiary of the Civil Rights revolution).
And when I took the bus to or from classes at Pem-Day, I would have to transfer between the 39th Street-Country Club Plaza and Roanoke buses on the Plaza.
Sheesh, want to know how much of a sense of ownership I had in the place? In the 1970s, after the Nichols Company embarked on its (further) upscaling of the Plaza (a Saks Fifth Avenue replaced that Woolworth's and the supermarket disappeared in favor of a Polo Ralph Lauren boutique), I marched into the Nichols Company offices at 310 Ward Parkway and stopped by the office of Barbara Barickman, who was one of the top execs at the company and the mother of a boy in the class ahead of mine at Pem-Day.
"What are you doing with my Country Club Plaza?" I asked her point blank while lamenting the disappearance of those places I frequented.
"Well, there's still The Landing," she replied. (The J.C. Nichols Company opened The Landing in 1961.)
My mother probably shopped The Landing, which sits just barely on "our" side of Troost (but the neighborhood to its north hadn't completely turned yet), even more than she did the Plaza, so in a sense, I kinda-sorta understood, but I still rejected the counterargument.
Old J.C. probably spun in his grave as he heard this conversation from the beyond. But I believe the Plaza belongs to all of Kansas City.
I think both kcmo and I prove my assertion that Kansas Citians love the place to death even if they will never live there again. That's the sense I get whenever I run into a KC expat in Philadelphia. Same thing happened in Boston, only less frequently.
I think both kcmo and I prove my assertion that Kansas Citians love the place to death even if they will never live there again. That's the sense I get whenever I run into a KC expat in Philadelphia. Same thing happened in Boston, only less frequently.
And now the Kansas City Chiefs are the reigning Super Bowl champions. I think that Kansas City has a good past, as in, enough good people running the businesses that their legacy remaining helps future generations produce a decent life for themselves.
There is crime, Troost Ave. to the east was "off-limits" and a troublesome crime area. I would hope this would one day change, but, alas, it may never. Nevertheless, there's lots of solid "Midwest" citizens in that large city that are carrying the modern-day torch. COVID-19 is proving to be a big lot of trouble to all of us. It's producing a pent-up stress that is not good for our minds or our bodies. I recommend exercise to "work out the stress".
I wish you well, MarketStreetEl - I look forward to all of your future contributions on this dear thread.
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