Why did the city let bannister mall collapse? (Independence, Lee's Summit: how much, tenants)

[RDM66]

Originally Posted by kcatheart

But this is what I don't get? Why WOULD the city bring in so much section 8 to an area that was so hot?

There was a terrific cover story a few years ago in The Atlantic magazine that almost explains what happened. In fact, the story includes references to Kansas City:

American Murder Mystery - Hanna Rosin - The Atlantic


More than 20 years ago nearly all of Kansas City's Section 8 families were huddled together in one place: the Wayne Miner Court projects, which were torn down after the lawsuit mentioned in the Atlantic article. Wayne Miner was a cesspool of crime. If you lived in Kansas City at that time and kept up with the local news, you'd remember that there was a murder at Wayne Miner almost every day. Probably 80% of the city's murders occurred at Wayne Miner.

What's fascinating about this article is that it shows that crime moves along with Section 8 tenants. Once the cities demolished their housing projects and dispersed the tenants, it created pockets of crime throughout the city.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by RDM66

There was a terrific cover story a few years ago in The Atlantic magazine that almost explains what happened. In fact, the story includes references to Kansas City:

American Murder Mystery - Hanna Rosin - The Atlantic


More than 20 years ago nearly all of Kansas City's Section 8 families were huddled together in one place: the Wayne Miner Court projects, which were torn down after the lawsuit mentioned in the Atlantic article. Wayne Miner was a cesspool of crime. If you lived in Kansas City at that time and kept up with the local news, you'd remember that there was a murder at Wayne Miner almost every day. Probably 80% of the city's murders occurred at Wayne Miner.

What's fascinating about this article is that it shows that crime moves along with Section 8 tenants. Once the cities demolished their housing projects and dispersed the tenants, it created pockets of crime throughout the city.

Good old Wayne Miner. I remember when the towers were imploded.

Lawrence Journal-World - Google News Archive Search

In the early 1980's that was a scary and dangerous area of the city. I'm not sure the handful of townhomes that surround the old site are much better though. Just less people there now. Here is a photo when it first opened.

[CrownVic95]

This article contains the statement that ''Wayne Miner failed because it was an anomaly in Kansas City, which does not have a lot of high-rise housing,'' and that ''The thing to learn from this is that high-rise low-income housing in Kansas City does not work.''

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK - Kansas City, Mo. - Failed Project Is Demolished - NYTimes.com

As though it "works" in any other city?

[MOKAN]

^They were making excuses like they always do. It would be interesting to hear the excuses and BS they spewed when facing opposition during the time they originally planned on spreading out the section 8/public housing. It wouldn't surprise me if exactly what the opponents argued came true, but that at the time the proponents said they were full of it.

[Javipa]

I was going to school in downtown KCMO and bought a small house near 75th and Troost to be nearer the school in the late 1980's. In the early 1990's, I purchased some HUD foreclosures in the Ruskin Heights area for income purposes. Not long after, HUD stopped selling the houses, and instead turned them over to the Housing Authority to rent to Section 8 tenants.

The negative impact on my investments, the prices, and the quality of living was nearly immediate. My houses were burglarized, and I was robbed on more than one occasion. And not to mention houses were being put up for sales by the dozens as owners fled the carnage.

Because of the backlash, Section 8 was forced to stop the practice of populating foreclosures with their low/no income clients, but the damage and negative reputation had already been burned into everyone's minds, if not stigmatized.

Meanwhile, Bannister Mall was just starting to become dangerous at night in the early 1990's. In the daytime, the Mall was mostly filled with white, middle class shoppers. However, by 5:30 p.m. the mall filled up with majority black shoppers, thugs, drug dealers and the like. In fact, the drug dealing was so prevalent, the public phones were replaced with rotary dials, so the dealers couldn't punch in numbers to other dealer's pagers.

Never mind the nightly news highlighted the crime, and the locals became alarmed at the risk of shopping at this mall at any time of the day. TV news wouldn't editorialize on when and why the crimes were occurring, because it would have been considered politically incorrect to note the races involved in the carnage. As a result, Bannister Mall was doomed by political correctness, if not by the criminal element.

[Weaubleau]

There was a terrific cover story a few years ago in The Atlantic magazine that almost explains what happened. In fact, the story includes references to Kansas City:

American Murder Mystery - Hanna Rosin - The Atlantic




This^


There was a theory that the reason crime was so high in the old Section 8 complexes had to do with the way people were crammed in them in such close proximity and that moving people out to more suburban locations would cause the crime to somehow disappear. Actually you can see what happened that the crime just moved with the people, that moving to the suburban type detached housing does not magically turn criminals into law abiding citizens. Likewise living in a densely grouped high rise does not turn law abiding citizens into criminals.

[lovekcmo]

Once Hypermarket and the bus lines were set up for the Bannister area, there was no turning back the collapse of Bannister and the area. I wish the city would take the cut out metal statues of Buffalos, etc and relocate them to a more prominent area of the city.

[kcbluesprings]

Sorry to bump this thread, but I guess being new to this forum and browsing through some of the threads, I come across this subject. Having grown up in Grandview in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s, Bannister Mall was always a big part of my life when I was younger. I guess I find this discussion rather fascinating. This is sort of how I always looked at the destruction of BM from my view point. Forgive me if some of my points have already been discussed so far.

First off, I don't believer there was any one singular reason why Bannister Mall died. Although crime was arguably the biggest and possible the ultimate deciding factor, there are a multitude of reasons. We could start with malls in general in the Kansas City area. At one point in time we had:

Metro North - Closed except for Macy's and slated to be torn down
Antioch Center - Mall converted into a strip center with Sears (closing probable) as its anchor
Indian Springs Center - Closed several years ago and recently torn down
Mission Center - Torn down several years ago
Metcalf South - Closed except for Sears and slated to be torn down
Oak Park Mall - Open and doing quite well
Great Plains Mall - Opened as a discount outlet mall in the late 90s. Torn down except for Burlington CF
Ward Parkway - Converted into a strip center and anchored by a Target. The old Dillard's was torn down.
Bannister Mall - Torn down, and after several failed projects, land is used by Cerner for a new campus.
Blue Ridge Mall - Torn down and replaced by Walmart.
Independence Center - Open and doing well.

At one time, we had 11 major indoor shopping malls. Today, we are essentially down to 4, with 2 of them not really malls anymore, but are doing well.

But why Bannister Mall? It wasn't just the mall, but everything around it. Well, peoples shopping habits changed. For instance, Walmart and Target are now offering nicer things at cheaper prices. You have stores like Best Buy, Lowe's, Home Depot, Staples, Office Depot, Kohl's, Gordman's, Barnes & Noble, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Dick's, that people would rather flock to, than have to fight traffic to get into a mall with a certain department store. Also, at the time BM was built, what else was in South Kansas City to do your shopping besides the immediate surroundings? Eventually, Lee's Summit built the Summit Woods Crossing, and later Summit Fair. The Hwy 58 corridor in Belton and Raymore was built up with shopping destinations. 135th St. and Stateline near Martin City was built up into a shopping mecca, and lastly, The Town Center Plaza was built in Leawood which likely caused Metcalf South to go under as well. All of those shopping centers sucked business right out of the BM / Hillcrest area. Other factors included Montgomery Ward's going out of business, Sears struggling, Jones Store leaving for TCP, JC Penny's struggling, Dillard's Moving out. K-Mart closing stores, Venture went out of business, Sam's Club closes down to let Grandview keep theirs, Circuit City went out of business, Best Buy was too small and took off for Lee's Summit.

And another reason that's hurt all of it??? Buying stuff online. I mean, hey, why get out and go to the store when a few clicks of the mouse, they can bring it to you..and at a much cheaper price if you buy it from Amazon, Overstock, eBay, Wayfair, etc?

So yes...crime was a factor. Probably a major factor. But it wasn't the only factor.

[The Grim Reaper]

I owned and operated a store at Bannister Mall from 1994-2000. I also grew up in Grandview in the 70's and 80's. Like many have stated it was a combination of things that killed off the mall. One that was not brought up (that I saw) was the metro bus stopping at Bannister Mall. I was there on its final day and took some pictures, it was 100% depressing.

[glamatomic]

The Grim Reaper: I'd love to see your photos!

I live in STL and am not a Missouri native so was unaware of the complete story of Bannister Mall and it's demise prior to reading this thread. I'm a bit of an old/dead/dying Mall junkie though so found it fascinating.

I live in an area adjacent to an area that also saw an influx of section 8 after Pruitt Igoe was demolished in St. Louis. The local mall here closed down a couple of years ago- similar story to Bannister it would seem.