Do you consider Overland Park a suburb of KCMO or KCK? (Kansas City: low income, wedding)

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by kcmo

I always thought Kansas was probably more urbanized than Missouri. I know Missouri has the big cities, but I would imagine a higher percentage of Kansans live in urbanized areas (Metro KC, Metro Wichita, Topeka, Lawrence etc). Missouri has a lot of population outside of metro KC and StL.

Actually, this gets closer to the point I was trying to make.

I remember reading on an official Kansas state highway map back in the 1970s that one in every five Kansans lived in the Kansas City area, which at the time consisted only of Johnson and Wyandotte counties.

Now, almost one in every three Kansans lives in the five Kansas counties that comprise that state's side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. (Just shy of 30 percent, to be specific.)

The 2015 population estimate for the five counties is 864,932.

Add to this the populations of the next two counties to the west, Douglas (118,053) and Shawnee (178,725), and you have 1,161,710 people - nearly 40 percent of the state's population - living along the easternmost 50 miles of the Kansas Turnpike. Tack on the 16,398 residents of Atchison County, one of the two Micropolitan Statistical Areas included in the Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS CSA (the other one is Warrensburg, MO), and you're over that 40 percent threshold.

That's awfully damn urban, but that also leaves an awful lot of Kansas for the remaining 60 percent of the state's population to occupy.

Now add the 644,610 people who live in the four counties of the Wichita MSA.

You've now accounted for 1,822,718 Kansans - 63 percent of the state's population.

The other 37 percent have an awful lot of space to spread across, and a good chunk of those live in Emporia, Manhattan/Junction City, and Salina.

I'd say that leaves a very rural state.

Now let's try the same thing for Missouri.

The Missouri side of the Kansas City MSA has a population of 1,222,539.
Add to this the 2,202,511 residents of the Missouri side of the St. Louis MSA.

This brings you to 3,425,050 Missourians - 56 percent of the state's population.

That's slightly less than the percentage of Kansans who live in the state's two main conurbations (four metros total). And there's less room for the remaining 44 percent to spread out.

Metro Springfield, the state's third-biggest metropolitan area, has 541,991 inhabitants.
Metro Columbia, the fourth-biggest, 170,773.
No. 5 St. Joseph has 119,083 residents in its Missouri portion.

We're now up to 4,256,897 - just shy of 70 percent of the state's population. But we've now got five metro areas of 100,000-plus spread across the state, with only No. 2 Kansas City and No. 5 St. Joseph as next-door neighbors. Three of Kansas' four are contiguous.

And the remaining 30 percent of Missourians have about half as much room to spread out as those half-as-numerous Kansans have. (In fact, that remaining 30 percent comprises about the same number of people as live in Kansas' five 100,000-plus metros put together.)

I'd say that's still less rural.

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Which suggests to me that you're not really into either, then.

The aficionados know their history and their subject, and the city figures prominently in both.

Yes, but in the grand scheme of things, MOST people are not jazz or barbecue aficionados. A lot of people like jazz and BBQ, but not to the point of being aficionados, and don't really care about Kansas City being a place for jazz or BBQ. I have listened to plenty of live jazz in KC and I have eaten plenty of barbecue. If I didn't live in KC I doubt I'd give either much thought. You can get jazz and BBQ lots of places. KC isn't the be all and end all for jazz or BBQ.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by luzianne

Yes, but in the grand scheme of things, MOST people are not jazz or barbecue aficionados. A lot of people like jazz and BBQ, but not to the point of being aficionados, and don't really care about Kansas City being a place for jazz or BBQ. I have listened to plenty of live jazz in KC and I have eaten plenty of barbecue. If I didn't live in KC I doubt I'd give either much thought. You can get jazz and BBQ lots of places. KC isn't the be all and end all for jazz or BBQ.

Even an aficionado of both like me knows that.

But it's a long way from "not the be-all and end-all" to "nobody cares about it outside the area."

Which is manifestly not true. I can tell you that because I do live outside it and interact with others not from the area at all.

[lovekcmo]

It's a suburb and always will be, even once it's population and influence is more than KC MO's.

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by lovekcmo

It's a suburb and always will be, even once it's population and influence is more than KC MO's.

Are you looking forward to an Overland Park with 500,000 people? That's just outlandish. Unless they managed to "annex" Lenexa, Shawnee and Olathe (which would never happen anyway) there's not a snowball's chance of this.

[elkotronics]

My wife wants us to re-locate to Overland Park and I'm hot for a house in Grandview. It's a short sale going for cheap, but it looks to be mostly there. I'd want an inspection and the seller may not be able to pay for things needing fixed. Hit up the mortgage lender, I spose. I prefer Grandview-Belton.

[Don Penhold]

I live in Overland Park. I consider it to be a suburb of KC MO. Partly because Overland Park now has more people than KCK- how can a place be a suburb of a smaller place? (I know this original post was in 2010, I don't know if it was different then). And OP being in a different state doesn't mean it still can't be a suburb of KC MO.

[rwiksell]

Originally Posted by Don Penhold

I live in Overland Park. I consider it to be a suburb of KC MO. Partly because Overland Park now has more people than KCK- how can a place be a suburb of a smaller place? (I know this original post was in 2010, I don't know if it was different then). And OP being in a different state doesn't mean it still can't be a suburb of KC MO.

I agree with your conclusion, but I don't think the core city proper of a metro has to actually be larger in population than each of its component suburbs.

If St. Louis County were to become a single municipality, as some have proposed, it would be three times larger than St. Louis city. And yet, there would be no doubt which is the core city, and which is the suburb. I'm sure there are better examples, especially when an old city is blocked in somehow, and declines in population.

[Mathguy]

It's a part of the metro. *shrug*.

Depends on the families specific situation in terms of all of lifes major issues....cost, commute, kids, family, taxes etc. etc.etc.

[JimSalamoni]

I would say Kansas City, MO since that is the "metro area", although the name does make it confusing lol