Kansas or Missouri side of Kansas City?

[famusdarlin]

Originally Posted by Lexus Chick

And that's too bad. I grew up in KCMO. I went to high School in the Hickman Mills School District. When I went there (between 1977-1981) it was mainly white, middle class. All the kids were nice, they worked part-time jobs, bought their own cars and respected their parents.

Now the Hickman Mills distrcit is something like 79% black. High crime, robberies, etc. It makes me sick that the old neighborhood has gone downhill so much, when at one time, it was one of the nicest areas in KC.

Wow, I am wondering why you added the commnt about Hickman Mills area being 79% "African-American to the list of obviously negative aspects of the community. I'm hoping that you are not inferring that it being 79% "black" is another negative about the community. Kansas City, like many other cities, but not all has an issue that when African-Amercans begin moving to an area others begin moving out in droves selling houses for far less than they are worth out of fear. Then as a result property values go down, property taxes go down, schools suffer and the entire community suffers. Is that the fault of the African-Americans moving there or the people who first leave out of fear? This is alot of what happened across south Kansas City.

[kcmo]

That's exactly what happened. Some of you might work there now, some might have visited the area. I lived and worked in the area during its prime (which was only about five years). That area boomed, malls were built, housing developments couldn't build enough houses, schools were top notch and in just a few years it was all over.

The area never was crime infested. It got that way once all the white people left and all the businesses closed. It was nearly all word of mouth. An entire section of a city that was a thriving suburban area was turned upside down because it was labeled dangerous or black.

Now there was an influx of section 8 housing, but it could have been overcome with just an ounce of social and racial tolerance and improved rental and property code enforcement. It was a tiny percent of the population. Instead, every single thing that happened was plastered all over TV, rumors would fly like crazy.

The black people that were moving out there wanted nothing more than a suburban lifestyle like the white people. They were not bringing crime or gangs.

The buses were extremely intimidating too. The Prospect Route was bringing bus loads of "inner city" people to the area by the hour. Even though I don't recall a single instance of violence associated near the bus stops, that would be one of the main reasons people would stop shopping the area.

SKC is a very interesting story to me. I'm not sure you will find a boom and bust story fed nearly entirely by racial friction that would occur in such a small time frame anywhere.

To this day, the area around the mall is a pretty quiet area with modest people in pretty safe areas. Ruskin got pretty bad and it still is pretty bad, but most of SKC and Raytown never did get anywhere near as bad as people say they did. Now it's just blight. Not really crime ridden, just blight and very low property values. All the higher demographics left (blacks and whites), all the businesses have left and people from outside the area are afraid to go there.

It will probably never recover.

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by famusdarlin

Wow, I am wondering why you added the commnt about Hickman Mills area being 79% "African-American to the list of obviously negative aspects of the community. I'm hoping that you are not inferring that it being 79% "black" is another negative about the community. Kansas City, like many other cities, but not all has an issue that when African-Amercans begin moving to an area others begin moving out in droves selling houses for far less than they are worth out of fear. Then as a result property values go down, property taxes go down, schools suffer and the entire community suffers. Is that the fault of the African-Americans moving there or the people who first leave out of fear? This is alot of what happened across south Kansas City.

I was wondering when somebody was going to call that out. It seems pretty nasty to say "The neighborhood's gone so downhill...it's almost totally black."

I do have to say that regardless of what ethnicities are living where, the way high-poverty communities largely tend to keep their neighborhoods is awful, and KC is clearly no exception. My great grandmother, herself a lifelong inhabitant of Appalachia who refused to live in squalor regardless of living in poverty with few to no amenities or even basic utilities, always said, "There's no shame in being poor, but there is shame in being filthy." This is a woman who had to draw water from a well to wash clothes, because she had no running water, but did so every day, and was always pristine, and so was her home. Being poor doesn't mean that you have to take ZERO pride in keeping what you have neat and clean and tidy.

The communities being called out for being trashed are communities in poverty, regardless of what ethnicity of people largely populate them. I rarely hear people ***** about litter in the Plaza or Brookside.

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by kcmo

To this day, the area around the mall is a pretty quiet area with modest people in pretty safe areas. Ruskin got pretty bad and it still is pretty bad, but most of SKC and Raytown never did get anywhere near as bad as people say they did. Now it's just blight. Not really crime ridden, just blight and very low property values. All the higher demographics left (blacks and whites), all the businesses have left and people from outside the area are afraid to go there.

It will probably never recover.

I work not too far from the Bannister Mall site. This is my experience...the whole time I've been working in that area, I've not experienced a shred of violence, and the sole crime I've experienced was our work's fleet of cars getting the registration tags harvested from them before we got video surveillance and posted signs noting that we had cameras (and to be honest, car vandalism was something I experienced living on the Plaza, too). Most of what is lousy about the area is how blighted and shabbily kept it is...it seems just more trashed than scary. I'm not afraid to work there, but it's definitely aesthetically a depressing part of town these days.

[famusdarlin]

We live in Grandview and being a Norther girl, Liberty, I was hesitant about moving to Grandview. Since it was South Kansas City. My husband refused to move anywhere but Brookside and I knew we couldn't find as much for our price range there. It took alot of convincing to get the city boy to move out of the city and this was as suburban as he was going.

But, I have to admit that I love my neighborhood, just east of 71 highway and south of Truman drive. The only thing missing is good schools. I would not even consider moving if the schools were better. I love the diversity of my neighborhood, I love all the parks, the community center. I wish they had more sidewalks, but its still a very walkable neighborhood. I also wish there were more stores and resturants nearby, but it is convenient to Lee's Summit, Johnson County, and even downtown is only 10-12 min away.

I'm hoping that the IHOP church buying up lots of properties and the schools winning lots of football, basketball, and track championships will mean people will start being willing to invest more in the schools and will bring more businesses.

[famusdarlin]

In regard to the original posters question. I have to agree with the other posters who commented that it is dependent on what you are looking for. KCMO was right in that there is even more break down that state by state. Even areas like Johnson County and North of the River have variations within the area. I think most areas are going to have a surburban big box/ tan coldesac areas and most areas including Johnson County have more urban areas.

Good luck in the search.

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by famusdarlin

But, I have to admit that I love my neighborhood, just east of 71 highway and south of Truman drive. The only thing missing is good schools. I would not even consider moving if the schools were better. I love the diversity of my neighborhood, I love all the parks, the community center.

I take kids to the community center in Grandview as part of my work, it's a really nice facility!

I don't have an issue with south Kansas City...before we bought, I lived in Waldo and had no problems there. Had the house we fell in love with been in KC and not Lee's Summit (and still the same price), we'd have bought in KC...we certainly looked in KC when househunting. We don't have kids, so the schools aren't a factor at present, and at our then-address, we were in Center, not KCMO district. Some of the homes we looked at were in Red Bridge, in Hickman Mills district. But we landed in Lee's Summit, and thus far, no complaints, except for having to drive back in to Brookside for choir practice twice a week. It was nice when that was a 5-10 minute drive instead of a half hour.

[OneKC]

Originally Posted by christina0001

I don't think you can accurately generalize safety by state. It depends more on the neighborhood.

Best post in the thread. There are good neighborhoods in KS that are indistinguishable from good neighborhoods in MO, and bad neighborhoods in KS that are indistinguishable from bad neighborhoods in MO. Depends entirely on what you want in a neighborhood, I wouldn't give much credence to which state you live in. And I think it has been demonstrated over and over that the taxes are pretty much the same.