Tonight our least favorite Latina is digging deep:
Mary Sanchez: Measuring Sprawl 2014 goes beyond the initial measurements. It also studies how where we live impacts health, finances, people's ability to climb the economic ladder and their overall quality of life.
Meanwhile, Kansas City's best and brightest are still deep in thought and trying to make urban life more attractive while still winning contracts and tax breaks for the Golden Ghetto
If it weren't for "The Atlantic Cities" website and old Lewis Diuguid columns, Mary wouldn't have any ideas at all, and certainly none that are original.
ReplyDeleteThe whole sprawl meme is old and these folks act as though the suburbs are just the bedroom communities of the 1950s desperately waiting for the downtown renaissance.
But instead they're completely contained communities and have been since the development of Reston, Va in the mid-60s.
And for those who complain about sprawl, just spend some time in KCMO north of the river. It's more like Overland Park than Brookside, is the only part of the city where the population is growing, and generates a very large part of the city's sales, earnings, and property taxes.
Be careful what you wish for.
Don't expect another century like the 20th Century.
ReplyDeleteSprawl is good!
ReplyDeleteMary looks different.She been working out?/
ReplyDeletestupid nigger loving cunt.
ReplyDeleteWhat every happen to infill?
ReplyDelete8:29, you are right. This is not the 1950's, and the suburbs are not merely bedroom communities.
ReplyDeleteThere are more opportunities for employment in the suburbs than in the city. The suburbs have more retail, medical and educational facilities than ever before. Why? Because that's where the money is.
So Mary can rage all she wants about suburban sprawl, but nobody is gonna pay one bit of attention to her.
Glad to see Mary getting into shape.
ReplyDelete8:29 and 12:29, amateur anonymous economists.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you guys are experts.
hahaha.
If you think the northland is the only growing part of KCMO, you are either badly mistaken or intentionally misrepresenting facts. One would suspect the latter, as your agenda is pretty obvious. Either way, you might want to browse a bit of census data about growth in the suburbs, because its not exactly uniform either. There a pretty significant swath of Johnson County that is shrinking much faster than stable urban neighborhoods in KCMO.
The suburbs are a Ponzi scheme. But keep investing, guys. Because what could go wrong?
Suburbs = subsidized.
ReplyDeleteSprawl and Mary Sanchez in the same sentence is funny.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I have trouble telling octomom and mary apart?
ReplyDeleteNumerous studies have shown that cities tend to grow outward to the point at which it takes about 45min. to reach the cultural center of the city (usually the downtown core). Once this limit is reached, cities tend to re-invest from core outward in subsequent phases of renewal. The exception to this rule is found in cities with geographic boundaries to expansion.
ReplyDeleteKC is not really that different than other large cities. We may have more per-capita highway miles, but that is mostly due to a more orderly system of expansion that provided lots of planned area for all those highways.
Where KC is beginning to break the 45 min. rule is in southern JoCo, and I think a lot of this is due to the size and relative wealth of JoCo. The county, which by nature of being in a different state doesn't fiscally depend on KCMO, has created much of it's own cultural identity and the attractions typically found in the downtown core.
South JoCo development has nothing to do with "cultural identity" (it has none, its just a run of the mill suburb like every other middle class suburb in America) much less "attractions" (it has none, just chain retail).
ReplyDeleteSouth JoCo development is entirely the result of public subsidies and public infrastructure investments. Its a pyramid scheme that requires constant input of taxpayer money to prop up the risk of developer investment, as it moves ever outward in a locust-like devoring of relatively cheap greenfields and farmland.
Inner JoCo is already blighting rapidly.