Hey, this is apropros of our recent thread and it's about my backyard. Didn't I detail all of the commercial crap I drove past on a recent trip over to Olathe?
This article brings up some interesting points, but it misses the bigger context of Kansas City economics and sprawl.
The article notes that more lower income are moving into Johnson County, which is having problems dealing with these "big city problems." There is currently a NIMBY revolt in one neighborhood in Leawood and Overland Park, as local residents are protesting plans by a local church to renovate its facilities to better accomodate small trucks for its charity programs.
One thing this article raises which I find interesting is that JoCo residents are spending so much on housing costs. This is frightening when you consider that almost *all* of these people have to own a car, which is another huge expense. I'm wondering if these stats point to people being underpaid rather than rents just being too high.
This article misses on several factors. It focuses on Olathe, which is one of KC's oldest exurbs, but currently the area experiencing the most radical effects of sprawl. The rent cited in this article may be typical of new apartment complexes in Johnson County, but they aren't typical for the rest of Kansas City. I know that you can get a 2 bedroom apartment for $500 or less in midtown Kansas City. I suspect that prices are similar around Kansas City, Mo., Raytown, Independence, Kansas City, KS, and parts of South KC. It is more expensive to live in apartments in Olathe, because these apartments are new and they are in demand by people who don't want to live in the Missouri side of town.
The elephant in the room is the racial and class geography of Kansas City. Johnson County, KS is the booming suburbs they are because the rich and the middle class of KC have been locating there for over a half century. Much of this settlement is motivated by racism. It's easy to avoid the problems of "those" urban schools in KCMO simply be re-locating over the state line. As a result, KCMO has ended up with many problems whose burdens aren't shared equally by people living in the metro area.
The article features some working class folks living in Olathe who have problems with the high rents. Many working class folks don't live in Olathe, they live over in KCMO and the Missouri suburbs. One only needs to look at the traffic patterns on the interstates to see how that dynamic works. In the morning, I-435 in jammed westbound into JoCo from working class and lower middle class peeps living in Grandview and southeast KC. At night the flow is reversed as people leave their jobs at JoCo office buildings and service jobs.
JoCo is dominated by upper middle class housing developments and their corresponding retail support. I doubt that a person working at the Outback Steakhouse in Olathe or any of the other service industry jobs can afford to live near their work. But given the traffic problems in JoCo, I can see why some working class people are trying to live in these expensive apartments.
I started pet-sitting today for a friend who lives in a mini-mansion in JoCo. The size of these houses just boggles my mind. These folks have an entire wing of the house closed off because the kids have moved out. They have a laundry room, a solarium, a piano room, an exercise room, a gardening room bigger than Doug's NYC apartment, a completely furnished basement bar, and so many bathrooms that I discover new ones every time I pet-sit for them.
The ironic part of my evening involved enjoying their HBO subscription and watching Bill Maher rant about the need for more class warfare.
Chuck