Kansas City (Missouri)

I

Introduction

Kansas City (Missouri), city in western Missouri where the Kansas River (also known as the Kaw) joins the Missouri River. It is the largest city in the state and the core of one of the major commercial, industrial, and financial centers in the Midwest. There are no natural boundaries between it and Kansas City, Kansas, and the two cities’ economies are closely integrated.

Kansas City’s principal asset is its location. Among large American cities, it is the closest to the geographic center of the continent. With excellent rail, river, and freeway connections, the city serves as a transportation crossroads for much of the country’s heartland. In fact, the city refers to itself as “The Heart of America.”

Kansas City developed around two frontier commercial posts located near where the Missouri River makes a great bend toward the east. Kansas City was first christened the Town of Kansas, but in 1853 the town was renamed the City of Kansas, and in 1889 it was officially rechristened Kansas City.

Kansas City has a variable continental climate. Generally the most pleasant weather occurs in the spring and fall. A long period of warm days and cool nights begins in late September and extends through October and November. Severe thunderstorms, cold waves, blizzards, and drought occasionally visit the region, and one or two tornadoes may be expected to hit the metropolitan area each year. The average high temperature in January is 2°C (35°F) and the average low -9°C (17°F); average high in July is 32°C (89°F) and the average low 20°C (68°F). Average annual precipitation is 956 mm (37.6 in); the driest months are November through February. The city’s mean elevation of 229 m (750 ft) has little effect on the climate.

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II

Kansas City and Its Metropolitan Area

Kansas City lies on both banks of the Missouri River, covering a land area of 805.0 sq km (310.8 sq mi). It is a community of wide, tree-lined streets and many parks. More than 200 fountains grace the city’s parks, public gardens, and parkways, while statues imported during the 1920s can be found along many boulevards. The city’s historic core is on the south bank of the river, while sections to the north have a suburban character. Numerous bridges connect the two sections of the city. Interstate highways encircle the central business district, known as the downtown loop.

Downtown Kansas City has many handsome buildings in the art deco style and is the site of four massive steel sculptures that were installed in 1994 atop tall columns above the Bartle Convention Center. Between the downtown and the river to the north is the Kansas City River Market district, formerly called the River Quay, known for its renovated historic loft buildings, specialty restaurants, and nightclubs, as well as its bustling open-air farmers market. The Arabia Riverboat Museum is housed in one of the renovated buildings. Riverboat casinos are a relatively recent addition to the city’s waterfront, opening in the 1990s after the legalization of riverboat gambling. To the south of downtown, the restoration of Westport Square has turned another historic area of the city into a popular dining, entertainment, and shopping district. Further south is Country Club Plaza, one of the nation’s oldest shopping centers and modeled after the architecture of Seville, Spain.

The Kansas City metropolitan area, known as Greater Kansas City, consists of 11 counties: Jackson, Clay, Cass, Platte, Lafayette, Ray, and Clinton counties in Missouri; and Johnson, Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Miami counties in Kansas. The population of the region in 2006 was 1,967,000, up from 1,449,000 in 1980. The most intensely urbanized areas are the Missouri counties of Jackson and Clay along with Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas. The outlying counties are more rural and wooded, but they are changing rapidly as the geographic city grows and businesses, industries, and a greater percent of the population move to the urban fringe.

In addition to Kansas City, the largest Missouri cities in the metropolitan region are Independence, (Missouri’s fourth largest city), Lees Summit, and Blue Springs, one of Missouri’s fastest growing commuter communities. Kansas City, Kansas, (the third largest city in Kansas at the 2000 census) and Leavenworth are old established cities on the Kansas side. The fast-growing suburbs of Overland Park, Olathe, and Shawnee are expanding the urban area westward.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Kansas City annexed large areas, so that today it completely surrounds some independent, incorporated cities, including both North Kansas City and Gladstone.

III

Population

The population of Kansas City declined in the 1980s and grew modestly in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1980 it had 448,159 people. In 2000 the population was 441,545. The decline in population during the 1980s was related to movement from the inner city to the suburbs. Kansas City’s central neighborhoods have suffered population losses for several decades, but Missouri’s liberal annexation laws allowed the city to absorb fast-growing suburban neighborhoods, somewhat offsetting the loss from the inner city. In 2005, Kansas City's population was estimated at 444,965. During the early 2000s downtown redevelopment programs made more residential housing available and brought residents back to the central city.

According to the 2000 census, whites were 60.7 percent of the population, blacks 31.2 percent, Asians 1.9 percent, Native Americans 0.5 percent, and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders 0.1 percent. People of mixed heritage or not reporting race were 5.6 percent of the population. Hispanics, who may be of any race, made up 6.9 percent of the people.

As in many United States cities, Kansas City has a number of ethnic neighborhoods that formed where immigrant groups settled. Many of these neighborhoods have been occupied in turn by new groups as the descendants of the earlier immigrants moved up the economic ladder and out to the suburbs. The north side of Kansas City in the vicinity of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church is where many Italian immigrants settled. The West Side, bordering the Armourdale industrial district, is a Hispanic area. Black neighborhoods comprise a large area south of downtown, and the neighborhoods east of the central business district have been mainly black for generations. An extensive area of black and mixed race neighborhoods borders the central business district of Kansas City, Kansas. Many neighborhoods in northeastern Kansas City are inhabited by white working-class people, frequently Protestant and conservative in outlook.

The suburbs to the north in Clay county are a mixed lot. North Kansas City and Riverside are industrial towns. Others are older, stable residential communities, such as Gladston, Liberty, Oakview, Oakwood, Oakwood Park, Oaks, Claycomo, and Pleasant Valley. Independence, built around an old courthouse square, is the largest suburb on the Missouri side. A central city landmark in Independence is the unique spiral tower on the temple of the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints. The southwest is an upper-middle class to upper-class residential area, where some of the most prestigious neighborhoods were built by the J.C. Nichols Company, a pioneering land development company.

Metropolitan Kansas City is an island of growth in the midst of a large area of declining population. For a century, the city has attracted rural migrants from the surrounding areas, draining the population of counties in western Missouri, eastern Kansas, southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa. Some counties in Kansas City’s hinterland have declined continuously in population since the census of 1890.

IV

Educational and Cultural Institutions

Major institutions of higher education in Kansas City are a branch (established in 1929) of the University of Missouri, Avila College (1916), Rockhurst College (1910), DeVry Institute of Technology (Missouri) (1931), and the Kansas City Art Institute (1885). Schools in neighboring suburbs include Park University (1875), in Parkville, and William Jewell College (1849), in Liberty. Baptist, Nazarene, and Methodist theological schools are also located in the area. Midwest Research Institute, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit research and development organizations, and the adjacent Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology, the largest privately-endowed technical reference library, are located near the University of Missouri campus. In addition, the university houses the Center for TeleComputing Research, considered a top center for telecommunications and computer networking research.

The Kansas City Museum offers exhibits on history and natural history as well as a planetarium and the Challenger Learning Center, which simulates space flight. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art contain extensive collections of artifacts from the ancient world and an outstanding collection of Asian art, Chinese art in particular. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994, and the Science City Museum—with hands-on exhibits on science and technology—in 1999.

In the River Market area is the Arabia Steamboat Museum. It features a working paddle wheel and other restored sections of the steamboat Arabia, recovered from the Missouri River bottoms where it sank in 1856. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum recounts the black baseball teams organized before the major leagues were desegregated and is part of a new complex that also houses the Kansas City Jazz Museum and the Horace M. Peterson III Visitor Center. The home and studio of painter Thomas Hart Benton, known for his vibrant murals, is a state historic site. A library for the papers of Harry S. Truman, part of the National Archives, is located in nearby Independence, hometown of the 33rd United States president.

Kansas City claims to have more professional theaters than any city of comparable size in the United States. There are more than 20 equity and community theaters and numerous theater departments at high schools and colleges in the city. For ongoing performances there is the acclaimed Missouri Repertory Theater. The Midland Center for the Performing Arts features Broadway shows. The Folly Theater, a turn-of-the-century burlesque house, now features plays and concerts. Symphony, opera, and ballet presentations are staged at the Lyric Theater.

Kansas City played an important role in the development of jazz music in the United States. As early as the 1920s, Kansas City jazz had its own distinctive musical style. Some jazz enthusiasts say that Kansas City jazz uses more saxophones and always has background riffs. Kansas City was the home of ragtime composer Scott Joplin and saxophonist Charlie Parker. Count Basie formed his band in the city. In 1997 the Kansas City Jazz Museum opened, with collections focused primarily on the contributions of jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington, as well as Parker and other Kansas City musicians. The facility also includes a live jazz club and is located in the 18th and Vine Historic District, the center of jazz music development. Every August the Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival, which features nationally known performers and is considered one of the top concert series in the nation, takes place in this historic part of the city..

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