Kansas City's Columbus Park Neighborhood: An Urban Analysis
My future home
John
Burke
October 12,
2001
Paper I
The Columbus Park Neighborhood, which is
located in Kansas City, Missouri, is very unique, not just in Kansas City, but
in the entire region surrounding it. The demography of this neighborhood
reveals a uniquely proportioned, ethnically diverse community; just about every
land-use imaginable, and a wide distribution of incomes from the wealthy to
those people living on welfare and living in public housing. Another distinct
feature is the neighborhood’s well-marked boundaries, which virtually
isolate it from the surrounding communities. Columbus Park is a neighborhood
rich with history that has had its ups and downs throughout the years, and
because of this unique evolution it has been a hot topic of discussion among
Kansas Citians for years.
Columbus
Park is located on the north side of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It has
clearly defined physical borders. It is bounded on the north by the Missouri
River, on the south by Interstate 70, on the east by Interstates 35 and 29 (the
Paseo Bridge approach) and on the west by the Heart of America Bridge. It is
just on the outskirts of the city’s central business district, which is
just a short bus ride away.
Columbus
Park is one of the oldest Neighborhoods in Kansas City and is often regarded as
“the city’s first neighborhood”. In the Nineteenth Century,
Columbus Park was the main riverboat port where many European Immigrants first
stepped into the city. Even today, the neighborhood is home to many diverse
cultures. The most prominent ethnic group in the neighborhood is the Italian
culture. From about 1890 to 1920, the city had a wave of Italian immigrants
seeking work in the railroad and meatpacking industries. Many of them settled
in Columbus Park. That cultural identity still remains, with many Italian
social and religious customs being maintained along with some ethnic
organizations. However, other cultures now represent over half of the
neighborhood’s ethnic demography including the Vietnamese culture and the
African-American culture.
According to
census data, from 1950 to 1990, the neighborhood has seen a decrease in
population of about 40%. However, since 1970, the number of households has
increased, thus showing a trend in smaller-sized households. Racially, the
neighborhood has also forgone changes. In 1950, roughly 86% of the population
was white, increasing by 1970 to about 98% white. Since 1970, however, the
non-white portion of the population has increased due to a great number of
Vietnamese immigrants and other non-white and Hispanic people that have since
settled in the neighborhood. In 1990, 39.1% of the population was white, 26.8%
of the population was African-American, and other minorities comprised the
remaining 34.1%, the predominant minority being
Vietnamese.
Primarily, from an
economic standpoint, Columbus Park could be considered low to middle class. On
the East Side of the neighborhood exists the Guinotte Manor Hope VI Public
Housing Project. Originally, Guinotte Manor was one of the most poorly designed
public housing projects in the country and was an eyesore not only to the
Columbus Park Neighborhood, but to the entire city as
well.
In 1999, however, the old
barracks-style, dilapidated, and crime-ridden housing was torn down and rebuilt
with very attractive town-home style multi-family units. Now, Guinotte Manor is
the premier housing project in the city and is well renowned throughout the
country as a very successful design. It is no longer an eyesore to the
community, but now is considered by many to be a valuable asset, as it makes up
30% of the housing in the
neighborhood.
In terms of land uses,
Columbus Park runs the gamut. Primarily, most of the neighborhood is comprised
of residential uses with many single-family houses as well as a mixture of low
and higher density apartments. The 5th Street corridor is considered
to be the main business district of the neighborhood and is comprised of
numerous retail stores, shops, and restaurants. Many of these stores are ethnic
foods stores and restaurants that accommodate the respective cultures of the
neighborhood. From 5th Street north to the Missouri River there are
several light and heavy industries including some public maintenance grounds and
highway department facilities.
For the
most part, the zoning of the neighborhood is remarkably inappropriate as it
allows for more intense uses than most of the current development, and generally
more than Kansas City’s land use plan of the area would allow. The
current zoning allows for heavy industrial development, which would be
detrimental to the neighborhood setting if it were to take place. Though some
of the residential area is zoned for residential uses, most of it is zoned
commercially. The area north of 5th Street is designated for heavy
industrial uses and there is even agricultural zoning along the Missouri River.
It is highly unusual to see such a wide variety of these types of zoning and
land uses in such a small area.
A
large majority of the structures in the neighborhood predate the 1940s and 1950s
with many of them dating back to the turn of the century or earlier. Most of
the businesses along the business corridor are one to two story brick
structures, which often have dwellings either above or behind the stores. There
are several apartment buildings in the area that are two to three stories, some
of which contain loft-style apartments. The houses in the neighborhood are
mostly bungalow-style homes or long, narrow “shotgun” houses. In
the early 1980s there was an attempt at revitalization of the housing and a
small, one block development of modern, upscale housing was built on the
neighborhood’s north side where many of the neighborhood’s wealthier
residents reside. The condition of most of the structures in the neighborhood
is very good considering their age, however, there are several dilapidated
structures scattered throughout Columbus Park, especially those buildings that
bordered the first Guinotte Manor
development.
Columbus Park is one of
the most intact historic residential neighborhoods in Kansas City. With its
inherent resources, the community has survived in strength through virtually
every type of depredation that urban processes might visit upon a neighborhood,
including poor urban planning, inappropriate zoning, a failed public housing
development, and the removal of land for freeways on three of its
boundaries.
This community is now a
notably harmonious social mixture of cultures, reflecting its Italian-American
heritage along with substantial numbers of Vietnamese-Americans, other whites
and African-Americans, including long-time residents, and new innovative
residents set on maintaining the neighborhood and its
buildings.
Bibliography
Kansas
City Planning and Development Department: Planning and Urban design
Division. Columbus Park Area
Plan. September 8,
1998.
Kansas City Planning and
Development Department: FOCUS Kansas City. Columbus
Park Neighborhood Assessment
Report. August 12,
2000.
Kingsbury & Associates.
Market Study of Guinotte Manor Phase III Redevelopment of
the Columbus Park Community,
Kansas City, Missouri. June 14, 1999.
Posted: Sat
- August 28, 2004 at 10:49 AM