Author: John D. Sweeney

Publisher:

Published: 1953

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13:

The growth problem of a progressive metropolitan city in relation to its environs is a phenomenon which has broadened in scope over the past fifty years. In evaluating the problem as it applies to the two Kansas Cities: Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, we can profit from the experiences of St. Louis and San Francisco, whose solutions have proved to be inadequate over the years. Kansas City's present situation compares perhaps more closely with the original situation in St. Louis than with any other community, because in both cases state lines are involved, as well as more than one county. Both planse outlined in Chapter VIII of this study are untried in the sense that neither has been applied exactly to the city-county consolidation problems in the past; however, in view of the experiences of other cities, this would seem to be an advantage rather than a risk. It should be stated immediately that the purpose of this study is not to find justification for the expansion of Kansas City for expansion's sake. It is made instead to attempt to show how consolidation of the city with surrounding territory can act to provide better, more economical, more efficient, service for the people both of the present metropolitan area and its suburban area. The benefits which will accrue from centralization of planning and administrative authority, in turn, should act to enhance the economic and cultural importance of the Greater Kansas City area as a whole. In making this study the writer was impressed with the importance of serving mutual interests (of both the metropolitan and the suburban areas involved) in arriving at a final solution. Otherwise, the general "health" and stability of the community, which is the purpose of the consolidation, will be defeated at the outset. It is essential that all areas to be affected by consolidation be put in full possession of the facts so that the move will be made by mutual consent and that no resentful minority community or neighborhood will act as a perpetual gadfly in the administration and operation of the consolidated unit. In discussing both Plan I and Plan II in the study, the area after consolidation is referred to as the GREATER KANSAS CITY AREA for the sake of simplicity. Plan I as proposed is intended to prevent St. Louis' dilemma of being unable to expand beyond its own self-imposed county line, at the same time avoiding the Denver action which stripped Arapahoe County, Colorado, of much of its land and wealth. Plan II is a sharp departure from any consolidation measure tried so far in that it would cross state as well as county lines by aligning into a metropolitan unit the townships of Kansas (five) and the townships of Missouri: (four) which are at present an active part of the Kansas City metropolitan potential. Although legal barriers would seem to make this plan more difficult to accomplish than Plan I, the barriers are artificial while the territory involved is a geographic and economic unit. In this case, the extra effort of gaining legislative approval from two states rather than one would provide a more natural and workable answer to the consolidation problem.