Dreams Crushed in North Overland Park

For the past 15 years, people in Overland Park have wondered what would take the place of Metcalf South.  Would it be a huge park?  How about an area like Prarie Fire or Park Place?   Maybe a retailer that the area doesn't have will move into the area to draw traffic to the area (see IKEA).  Sports fields? Arena? Corporate HQ Campus? 

FUCK NO!  WE GET A LOWES! 

Have you driven by the area?  What a damn joke.  Right across the street from it is a freaking HOME DEPOT so the area really doesn't need a new hardware store let alone a hardware store that already has several locations in the area.  Has anyone honestly ever felt like they were neglected by the number of hardware stores in the area?

JOCOians that have grown up in the area have been hoodwinked, bamboozled and completely let down by the city planner that allowed for this to happen.  Can anyone in this area get anything right when a mall gets torn down?  Remember the MISSION MALL disaster?  They will go from Aquariums, hotels and multiuse to a freaking Walmart,  Bank of America and Starbucks, just you watch and see.  

BUT that is all North JOCO and doesn't really matter to those of us South of  127th street!  They wouldn't dare let some crappy redevelopment/development happen in our precious land of Blue Valley.  Hell Walmart made their store brick just to move in and that was 15 years ago.   

If you drive out our way you would swear that you were in a different city than OP and if you like it out here, good luck trying to buy a house because prices have gone up so much that a starter house goes for $250K.   

So let them destroy Downtown OP, put a museum in a freaking bowling alley and tear down a landmark and replace it with a Lowes based shopping center.  Let the idiots get all of their bad ideas out of their system before they come out my way.  The only blighted shopping area left is Rosana Square and that is on, oh crap 119th street!!!!

Liberals Screw Over The poor AGAIN

D.C. Council approves ‘living wage’ bill over Wal-Mart ultimatum - The Washington Post

You have to love how the liberals just F'd the people of D.C. in the rear with no KY on this one.

1.  You lose 1800 jobs from a blighted community
2.  The residents of that community will not receive the savings that Box Stores can bring.  If you read through the stories on this you will find that residents have been begging for Wal Mart to open a store in their hood.
3.  The City can count on ZERO new proposals from other companies to open stores in that area.


Is there more to the story than his?  Is here a hidden agenda (like lower property values) by the liberals in D.C.  There has to be.

Photo of he right is of the other DC that nobody talks about.

You know your neighborhood sucks when

You know your neighborhood sucks when an Aldi opening (with gov assistance) is front page news.  

The amount of press coverage this is getting unbelievable and only makes the area look worst (if that is even possible) than it is.  We are talking about 13 jobs and bags of Frito's for $1 not state of the art medical research facilities or even a Jack n The Box.  Is KCMO hoping that Aldi will spur growth in that area or just prevent East Side residents from entering their upscale neighborhoods to purchase food?

Here are 5 more Questions or Issues that I see with this announcement.  

1.  At Aldi's you use cardboard boxes instead of bags to carry your food out.  This means that residents would have to decide which wing of their house would be torn down to carry out groceries.
2.  You have to pay money to get a shopping cart.  Will Aldi implement a WIC for Cart program?
3.  Who the hell are they going to find to work there?  This store will be a target for robbery on a daily basis.
4.  Do they plan on changing the store name every time criminal activity takes place there to keep pace with the name changing of the street that they are on?  This places name and address might change 5 times a year.
5.  Will they sell boxed wine?

OP BLIGHT MAKES NATIONAL NEWS

I would like to thank a reader for finding this nice little gem in todays news. The vacancy of Metcalf South is now giving our great city a black eye at a National Level.

KC GHETTO TOURS AVAILABLE IN JOCO

I will be damned if this guy didn't steal my freaking idea. JOCO residents will soon be able to take tours of blight! Thats right you can board a bus and sit back as someone tells you what the craphole you are looking at use to be. Be sure to take your camera and get snap shots of crackheads and whores and if you are lucky dead bodies.

QUICK HITS

The stories that JOCOians are talking about today while thanking god that they don't live in KCMO.

1. You gotta love cheap gas. On a side note, where did all the Global Warming trolls go that use to send me emails regarding the price of gas? Probably trying to sell their "smart" car.

2. You have nothing to worry about here. Sure Cuba and Russia are strengthening their ties but if Obama is elected they will see us as a communist ally.

3. If you are too cheap to buy your kid a Halloween costume then you must live in KCMO. Rumor has it that Funkhouser is going to be a successful mayor for Halloween. Nobody will ever figure it out.

4. JOCO get Six million dollars to tear down blighted homes. Buh Bye NOJOCO.

5. I have never understood how homeless people have the time to collect cans, steal copper, beg for change etc... to get their drug fix yet don't have the same work ethic to maintain a roof over their head. These poor bastards OD'd in a Lawrence homeless "campground". Is that a KOA camp?

6. M16's for sale in Kansas. Nice. We can now protect ourselves for the upcoming invasion by KCMO residents looking for a better life in our county.

7. KCMO schools offering field trips into the Ghetto. How embarrassing would it be if you were a kid and one of these trips took place in your neighborhood. You would have to be a dumbass to sign that permission slip.

8. You gotta hand it to the muslims and the "honor killing" of their kids.

9. Who the hell gives an 8 year old a loaded Uzi?

10. The return of school shootings

KSHB CONTINUES TO TAKE ON BLIGHT

KSHB is the only one outside of local bloggers discussing the blight problem in this town. This story talks about how workers have picked up 12 tons of trash along Prospect.... Has anyone seen Prospect? The place is still a crap hole. Prospect alone is an environmental hazard. What the story left out was an estimation of how much more garbage is needed to be picked up.

Nice try KSHB but tackle the whole issue, not just the feel good crap.

THE MEDIA IS LATE TO THE BLIGHT GAME

KSHB is running a story regarding neighborhood blight this morning weeks after it started being covered by local bloggers. While it is good to see KSHB being more proactive than other networks in covering "real" problems in the metro, it would of been nice to of seen a product that was at least on the same level of Midtowns.

Bannister Mall

Quick thought here. I just read a story titled "Bannister Mall Blight Attracts Crime". Didn't a fully functioning Bannister Mall attract crime as well? Stop blaming the building and start looking at what the neighborhoods around that area have turned into. It doesn't take a decoder ring to decipher the gang signs spray painted on the over passes and street signs.

THE GREAT URBAN BLIGHT TOUR

A few weeks ago I came up with the idea of doing the Top 10 most blighted ares of the city. I could never get enough time to go out and get the photos taken so I told Midtown that he should run with it. He has the most interesting and unique pictures on his blog of Kansas City and I felt that he could do it more justice than I could. So unlike city leaders we passed bistate 2 an initiative between JOCO & Midtown to bring attention to the blight of the metro.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO MIDTOWNS BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KC BEAUTIFUL,- OH THE POTENTIAL

I just read this little article on KSHB's site regarding the Kansas City beautiful competition and couldn't help but think "how about the opposite"? Seriously, we have all seen photos of the same statues, fountains and shuttle cocks for years, not much has changed, BUT what about KCMO's most blighted areas? Why is there no top ten list for this?

So over the next few weeks I will be taking photos of KC's top 10 blighted areas (in my mind) and posting them on the blog. If you have suggestions feel free to send the info my way.