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The Green Impact Zone of Missouri: an Analysis

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The Green Impact Zone of Missouri: an Analysis THE GREEN IMPACT ZONE OF MISSOURI: AN ANALYSIS OF PLACE-BASED INVESTMENT A THESIS IN Environmental and Urban Geosciences Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE by KEVIN WICKMAN B.S., Knox College, 2009 Kansas City, Missouri 2016 THE GREEN IMPACT ZONE OF MISSOURI: AN ANALYSIS OF PLACE-BASED INVESTMENT Kevin Michael Wickman, Candidate for the Master of Science Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2016 ABSTRACT The Green Impact Zone of Missouri operated in Kansas City, Missouri from 2009 until 2014 as a national model for place-based investment. Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II is credited with pioneering the initiative, which was overseen for five years by the Kansas City metropolitan-area regional planning organization, the Mid-America Regional Council. During those five years, the Green Impact Zone directed about $166 million dollars into a 150-square block area from 39th Street to 51st Street, including Troost and Prospect avenues as well as Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard. The money came largely from federal funding made available in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and went towards neighborhood infrastructure and investments in human capital, with an emphasis on environmental sustainability. The Green Impact Zone was designed to be highly visible, and it benefited to this end from public support from then-President Barack Obama and other White House personnel. When the initiative ultimately shut down in 2014 due to a lack of funding, it did so quietly, receiving much less fanfare in its final days than it did in its early days. The reputation of the Green Impact Zone is unclear at the present moment; ii although it was successful in raising significant investment in an area that badly needed it, it missed out on major sources of funding. Revitalization of these neighborhoods is a gradual process, and it remains to be seen how much the areas will change in the years following the Green Impact Zone’s efforts. iii APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, have examined a thesis titled “The Green Impact Zone of Missouri: An Analysis of Place- Based Investment,” presented by Kevin Wickman, candidate for the Master of Science degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Supervisory Committee Steven Driever, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of Geosciences Wei Ji, Ph.D. Department of Geosciences Caroline Davies, Ph.D. Department of Geosciences iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .................................................................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................... 11 3. A HISTORY OF INEQUALITY IN KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI ......................... 36 4. THE GREEN IMPACT ZONE OF MISSOURI ....................................................... 59 5. REFLECTIONS ON THE GREEN IMPACT ZONE OF MISSOURI ..................... 98 6. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 115 APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................... 122 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................... 125 VITA .................................................................................................................................... 135 v ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Green Impact Zone Neighborhood Map ...................................................................... 3 2. Kansas City, Missouri Annexation History 1853-2013 ............................................. 39 4. 2010 Census Tract Reference Map ............................................................................ 58 5. New Townhomes Designed by BNIM ....................................................................... 75 6. Renovated Bancroft School Building ........................................................................ 77 7. Exterior of the Mary L. Kelly Community Center .................................................... 80 8. Exterior of the 5008 Prospect Business Incubator ..................................................... 82 9. Troost Avenue Bridge at 48th Street Crossing over Brush Creek ............................. 88 vi TABLES Table Page 1. Kansas City, Missouri School District Enrollment by High School 1945-1975…… .53 2. Total and Racial Population Change in Southeast Kansas City, Missouri 1950-1970 ...................................................................................................................54 3. Kansas City, Missouri Census Tracts with at Least 50% Black Population ...............57 4. Demographic Data for All of Kansas City, the Kansas City Urban Core, and the Green Impact Zone ......................................................................................................60 5. Challenges and Potential of the Site Selected for the Green Impact Zone ..................62 6. Green Impact Zone Partners ........................................................................................65 7. Green Impact Zone TIGER Investments .....................................................................86 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first thank you goes to everyone living in the Green Impact Zone. Each of you has a story to tell, and you are the reason that I wrote this thesis. To everyone that made the Green Impact Zone possible, thank you for your vision, leadership, and courage. You are a tremendous inspiration. I must thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Steven Driever, who has guided me with equal parts patience and firmness. I hope that I have created something that you are proud of. Thanks to the rest of my supervisory committee, Dr. Wei Ji and Dr. Caroline Davies for their generosity, and for coming to my rescue when I needed to round out my committee. Dr. Jimmy Adegoke has been a friend and a mentor to me. Thank you for seeing the potential in me and pushing me to achieve more than I could have on my own. The rest of the UMKC Department of Geosciences deserves my appreciation as well. I especially would like to recognize the tireless support I received from administrative assistants Mary McDonough and Jennifer Burrus. You made everything run, and I couldn’t have done any of this without you. To my mom and dad, Betty and Dick Wickman, I owe everything. You have always believed in me and I’ll never be able to repay you. Lastly, to Grace Fourman I’d like to propose a toast. I finally did it! viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION When I moved to Kansas City in 2011, I already had been introduced to The Green Impact Zone of Missouri, an experimental initiative that began in 2009 with boundaries that stopped only a few blocks from where I had chosen to live. My introduction came through headlines such as “Kansas City’s Green Impact Zone – A Vision for 21st Century Urban Renewal” (Buffa, 2009), which seemed to promise a revolutionary model of urban renewal that would transform a 150-square-block area of Kansas City from struggling to sustainable. The goal of this initiative was to invest heavily in neighborhood infrastructure (public transportation, sidewalk and road renovations, neighborhood community centers, home weatherization, and so forth) and to bring the emerging “green” economy to an area of central Kansas City that had suffered decades of disinvestment. None of this would have seemed possible before President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or Recovery Act) on February 17, 2009. One of the signature programs of Obama’s first term in office, this act was a $787- billion-dollar economic stimulus package. A significant portion of the money allotted to this act was destined for so-called “shovel-ready” projects, with an emphasis placed on sustainably minded, community-focused projects. The Green Impact Zone of Missouri was designed to reflect that type of focus, taking on the type of projects that the Recovery Act favored. Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver II of Missouri’s Fifth District oversaw the creation of the Green Impact Zone of Missouri, a non-profit organization that could apply for, receive, 1 and distribute funding that was available through the Recovery Act. His experience had taught him that even in a mid-size metropolis such as Kansas City, when investments get spread around evenly across the city, there is little measurable effect. In contrast with this way of doing things, his vision was to create an organization that would operate in a relatively small part of the city. With a smaller footprint, resources could go farther, and the Congressman believed that this concentration of resources would yield more significant results than if the same resources were sprinkled across the city or metropolitan region.
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