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Dion

@2024dion.bsky.social
521 followers 180 following 380 posts

city and regional planning. KC by the way of Jax, South Bend, Detroit, DC.

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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Maybe. The first part is just kind of scattered and reads as if you aren't serious. It took until the annotated aerial photos that I realized you had a plausible theory and that this was an effort-post
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
I read it this morning and thought it was an April Fools Joke for the first ten paragraphs
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Routinely, I am asked, "Why is DC *like that*?" And I know exactly what they mean, and you know exactly what they mean, because DC really is *like that.* And I am such a humanitarian, I will answer this question for you, if you subscribe to my newsletter.
thebirthofacapital.info
What is The Birth of a Capital?
This post is decades in the making. Since high school, I have been interested in a particular part of my childhood that neighbors discussed uneasily, or apologetically, if at all. The big park up the ...
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Man every day I wonder if I shouldn’t just delete my account on here maybe. Opening Bluesky makes me want to actually walk in front of a truck. I don’t think people on here understand how crazy they’ve gotten
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KCUR (Kansas City's best news source) @kcur.org · 12/02/2026
BREAKING: Platform Ventures, the development company that owns a south Kansas City warehouse that federal agents toured last month to consider for an immigrant detention center, announced today that it is not moving forward with the sale.
kcur.org
Kansas City developers halt sale of warehouse for ICE detention center as public pressure mounts
Federal officials first toured the building in January, sparking speculation over whether the owners had sold the building to the U.S. government. Media reports suggested the sale was part of a push to use warehouses across the country as immigration detention centers.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
100%
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Matt Staub @staubio.com · 22/12/2025
Gonna go ahead and pour cold water on calls for rail transit. It's an almost always idle structure 20 miles from the center of the region partially through under- and undeveloped land that was leapfrogged to build a mall by the freeway. Ain't happening.
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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 10/09/2025
Hannah Arendt said 'The death of human empathy is one of the earliest & most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism' We saw the recent cruelty of MAGA denying empathy to Melissa Hortman Empathy for Kirk—not because he ever acted like a decent human—but because we are decent humans
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Claire McCaskill @clairecmc.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The people of Kansas City should be furious about what the Republicans are trying to do to them. Breaking up KC for more political power to Trump is outrageous. And wrong. KC is a crown jewel of MO and the Rs are treating it like dirt.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Missouri republicans want to redraw the congressional map to eliminate KC's D+12 district Punchbowl calls it "perhaps the easiest place for the GOP to gain a seat" punchbowl.news/article/camp...
punchbowl.news
Where could the House GOP redistrict next?
The redistricting wars are ramping up. Here are the top places to watch.
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Adam Goodman @akgood.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
I want inclusionary zoning for (only) bigfoot single family homes, the least affordable and sustainable building form. Like, want to build over 2,000 sqft? Then you gotta make a contribution to the affordable housing fund.
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Mark Anderson @emer.net · 11/07/2025
John Oliver said “Reagan talking points from a Whole Foods crowd” — I think that is in reference to homelessness but it works here too.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
4. Finally, the old Redemptorist building was reopened in 2006 as a Cristo Rey HS, serving the fastest growing Catholic demographic in the region: upwardly mobile Latinos
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
You can see the shift outward on this map. JaCo's middle class families have now moved on from both the inner city and the first ring of suburbs (Raytown, South KC, Independence). Both LS and Blue Springs are growing sources of St Michaels enrollment.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
3. Four decades later, the center of gravity of Catholic HS students had shifted again, as Raytown's aging housing stock lost favor with middle class families. O'Hara was replaced in 2017 by St Michaels in Lees Summit, the next ring of suburbs.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
2. By 1965, freeway and mortgage-access-driven suburbanization and neighborhood demographic change were taking a bite out of school enrollment. The archdiocese built a new school, O'Hara, on the border with the fast-growing suburb of Raytown.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
A brief history of Catholic geography in Kansas City, explained through four high schools. 1. Redemptorist High School opened in Midtown in 1926 in the midst of a five-decade boom that took KC from a backwater to (when combined with KCK) the 14th largest city in the country.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
I wish they broke out ebooks from other online resources. Curious if this is an indication that people are reading less
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Surprising chart: library visits are still down 35% since the pandemic began, and book checkouts are down 30%. Does anyone have a theory that explains this?
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
The real problem with this platform isn't that it's politics posters are annoying scolds. It's that no normies have moved over. If you're on social media to see fun things (sports, pop culture, dumb humor), this platform sucks.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
I'd love to see opinion polling on this idea. "we're not going after you, just reckless psychos" could really work
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
The average restaurant here is not as good as the average DC restaurant (though that may be a cultural divide as much as a quality divide—I have unusual tastes) but the very best are very, very good
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Every midsized plus metro is like this. For example: I have been extremely pleasantly surprised by KC’s food scene.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
There's still so much vacant land in greater midtown Kansas City
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Josh Boehm @joshboehm.xyz · 26/04/2025
22,000 vehicles per day is generally considered the upper limit for a 3-lane road diet. Under 18k is a no-brainer. According to Replica, here are the non-expressway roadways with more than 18k cars per day (bidirectional traffic, or 9k for a directional segment). Our streets are so over-built.
Map of Kansas City area highlighting selected roadways in the KC area with more than 18k vehicles per day. They include southwest trafficway, ward parkway, state line near I-435, metcalf Ave, Burlington/route 9, 135th, Shawnee mission parkway, and blue parkway
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
That's offset by the small number of people in that geographic area though. If you draw a simple 500km circle around KC we come in 34th of the 40 largest metros for population.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
new post on my blog: we're in the center of the country. So why does Kansas City feel so isolated? kcisms.wordpress.com/2025/05/17/i...
kcisms.wordpress.com
In the Center but All Alone
We’re in the center of the country. But everything is far away.  The Center of the Country Recently I told a friend I moved to Kansas City and he said “Oh that’s not bad, you’re smack dab in t…
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
A useful reminder that population growth is not guaranteed: St Louis lost more than 3,000 additional people last year
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Shawnee +460, +2294 from 2020 Independence +569, -1216 (!!!) from 2020 Liberty +409, +1021 from 2020 ... Raytown +108, -703 from 2020 Prairie Village +68, -39 from 2020
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
KCK added 2284 and is now +450 residents from 2020 Lees Summit +2156, +4847 from 2020 Olathe +1890, +7475 from 2020 Overland Park +1670, +5041 from 2020 Lenexa +1023, +1898 from 2020 Raymore +674, +2941 from 2020 Blue Springs +655, +2366 from 2020 Gardner +491, +2408 from 2020
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Municipal population estimates are out for the year ending July 1, 2024 Kansas City 2024: 516,032 Kansas City 2023: 511,300 4,732 people moved to KC last year (0.93% growth) The city has added 7,936 people since April 2020
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
A Kansas City Star Fact Check states the obvious about subsidizing new stadiums for the Royals and Chiefs: it's a politically expedient giveaway to team owners, not a serious economic development strategy t.co/gqOIHzXD8K
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Any alignment that's already in a ditch should join the list imo
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
What’s a slam dunk tunneling alignment if costs could be controlled? I was amazed by Madrid’s 5+mi inner ring freeway tunnel when I visited last year. Almost every US city has a similar road that could be undergrounded
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Port of Miami dug a big one in the 2010s. It was expensive but didn’t have delay/overrun problems as far as I can recall
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
What weaknesses? We don't dig enough road tunnels?
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Here's a fascinating angle of Kansas City's core at its population peak in the middle of the 1950s. There were roughly 50,000 people living in frame (not counting North Kansas City) in 1950. Today? ~20,000
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 03/05/2025
crazy that an influx of dense infill housing can lower prices and make homeownership more attainable
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
New post on my blog: long commutes are bad for your health, and disadvantaged groups are often forced into them. Is that true in the sprawly Kansas City? kcisms.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/o...
kcisms.wordpress.com
On KC Commute Times
Long commutes are associated with a number of adverse personal impacts: higher stress levels, increased risk of obesity, lower overall life satisfaction, reduced sleep duration, and weaker social t…
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
"Amazon has received permitting approval in the past two weeks...If all goes to plan, Amazon is hoping to build a drone delivery center at its same-day delivery facility, located south of Missouri 150, at the corner of Botts Road and 149th Street." www.kansascity.com/news/politic...
kansascity.com
Amazon may bring drone delivery to Kansas City. Here’s the plan
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to The Star that the retail giant founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos is considering bringing drone deliveries to Kansas City.
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
New blog post: my thoughts on the Kansas City stadium debate kcisms.wordpress.com/2025/04/16/o...
kcisms.wordpress.com
On the Stadiums
The Border War Aaron Renn has a great old blog post about the Kansas City Metro’s unique political geography. As he notes, we have the highest share of any MSA of population living across a state l…
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Ben S @bensh3.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Tired: the endless debate on residential sprawl, whose demand is almost entirely a function of housing costs and public service quality in blue cities Wired: the worsening crisis of job sprawl, which is driven by little more than the whims of executives and will induce more residential sprawl
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
he seems to just mean greenfield development, which you can call sprawl if you want but is far too diverse to really praise like this
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
One cool thing about living in Kansas City is that every so often you stumble across a door in a hill that leads to one of our massive industrial caves
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
School bonds won last night for KCPS, Lees Summit, NKC, and the Park Hill School District. That's great to see--continued investment in our education system is key if the city wishes to remain attractive to employers and prospective residents
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Interesting--I am more optimistic about WB, solely because it has more room to grow
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
I have a short blog post up this morning arguing that we may end up underwhelmed by Kansas City's new neighborhoods in the West Bottoms and on the riverfront kcisms.wordpress.com/2025/04/09/a...
kcisms.wordpress.com
Are Kansas City Developers Repeating the Mistakes of the 1970s?
“When Kemper Arena opened, the West Bottoms was nearly vacant…Perhaps the philanthropist hoped his gift might inspire other investment there, but like Crown Center, the effort was flawed: it disper…
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Dion @2024dion.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Yeah for sure. How did you become interested in housing affordability? I’ll admit I haven’t got the chance to watch the full lecture yet
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