The elephant in the room in Valentine is housing. There are three challenges that I recognized in the neighborhood. Those challenges are pressures of displacement, demolition of their neighborhood, and adversarial institutions, namely Kansas City Life Insurance.
First, rent prices are up 30% since 2012.
Eviction Lab studied evictions in Kansas City in 2012-2015 and I compared that average to the average monthly eviction rate to 2022-2025 and the monthly eviction rate is up 8%.
Income has risen 12% in Valentine from 2012 to 2025. In Kansas City at large income is up only 3%, so unless everyone in Valentine is getting raises, it seems that new higher incomes who can afford the new higher rents are moving in and lower incomes are getting displaced.
The displacement pressure isn’t just felt by renters, it’s also felt by working class and middle class residents who own and live in their home.
Home value is up 79% since 2012 which is simply magnificent if you own a home. But this isn’t necessarily money that is accessible to you, it is tied up in equity in your home, not dollars in your bank account.
But nevertheless with your new found wealth comes a 20% increase in dollars paid in property taxes. And if you are a working class home owner or god forbid on a fixed income this could be the difference between you getting to stay in valentine or having to sell your home and leave , which turns over the neighborhood.
Demolition of the Neighborhood
There is simply less opportunity to buy a stake in valentine
You can’t buy a home that doesn’t exist. At Valentines peak density it averaged 16 units per acre – about 5000 units in the neighborhood. A comparable neighborhood would be Hyde park or Brooklyn Heights in New York. But Then Kansas City Life Insurance started to buy homes and destroying them. Now that density has been cut in half and it hangs closer to 8 units per acre, much closer to Waldo in comparison of density.
Why is Kansas City Life Insurance destroying homes?
This takes us to the 1971 Plan that Kansas City Life Insurance released that same year.
The biggest problem with this plan? It destroys an entire neighborhood. Many more problems with this plan, it’s suburban in nature and would put the old walkable bones of Valentine to shame. But this plan is from 71, we don’t need to bad mouth its form and use too bad. But I brought it up because there are two things we can glean from this plan: time, and space.
Time
Phase 1 was supposed to be complete in 1971, It wasn’t. But for Kansas City Life Insurance that’s ok. Kansas City Life Insurance operates on institutional time. Cigas and neighbors fought tooth and nail to make sure that they saved their neighborhood. And generation after generation has fought that fight ever since. We are humans who will die. Kansas City Life Insurance will not, they have time.
Space
This plan clearly states they have no problem taking all of the neighborhood north of Valentine Rd. Now we just need to examine their actions.
This is a map that denotes corporate landlords, mom and pop landlords, the transparent blue is Kansas City Life Insurance owned parcels, and owner occupiers.
This map clearly demonstrates the creeping and crawling of Kansas City Life Insurance. Only seven structures remain on the northern half of where the plan was created including one owner occupied house. There are only 5 owner occupied houses in the southwestern plat.
Less owner occupiers means less stability and potentially less of a tie to the neighborhood and certainly less control of the neighborhood as the rules are set up today. There is an argument to be made if you are a landlord in Valentine you are more concerned with your bottom line than housing. If Kansas City Life Insurance was to make a lucrative offer that beats that of the rental market then why would you turn that down.
And as time passes and displacement pressure builds or natural migration occurs, especially when residents are being antagonized by a major institutional investor that sees their neighborhood as a means for their own profit. Kansas City Life Insurance will likely continue to be there lurking in the grass waiting for the opportunity to snatch up this property to fulfill their paternal instinct and recreate the Valentine neighborhood in their own image.