All posts by Sierra Browne-Jenkins

Census Analysis (Census Tract 0050/50/178)

The census tract that my blocks reside in started off as tract 0050 in 1950, simplified to simply tract 50 in 2000, and then redefined as tract 178 by 2010. I mentioned in my previous project that the blocks that I analyzed once had two or three rows of homes behind the three large apartment buildings that dominate E. Armour Blvd between Gillham Rd. and Warwick Blvd. Some time in the early to mid-century, those homes were demolished to make way for a massive parking lot. Whether this had anything to do with the overall population of the census tract, I’m not sure, though it could possibly relate to the steep population drop between 1950 (5,972) and 2000 (2,395).

I also discussed in my paper the domination of white residents within the tract, being at 98.76% in 1950, and actually reversing the ratio with white residents making up 39.87% of the tract population and non-white residents making up 57.42% in 2000. I wonder if this could have anything to do with those apartment buildings and surrounding residential plots, and racist/biased leasing policies for the area, though it could also simply be the dispersion of the mere 12.3% of non-white residents that made up Kansas City in 1950 according to the population census.

Between Warwick Blvd. & Gillham Rd.

My blocks ran north and south of E. Armour Blvd. between Warwick Blvd. and Gillham Rd.; over 100 or so years, the area gradually transformed from sparse, empty space, to a bustling and over-crowded residential hub, to the minimal but larger-scale business area that rests there today. There are three constants in the area starting from roughly 1909: The Bellerive, Park Central, and Clyde Manor “Apartment-Hotels”. These three apartment buildings sit in a row north of E. Armour and still stand today, but the gaggle of houses that once took up the land behind them have long since been replaced by a massive parking lot for the buildings’ inhabitants.

(2018)(c. 1909)