“Overland Park Mall?” It’s Oak Park Mall.

Not that I go there a lot.

Um, no Snodgrass. People like going to places where there isn’t the crack of gunshots punctuated by ambulance sirens.

Here’s the problem. There is no ghetto mall. People living in the ghetto have no place to shop that’s mall like. No mall could survive in the ghetto anyway, due to the crime. So people who live in the ghetto have to drive a long way to shop at any place other than beauty parlors and fast cash pawn places.

So they drive down to Blue Ridge Mall. Normal east side people shop there for a while when the ghetto fuckbags show up and start ripping stores off left and right, causing general mayhem, robbing people, carjackings etc…

That mall then closes. People then go elsewhere. They go to Bannister Mall. Only now it’s a direct influx of ghetto shitbags without the first wave of decent people. Crime, car thefts, shootings, stabbings, mayhem in general ensues.

Mall closes. The middle income and upper income drive longer distance. Meanwhile, ghetto shitbags find a new mall to destroy. They set their sights on Ward Parkway mall.

Since there is no movie theater that can survive in the ghetto without being robbed, this one is the closest drive for people on the east side.

Now, that mall is a fleabag craphole. Try going to a movie there once. First, nobody will shut the fuck up. Second, there are always fights DURING the movie. The place is crawling with off duty PD because it’s well on its way to being the next Bannister mall. Third, shoplifting is NUTS. I watched shoplifting right before my eyes at Old Navy. They don’t want the police to get involved because, someone told me, the police don’t handle it the Old Navy way. Good luck with that Old Navy. Bye bye inventory.

It is now overrun with sleazy hooligans with booze and guns.

So that, long and short is why malls far at the edges of the city are thriving. Even the Plaza is turning into a crapland. There is so much crime down there at nighty it’s outrageous. People robbed at gun point, purse snatchings, car thefts, etc.

Roger, you could have done us all a big favor by just writing “Black people scare me, that’s why I don’t go outside.”

[...] (Spotted at BlogKC.) [...]

Tim put your head back into your ostrich hole.
Crime rates (unfortunately) follow ghetto neighborhoods. Ghetto neighborhoods are primarily black. To say its all the black peoples fault is not true BUT the majority of the shoplifitng and crimes at all these dead malls were done by young disrespecting blacks.
At the Indep. Center Mall the security knows this and will run off ANYONE, black or not, who looks like their not shopping. Hanging out and goofing off at the mall is no longer accepted like it once was.
We have to keep in mind these malls are private property. They can and do reserve the right to refuse service to ANYONE.
Its a good thing they do too or we’d have no malls to even talk about.
This city is far less “progressive” than the liberals would like to think.
Get real and you’ll discover the real problems. Its not a race issue, its a ghetto issue.

I am amazed at the simplistic view so many take of urban blight. Our problems are caused by several factors, none of which is entirely the cause, but all of which added up to the way our city looked just a few years ago before gas spiked and the city center began to be revived. They were, in no particular order:

1. White flight. As long as white people are scared of black people ruining their property values, they will run to far flung suburbs, use precious infrastructure dollars to pay for new amenities like they were used to at their old place, stop going to the old places, and let them die for lack of cash.

2. Poverty. Simply put, if we don’t try to take care through education, not incarceration, of our poor, our poor will steal, get in trouble, be on drugs, etc. because they are uneducated and fixated on forgetting their troubles. This goes as much for white trash in the country or city as it does poor minorities.

3. We have to have city fathers who care enough about our older developments to keep them viable. They don’t–they’re caught up in “new” building. That causes the old to deteriorate. If we valued our history a lot of older buildings and businesses would still be around.

4. The Wal Marting of America. Everything’s the same, so when there are two Macy’s five miles apart, one will be closed. I bet when Lee’s Summit gets their Macy’s one of the closer ones in town will close.

5. The move away from boxy indoor malls. I predicted this to my wife ten years ago and she thought I was nuts. Who’d want to Christmas shop in cold weather having to go outside every few minutes? I WOULD! IT’s called fresh air. The old mall concept also didn’t advertise well for big national chain stores or restaurants–you couldn’t see their signs from the street.

So–stop blaming blacks. It’s poverty, the inability of our town to stop running from itself, and the fact we don’t appreciate our older resources that causes things like Bannister. A 28 year old building built to last a hundred years or more is closed due to a lot of factors. I was a Bannister kid. 1986–Annie’s Santa Fe, the smell of christmas inside the mall, my girlfriend and I wandering around looking for fun….ah the difference between 18 and 40.

WOW brad, white flight, but then lets educated not incarcerate. I dont know guy when I was punished as a child it taught me to do right next time and not wrong. Countries who take off a hand for stealing have differnt (less) thefts then those who hug and cuddle. Liberalism is a mental disorder. Poverty is a damning mindset, which says if I have $200 rather than buy groceries or needed clothes, I’m gonna blow it all on one TV or Brand name shoe. So yes there does need to be education. How to make a dollar work for you. The whole teach a man to fish idea. But does Government need to teach that? We as society and families need to educate and allow Government to take care of streets and sewers, jails and enforcement of our laws that WE vote into being by one way or the other. But for the Mall issue yeah theres lots of economics and whats hip at play there.