Kansas City area residents are living farther apart than ever before. In 1920, the Kansas City area had 8,405 people per square mile. In 1990, that had dropped to 2,147 people per square mile. Some woodland creatures adapt to life in the suburbs. To gardeners' chagrin, deer find shrubs and flowers outside homes delectable.
Suburban sprawl is so prevalent, so overwhelming, it touches all our lives, every day.
It's the demise of shopping downtown and the rise of malls in virtually all directions around Kansas City. It's not riding a commuter train to work like people in other cities because we're spread out too thin. It's restaurants closing on the Country Club Plaza and reopening on 119th Street in suburbia. It's driving 20 minutes to day care or using a highway to reach a grocery store. Anyway you look at it, we are a shrine to sprawl, that seemingly unceasing desire to build farther and farther out, whether in Johnson County, the Northland or eastern Jackson County.