First, there was a largely unknown commercial/retail real-estate bubble in the mid eighties to early nineties that drove such properties up to astronomical values. Bannister was sold numerous times to ever higher bidders, and was horribly over “leveraged” (a favorite 1980′ yuppie term). The owners not only demanded a huge rent, but a cut of gross income as well.

Second, there was a demographic and transportation issue as well. That bastion of housing fairness (sarcasm intended) known as HUD bought large numbers of old, small footage houses in the area. I mean HUGE numbers of houses. This lowered the value of properties in the area, as well as lowered the mean income. In other words, the neighborhood went to hell. Next, the transportation issue involved the ATA (Kansas city Area Transportation Authority) started running buses from the bad areas in town to the mall. Thus, the criminal element would take the bus to Banister to shoplift, then steal a car and go home. It was terrible.

It became unsafe to go to Bannister mall. It was un kept, dirty, and stunk like moldy basements. The ceiling was falling in many areas, and all of the decorative lighting had been replaced with those horrible blue/white glaring flourescent montrosities that the greenie people love so much. All of the remaing live plants on the inside were replaced with cheap looking (and filthy) plastic plants. And the only stores left before it closed were things like “buy your hot car stereo gear here” and “genuine fake gold chains”.

It was a real shame, actually. What started out as a very nice, suburban mall in the course of a decade and a half became an urban slum hangout for those with neferious intent (theft, drug deals, and the like). I remember when the mall opened… I was fourteen and my little brother was 12. We were invited on the opening day to put our hand prints with all of the other kids into a patch of wet cement on the East side of the mall near one of the anchors. Before they tore the place down, I went there and took a picture of our hand prints.

Indeed, believe it or not, it was a cool, safe place for kids to hang out in during its heyday.

ADT

would you & your family, little sisters, brothers etc…
continue to shop in an area where shooting, robbery, assault, theft, run rampant?

THAT IS WHY decent people of all races stopped going there. Period!

I grew up in the area & witnessed it first hand.
It wasn’t only white flight, many of us black folk left too.

There are areas with crime issues. But I’ve never heard the bus lines blamed, and it just doesn’t seem as bad as in KC. KC, last I checked, does have more concentrated poverty than Denver. Is it white fear of black presence that scares people off? We have a large Hispanic population here, but I don’t see the scale of problems I hear about from KC. Are the Anglos in Denver more accepting than the whites in KC? Has KC just never recovered from the desegregation and white flight that spurred the suburban sprawl into Johnson County?

If this area is to thrive again, SOMEONE needs to figure out what can be done to restore EVERYBODY’S trust that they will neither be crime victims nor victims of overzealous police action.