Efficient Use of Resources: Land
One thing the Kansas City region has historically consumed in great quantities is land. This is due in part to the lack of natural constraints — no nearby mountains or coastline to hem us in — but it is also due to our propensity to build roads and sewers to open up new land to urban development.
Change in Population and Urbanized Land, 1982-1997
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Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S.” July 2001. See note below.
That said, our 38 percent increase in urban land cover between 1982 and 1997 is lower than most of our peers. In large part, this is due to a relatively more moderate overall growth rate.
Ratio of Land Consumption to Population Growth, 1982-1997
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Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S.” July 2001.
Relative to population growth, the Kansas City region consumes land at a rate near the middle of its peers.
The region's urban area grew twice as fast as its population, lowering the area's overall density. While most people consider low-density development to be highly desirable, such a development pattern also costs more per household to provide adequate levels of public services.
Alone among the peer group during this period, Austin became more efficient in its use of land as land area grew more slowly than its population. In Denver and Salt Lake City, urban areas grew faster than population, but only by around 1.5 times, perhaps as a result of the mountainous terrain surrounding them. Though St. Louis's total urban land area increased only 25 percent, the slowest among the peer group, its population only grew 6 percent, making its ratio of land consumption to population growth the largest among the peer group and double that of Kansas City.
Using parcel-level land-use data from the Kansas City region's counties to refine the story above, we find the overall message is similar.
Population and Residential Land Area Percent Change, 1980-2000
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Platte and Cass counties were not able to provide 'year structure built' data along with parcels.
Ray County did not provide parcel data to MARC because parcels were not yet digitized.
Data excludes residential parcels over 10 acres to avoid showing farms with residences on them.
Between 1980 and 2000, the Kansas City region's residential land grew nearly 50 percent while its population grew 20 percent. Given the extra five years in this period, these figures are comparable to the ones above, as is their ratio indicating that land grew roughly 2.5 times faster than population.
Interestingly, only Clay County's relative land growth, at 1.9 times its population, was close to the region's average.
Johnson County experienced a 72 percent increase in residential land, the highest in the region. But, with 67 percent growth in population over the period, it did not add land significantly faster than its population grew.
Conversely, the large lot development in much of unincorporated Leavenworth County means its residential land area grew 3.3 times faster than its population.
Jackson County's land area grew 8.5 times faster than its population due to an urban core that continued to decline over the period.
In Wyandotte County, land area grew 9 percent even though overall population declined as suburban growth in the west accompanied urban decline in the east.
Residential Land, 1940–2000 |
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Since 1940, in the five counties for which complete data is available, the population has doubled, from 728,000 to 1.5 million. However, residential land area increased from 37,000 acres in 1940 to 210,000 acres in 2000, or 5.6 times as much.
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Note on Change in Population and Urbanized Land, 1982-1997: This uses data from the nation's natural resource inventory to estimate when non-urban land transitions to urban land. It is a measure of land cover rather than land use. The latter typically examines ownership parcels for urban categories of use. The two measures differ primarily in their treatment of relatively large lot development, with land use allocating the whole parcel to urban development and land cover only the land immediately surrounding the home or other development.