This is the downright truth about KCK and Wyandotte County, and everybody knows it except for the fine folks who reside there and have never lived anywhere else, who live in the relative isolation that is KCK.

Growing up in KCK, the general consensus there was Piper is a good school district. While it is better relative to the KCK district, don't be so sure it's very good overall. There's a good-old-boy network type of scenario going on and the social fabric out there is intimately connected to all of KCK and its troubles. Most of the government employees live out there and many of their kids are plagued by the social cancer of points east, but because of their connections and relative shelter from the rest of the community....yeah. KCK needs new blood (Cerner should help). That's all there is to it. But I really think the ruling class out there probably doesn't want that and is intimidated by the educated/successful type of new blood that would be buying the new housing. While Piper is relatively middle-class, it's mostly gov jobs and local business owners, and very insular. Sort of a big-fish-in-a-small-pond scenario. They don't want their bubble bursted. It's like small-town politics.

KCK is sort of a suburb of KCMO, but not really. KCK has enough jobs to support its population, and then some probably, and always has. There are 81,200 jobs in WyCo for a population of like 150,000. But from my experience having grown up there, I think KCK is like a small town, something like a less prosperous Topeka or St. Joseph, that just happens to be attached to a large metropolitan area. The way KCK operates, you'd think it's 50 miles from Kansas City, not right next to it.

KCK is just so incredibly insular. Rarely do you hear anybody over there talking about going to the City Market, P+L, Westport, the Plaza, etc. I don't think typical KCK residents even know where Brookside or Waldo are. They may have gone to the zoo as a kid or have taken their kids there, may have gone on a school field trip to a play downtown, and occasionally go to Oak Park Mall, but the population in KCK is just not that integrated with the rest of the KC area like a suburb would be with its core city and other suburbs. This is even true with people my age I know who live literally a mile west of Westport and the Plaza. But they've been to the Legends! KCK is just weird. As for arguments that the Legends being way out west doesn't serve all of KCK residents - wrong. They go out there, Village West has become the center of the community, even for those in the east. KCK is just weird and like I said, it's as if it is an isolated town an hour from the KC.

Anyway, I wonder what outsiders think of living near Village West and the schools out there. I don't think they're on the map for most people. Of course, until VW was built, there was no reason for outsiders to visit KCK. I imagine many of the types of people who like VW also might like living out that way. KCK could stand to grow its population out there to balance the metro more in that direction. If that happens, it might even help gain interest in urban KCK living options. But there's a long way to go. KCK's highways are the least congested in the KC area and could easily funnel people to jobs downtown, in JoCo, and Platte Co. I guess we'll have to wait and see now that there's something that at least puts the area's geography on the map.