Blue Hills is a neighborhood in Southeast
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
bounded North by Swope Parkway, South by 63rd Street, East by
Prospect Ave, and West by
The Paseo. The ZIP code for this neighborhood is 64110 and 64130.
History
Blue Hills was a working class white neighborhood until the 1960s when
blockbusting
Blockbusting was a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced white residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the ho ...
caused many Caucasians to leave the neighborhood. Around the 1970s, the neighborhood was majority African American. The
public schools that serve Blue Hills are Troost Elementary School, J. J. Pershing Elementary, Frances Willard Elementary, Southeast and Paseo High Schools.
The 1900s
Most of the homes in Blue Hills were built in the 1910s and 1920s. From its early years until the 1960s nearly all of the residents of Blue Hills were white and most were working class, making it a working white neighborhood In the early 1960s, the racial composition of the neighborhood changed due to
blockbusting
Blockbusting was a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced white residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the ho ...
, and in the 1970s more than 95% of Blue Hills residents were
African-American.
The 2000s
Neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri
In the
2008 financial crisis
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
, Blue Hills was one of many American neighborhoods that suffered greatly from the housing crisis. Houses were boarded up, and African-Americans moved out. In 2021, it has mostly recovered, albeit with a few boarded houses left, due to young people moving in and fixing the old, boarded homes.
[{{Cite web, date=2014-05-14, title=Then And Now: Pictures Show Changes In KC's Blue Hills Neighborhood, url=https://www.kcur.org/community/2014-05-14/then-and-now-pictures-show-changes-in-kcs-blue-hills-neighborhood, access-date=2021-02-03, website=KCUR 89.3 - NPR in Kansas City. Local news, entertainment and podcasts., language=en]