The area’s happiest suburb is …

< Previous page

“We’re not interested in measuring ourselves against other cities,” Overland Park Mayor Carl Gerlach said. “We’re more interested in where we need to improve.”

For Overland Park, one such focus is managing growth. Compared to other suburbs, Overland Park residents gave their city a middle-of-the-pack rating for how well it’s planning or responding to growth.

“Part of that is, people like Overland Park, but they’re moving here faster than we can build the roads,” Gerlach said. “We have to manage that process better.”

On the whole, the overall rankings showed a wide variance in citizen satisfaction levels from the top to the bottom. While top-ranked places had, on average, citizen satisfaction levels above 70 percent, suburbs such as Raytown, Excelsior Springs and Blue Springs at the opposite end of the rankings had satisfaction levels about 20 percentage points lower.

Raytown received the lowest rating of any suburb in its efforts to keep citizens informed and in customer service at City Hall. And, indeed, neither Raytown Mayor David Bower nor City Administrator Michael Miller responded to repeated e-mail or telephone messages seeking comment for this article.

But while some cities might not rank toward the top overall, the survey results showed they still shined in individual ways.

For instance, crime is a top concern all across suburbia, and residents of Riverside in the Northland and Gardner in south Johnson County were most pleased with the visibility of police in their neighborhoods. Their 79 percent satisfaction level towered above a few suburbs with levels in the 50s.

In Riverside, a town of 3,000 at the bend in the Missouri River, such visibility is stressed by the police chief.

“That is precisely what our job is and exactly what we want to happen,” said Police Chief Greg Mills. “It’s just as important to be visible when they don’t call and to see people out working in their yards and stop and talk to them or wave to them.”

Likewise, a growing concern across suburbia is traffic congestion, but not necessarily in Grandview, in south Jackson County. Some 73 percent of residents surveyed there were satisfied with the traffic flow, compared with some places where the satisfaction level was mired in the 30s.

Grandview passed a transportation sales tax and bond issue more than a decade ago to help construct U-turn bridges at some intersections with U.S. 71, allowing motorists to avoid traffic lights when crossing over that highway.

“Traffic is sailing along now,” said Cory Smith, city administrator in the burb of 24,000 people.

Meanwhile, Lenexa shined brightest in issues related to parks. Its residents were more satisfied than those in any other suburb with the number of city parks, recreation facilities, even public swimming pools.

One popular facility is the Lenexa Community Center, where on Wednesday mothers and nannies pushed their strollers in so their young children could play with others at “Gym for Me.”

Next door at the senior center, center manager Steve Constance was preparing the tables for the January birthday lunch. The center is a haven for seniors who want to continue to attend dances, take fitness classes, even hit the casinos.

Over at Rising Star Elementary School, Tracy Wilkus was sitting in her car chatting through the window with another mother as they waited for their kids to get out.

As the mother of two elementary-school-age daughters, she relishes the many and varied activities that are constantly available in Lenexa.

“It’s sort of like an old-time community,” Wilkus said. “There are lots of festivals, ceremonies and family-oriented activities all year round.”

< Previous page