The burglar thought he was being sly. He pulled quick hit-and-run jobs. But he couldn&#8217;t outrun e-mail.</p><p>This past spring, Kansas City&#8217;s North Patrol division received reports of a man in a wine-colored SUV stealing things like golf clubs out of open garages. So police e-mailed out a crime alert.</p><p>A neighborhood umbrella group for Briarcliff forwarded that e-mail to home association leaders, who forwarded it on to their members. Hundreds received it.</p><p>Within minutes, responses came back from residents who had seen that SUV parked at a roofing project in their neighborhood. Police swooped in and made an arrest.</p><p>That&#8217;s Briarcliff, where responses to crimes can be as swift as the crimes themselves. It&#8217;s no wonder the Briarcliff cluster of neighborhoods stands out from the rest of the close-in Inner Northland in The Kansas City Star&#8217;s analysis of the city&#8217;s best places to live.</p><p>"The bottom line is, neighbors have to help out and protect their neighbors," said Ralph Scott, a retired executive who heads the Briarcliff area umbrella group. "A lot of time, we can&#8217;t wait on the city."</p><p>In The Star&#8217;s series on city neighborhoods, we are profiling Briarcliff as the top-performing neighborhood cluster in a section of the city that we&#8217;re calling the Inner Northland. That&#8217;s the older Northland, generally south of Northwest 68th Street in Platte County and Northeast Pleasant Valley Road in Clay County.</p><p>Inner Northlanders have long lamented that they&#8217;re neglected by the city government. Most residential streets still don&#8217;t have curbs and storm drains, for example. The Star&#8217;s analysis confirmed that, indeed, the neighborhoods lacked resources and services.</p><p>But residents in this section of town have learned to make do -- by finding a way to do things for themselves.</p><p>Like with crime in Briarcliff.</p><p>This cluster is west of North Oak Trafficway between North Kansas City and Vivion Road. It covers not just the chic Briarcliff West but also the subdivisions of Claymont, Green Meadows and old Briarcliff. Last year, the Briarcliff cluster had 30 cases of burglary and vandalism per 1,000 residents, while the adjoining Davidson cluster to the north had more than double that rate.</p><p>This was no accident. Briarcliff residents keep crime down by doing everything from being nosy neighbors to clearing brush.</p><p>Northlanders call this "pride." It&#8217;s the pluck of the people, and it offers a lesson for other city neighborhoods: If you want things done in Kansas City, sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.</p><p>"You see neighborhoods in the Northland take on responsibilities that the city could very well do," said City Councilwoman Deb Hermann, who represents the Inner Northland. "There&#8217;s a definite pride in ownership."</p><p>Inner Northland</p><p>The Inner Northland consists of eight clusters of neighborhoods. From west to east, they&#8217;re Breen Hills, Lakeview Terrace-East Line Creek, Briarcliff, Davidson, Big Shoal Valley, Crestview-Chaumiere, Searcy Creek Corridor and Gracemor.</p><p>In age and character -- mostly ranches and split-level homes built after World War II -- the neighborhoods could fit into older parts of suburbs like Lenexa or Prairie Village or Blue Springs.</p><p>Like those suburbs, The Star found these neighborhoods to be safe, stable and mature. The Big Shoal Valley cluster ranked in the top 10 citywide for fewest violent and property crimes. Breen Hills was No. 5 in owner-occupied housing. Crestview-Chaumiere was No. 6 in fewest traffic accidents.