Shawnee, KS = White Trash Mecca

Hmmm. Apparently, Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter With Kansas?, is trying to paint Shawnee as a depressed area filled with "heaps of rusting junk and snarling rottweilers". Okay Kansas Citians, as soon as you've stopped laughing hysterically you can check out the article debunking that claim:

The objects of Mr. Frank's particular concern, his hometown of Shawnee and the rest of Johnson County, have done especially well. For three years in the 1990s, the Shawnee area's unemployment rate actually dipped below 3%, making it one of the tightest labor markets anywhere.

When the recession hit, Shawnee's unemployment rate did rise, but it still stayed below the nation's. And though Mr. Frank describes the place as practically desolate, Shawnee's population grew by a robust 27% during the 1990s. Even more astonishing, today, only 3.3% of its citizens live below the poverty level, compared with about 12.5% nationally. "It's possible his view of us is outdated," says Jim Martin, executive director of the Shawnee Economic Development Council, in classic Midwestern understatement.

Not to question Mr. Frank's account but, as a sometime house-hunter in KC, let me add that we could trade in our 3 bedroom ranch in South KC on the exact same thing in Shawnee for an additional $40k. We do have a few heaps of rusting junk in the neighborhood, but no rottweilers. Maybe we should get some. I had no idea snarling rottweilers could drive up the property values so.