Best Main Street

A city like Overland Park was built for cars. Lunchtime pedestrians negotiating the plates of asphalt at 119th Street and Nall look as out of place as men on the surface of the moon. In contrast, the heart of North Kansas City was designed for people. Armour Road provides the kind of main-street experience that's hard to find in the age of sprawl. Restaurants, law offices, banks and specialty shops (a catering service, a uniform store) line both sides of the two-lane road. Trees shade the sidewalks. Angled parking brings convenience and a buffer between pedestrians and vehicles. A high school, a park and a library are within an easy stroll of this uncommon commonplace that serves Northtown's 4,500 residents. "It's a little place most people overlook," says urban planner Kevin Klinkenberg of 180° Design Studio, who wrote admiringly of the area in a recent newsletter that his firm publishes.