Walking With Christ in Kansas NEW CATHOLIC HUBS: College Hill, Wichita

The Traffas family enjoys living in the neighborhood, which has the Catholic parish at its center. (photo: Elizabeth Knappert)

WICHITA, Kan. — Many Catholics can only dream — or perhaps reminisce — about having neighbors that they see not only every day on the street, but also in the pews on Sunday; about Masses overflowing with young families and filled with the cries of babies; about a tight-knit Catholic community that has your back when times are tough; about kids who’d rather romp around outdoors until the streetlights come on than stare at screens.

But places like that still exist, if you know where to look for them.

One of those places is College Hill, a one-square-mile neighborhood of roughly 5,000 residents about a 10-minute drive east of downtown Wichita in the south-central part of the Sunflower State. Its compact, walkable streets naturally foster the kind of “back-in-my-day” community life that has all but disappeared in many parts of the U.S.

Here, eclectic Midwestern homes line gridded cobblestone streets under the leafy cover of mature trees.

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