Midwest Voices

Yael T. Abouhalkah

The Kansas City Star

Google this question: Is Kansas City going to be the city Version 2.0 of Seattle, Austin or Boston, attracting gobs of young people eager to live an urban lifestyle near a hip downtown while creating lots of cool high-tech companies?

Maybe. And maybe not.

Take that as a challenge to all the ardent believers in Kansas City’s future, not as a cranky it’s-never-going-to-happen statement.

Yes, several reasons exist to be excited about this crucial issue.

• Start with the over-the-top hype about Google Fiber coming to this area. Today the company is scheduled to make the key announcement of which residential neighborhoods will first get access to super-fast Internet connections.

• Earlier this week Mayor Sly James and economic development officials announced LaunchKC, an ambitious attempt to support information technology industries in Kansas City, especially in downtown and the Crossroads Arts District.

• The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s bid to create a downtown campus anchored by its Conservatory of Music and Dance could bring hundreds of new residents there — and renew the positive arts buzz in the area.

However, one big thing is missing from this flurry of words and actions.

Jobs.

Seattle, Austin, Boston and other tech-friendly cities in other parts of the country have a big head start on Kansas City in creating a stronger economy with lots of high-tech jobs.

So while it’s great to be talking about Google Fiber and its attributes; while it’s encouraging that some really savvy social media users are promoting the city, and while it’s a great time to be upbeat about our high-tech future, there’s another reality.

Kansas City hasn’t scratched the surface yet of what’s possible in this endeavor.

UMB Bank Chairman and CEO Peter de Silva explored a few of the challenges while giving an update at a Wednesday luncheon regarding the Big 5 initiatives led by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

De Silva is the champion of the Big 5 idea to transform Kansas City into America’s most entrepreneurial city. He talked enthusiastically about the strengths of that effort — such as this city being home to the Ewing Kauffman Foundation and UMKC’s Bloch School of Business and Administration.

But he was also upfront about a few problems.

It’s tough to get young entrepreneurs set up in business when this region doesn’t have the people or established companies who will cough up adequate start-up capital to help them. De Silva was also blunt in saying that, right now, Kansas City does not have a positive identity as a great place to start or grow a business.

Take a look at another less-than-positive indicator.

The Downtown Council recently reported that the population in downtown core neighborhoods is just 11,000 people. Add in the “outer” neighborhoods that stretch downtown’s boundaries, and the population reaches almost 20,000.

That’s up by many thousands of residents since a decade or so ago. Yet it’s still far short of the kind of thriving downtown population that will be needed to support even more shops, groceries and activities in the urban core.

On Monday, after James kicked off the LaunchKC initiative at 18th and Main streets, I took a stroll along several blocks east of that site.

Dozens of buildings are empty, undeveloped. Some have been cleared out and made ready for new occupants — when they arrive. But others are simply barren of activity, hardly the kind of “happening place” that Kansas City would hope to show off to attract more young entrepreneurs here.

So, which high-tech, digital-world oriented companies in, say, 20 years, will have filled some of those buildings and created hundreds if not thousands of jobs, thus becoming a powerful force in this city’s future?

Even Google doesn’t have the answer to that question.

To reach Yael T. Abouhalkah, call 816-234-4887 or email abouhalkah@kcstar.com. He blogs at voices.kansascity.com. Twitter @YaelTAbouhalkah.

Comments

1. 

   Chris Bembynista

   9 months, 1 week ago

   I had a couple of thoughts after reading this:

   1. While this article does present a fair depiction of the challenges, in the past a great deal of “cranky it’s-never-going-to-happen” statements came from your columns and this newspaper, among others—in fact it became so common that we let this attitude become part of our identity, which is why I believe these initiatives were not pursued years ago.
   2. It is absolutely true that Kansas City has not yet scratched the surface when it comes to what is possible with this endeavor—on the other hand you make it sound as though this city is starting from zero, when, in fact, this city already has a fairly large creative class and tech scene—in Richard Florida’s recent update to Rise of the Creative Class we manage to sneak into the top 20 (out of 51) among metros over 1 million in both the size of our creative class and our tech scene. We are certainly not leaders at this time, but we are not slouches either.
   3. We certainly do need more venture capital money and we need more housing downtown, and we must do all that we can to make sure that these things happen. From what you say, it seems like these leaders get that. On the other hand you have previously been critical of tax breaks directed at getting more housing downtown. If getting the population up downtown is that important than I think that we must consider the possibility that some help (within reason, of course) is necessary to help build housing downtown. We cannot allow ourselves to have such an immediate knee jerk reaction against anything labeled “tax breaks” or “TIF.”
2. 

   Yael T. Abouhalkah

   9 months, 1 week ago

   Chris:

   Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

   1. I can certainly point to columns in which I told KC leaders not to take certain risks. A fair point. But I also could point to way more columns and editorials advocating positive things we should be doing in this city over last 25 years of my writings.

   2. I heard about Florida ranking; will verify and may put it in print version of column. Thanks for reminder.

   3. I pushed in the 1990s and 2000s for more housing downtown. I boosted idea of using half-cent sales tax to support housing; didn’t get city Hall support. My concern about tax breaks now is that we have a good start on housing; not everyone should get same tax breaks or incentives for the housing they create. I’ve written about TIF for 21 years and have supported plenty of incentive deals, especially in downtown and urban core. Not knee-jerk against them, but definitely want them to be better thought out than in the past.

   Again, thanks for your thoughtful comments.

3. 

   Marc Canter

   9 months, 1 week ago

   Yael

   My name is Marc and I’m a 30+ year software veteran who’s moving here. I have some answers to some of your astute questions.

   Rather than bombard you here - I’d love to get together or chat on the phone about Digital City Kansas City.

   marc@digitalcitymechanics.com

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