BROADCASTS.com

It\u2019s hard not to be encouraged by what\u2019s happening in Kansas City.\nOn both the Kansas and Missouri sides, there are indications that the conversation is shifting. The assumptions about development that led Kansas City to become one of most car-centric metropolitan areas in the world (it has more freeway lane miles per capita than any other U.S. city) are now being challenged.\nHere are a few hopeful signs:\n\nKansas City, Missouri recently commissioned a groundbreaking fiscal assessment by Joe Minicozzi of Urban3.\xa0\n\n\nLast week, the Kansas City-based architecture and design firm, Gould Evans, co-sponsored an event with Minicozzi and our own Chuck Marohn, where they discussed what Urban3\u2019s findings mean for fiscally responsible development in Kansas City.\n\n\nKansas City, Missouri is creating a new comprehensive plan. This is an opportunity to make the next twenty or thirty years of development radically different than the last seventy (which have been mostly disastrous). Kevin Klinkenberg\u2014a Kansas City-based urban designer, planner, and architect\u2014wrote just last month on our site about what a \u201cStrong Towns master plan\u201d might look like.\n\nToday\u2019s episode of the Strong Towns podcast goes deep on what is happening in Kansas City. Recorded in front of a live audience in Kansas City, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn talks with Joe Minicozzi, principal at Urban3, Kevin Klinkenberg of K2 Urban Design, and Dennis Strait, principal and board member at Gould Evans. The four of them discuss not only what makes Kansas City an anomaly (including that pesky state boundary and the resulting clash of cultures) but also how its built pattern is representative of cities around the Midwest...and indeed around the country.\nAlso discussed:\n10:00 - The \u201cborder war\u201d between Kansas and Missouri, now thankfully in a truce, as both states raced to the bottom to lure big business with tax subsidies and development incentives\n12:30 - The pressure among cities to \u201ckeep up with the Joneses\u201d \u2014 in this case, through big, splashy projects (convention centers, downtown sports stadiums, etc.) \u2014 and how Kansas City is learning a better way\n16:10 - Whether or not there\u2019s any recognition of the damage done by 60 years of edge development, and how it is limiting cities from pursuing new opportunities\n22:45 - Perception vs. reality on the \u201cparking problem\u201d\n33:40 - Kansas City, Missouri\u2019s streetcar \u201cstarter line\u201d \u2014 and whether it is a vanity project or an important culture shift that\u2019s bringing more cohesion to an urban area\n43:00 - The challenges and opportunities of the comprehensive planning process in Kansas City, Missouri\n55:30 - Important lessons that other cities can learn from Kansas City\nKansas City is justifiably well-known for many things\u2014great barbecue and great jazz, for example. Maybe a few years from from now it will also be famous for pioneering a way for cities out of suburban-style development and into a stronger future.