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I refer to former Gov. Brownback's "job creation" strategy as "faith-based economic development."
What it did was basically give away the store in order to get a company located on the Missouri side of State Line Road to move across it. This rearrange-the-furniture strategy probably depressed real growth in the Kansas City metropolitan economy too.
I don't know why the Governor thought the employees would move with the company, especially in a metropolitan area with very low traffic congestion and reasonable commute times across the board.
I refer to former Gov. Brownback's "job creation" strategy as "faith-based economic development."
What it did was basically give away the store in order to get a company located on the Missouri side of State Line Road to move across it. This rearrange-the-furniture strategy probably depressed real growth in the Kansas City metropolitan economy too.
I don't know why the Governor thought the employees would move with the company, especially in a metropolitan area with very low traffic congestion and reasonable commute times across the board.
To be fair, those state line games were being played long before Brownback. Several decades actually. When people have moved across the state line, it was for schools more than jobs. Commutes are nothing there, but schools can be quite different from one area to the next.
Also, I agree that KC would be better off if the two states cooperated, but it's not like the metro is suffering terribly.
For the most part, it's an economically solid, stable place.
Overall, Kansas has far fewer issues than Mississippi as a place to live.
For whatever reason, Kansas gets a bad rap on topography but its landscape is really no different than... certain other places that have explosive growth.
Outside of Johnson County, it's not really a "growth-at-all-costs, toot our own horn type of place", which probably holds it back more than anything. That's the key ingredient of places that grow versus those that don't, much more so than politics or even location.
Mississippi is similar like that: not enough enthusiasm for large growth.
To be fair, those state line games were being played long before Brownback. Several decades actually. When people have moved across the state line, it was for schools more than jobs. Commutes are nothing there, but schools can be quite different from one area to the next.
Also, I agree that KC would be better off if the two states cooperated, but it's not like the metro is suffering terribly.
For the most part, it's an economically solid, stable place.
Overall, Kansas has far fewer issues than Mississippi as a place to live.
For whatever reason, Kansas gets a bad rap on topography but its landscape is really no different than... certain other places that have explosive growth.
Outside of Johnson County, it's not really a "growth-at-all-costs, toot our own horn type of place", which probably holds it back more than anything. That's the key ingredient of places that grow versus those that don't, much more so than politics or even location.
Mississippi is similar like that: not enough enthusiasm for large growth.
Just one point I'd like to make here:
Tooting your own horn is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that "growth at all costs" is actually not a wise strategy.
I think I read somewhere once a statement to the effect that unconstrained growth is the etiology of the cancer cell. There is something to be said for slow, steady growth, especially because when things go south, as they inevitably do, the fall isn't as hard.
Frankly, I'd say that the KC metro area does pretty good withal in that regard.
And there are fewer Kansans than Mississippians, by about 20,000. And remember that one-third of them live in metropolitan Kansas City, and if you add three counties to those — Douglas (Lawrence), Shawnee (Topeka) and Sedgwick (Wichita), and you have half of all Kansans in just those nine counties (the other five, north to south: Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson, Miami, Linn — the five Kansas counties in the Kansas City MSA). Mississippi residents are more evenly distributed around the state.
Looks like "more space to roam around" to me.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 06-13-2021 at 07:03 PM..
And there are fewer Kansans than Mississippians, by about 20,000. And remember that one-third of them live in metropolitan Kansas City, and if you add three counties to those — Douglas (Lawrence), Shawnee (Topeka) and Sedgwick (Wichita), and you have half of all Kansans in just those nine counties (the other five, north to south: Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson, Miami, Linn — the five Kansas counties in the Kansas City MSA). Mississippi residents are more evenly distributed around the state.
Looks like "more space to roam around" to me.
Could have just said it's bigger lol.
One could make the argument that Mississippi has more to explore as its population is more evenly distributed and interesting small towns exist in most corners of the state. But yeah Kansas is bigger.
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