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Very few of the companies that have moved from KCMO to Kansas even looked or seriously considered anything outside the metro area. I can’t think of a single case of that scenario and follow KC business like a hawk and have done so for 20 years.
Look at any recent article in the past few years and you will see the same quote: "we are looking at sites on both sides of the state line". That's it. Not sites on both sides of the state line as well as denver and dallas.
Because they don't have to. (You're welcome! )
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They take the money and run. That's the bottom line.
Businesses that don't operate with a prioritized eye on the bottom line don't stay in business very long. Civic pride is a luxury item for when the bottom line affords it, it's not a staple.
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KCMO simply can not compete with what Kansas offers. Few urban areas give out incentives like those offered in the suburbs of Kansas. How can KCMO compete with that? How can an urban city, where it does typically cost a bit more to do business in the first place due to the need for structured or underground parking, redevelopment issues etc compete with a suburb in a different state that can use "new job" incentives to build on a greenfield?
You can't. It's not possible.
Sure it is. I drive around the metro all the time and see many areas of KC that could have just as easily been to these companies what JoCo offered.
KC doesn't even have an ocean, lake or mountain range in their way! Give me a break!
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That's why incentives shouldn't be offered to bring a company from KCMO to Kansas. It's unproductive and destructive to the metro as a whole and most metro areas try to avoid it. In KC it's out of control.
It's called competition. Whining and complaining that the one who's beating you has an unfair advantage and shouldn't be allowed to race against you doesn't help your cause.
It's a crybaby attitude and it will never serve you. You still lose and you look ridiculous to boot.
When you fall short and get beaten, the place to look is inward on how to improve yourself. If you can't run faster, you run smarter. Find a way to make it happen. Take a good hard look at what you can do better and then DO IT.
It's no different on an individual level than it is on a city government level. And it takes the exact same things: Vision and commitment.
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You can have booming suburbs surrounding a thriving urban core. It is possible.
Of course it is. Step one: Strong city leadership that will cast vision and follow through with it. As the mayor of OP pointed out, this is what has worked in OP.
Very few of the companies that have moved from KCMO to Kansas even looked or seriously considered anything outside the metro area. I can’t think of a single case of that scenario and follow KC business like a hawk and have done so for 20 years.
Look at any recent article in the past few years and you will see the same quote: "we are looking at sites on both sides of the state line". That's it. Not sites on both sides of the state line as well as denver and dallas.
They take the money and run. That's the bottom line. KCMO simply can not compete with what Kansas offers. Few urban areas give out incentives like those offered in the suburbs of Kansas. How can KCMO compete with that? How can an urban city, where it does typically cost a bit more to do business in the first place due to the need for structured or underground parking, redevelopment issues etc compete with a suburb in a different state that can use "new job" incentives to build on a greenfield?
You can't. It's not possible.
That's why incentives shouldn't be offered to bring a company from KCMO to Kansas. It's unproductive and destructive to the metro as a whole and most metro areas try to avoid it. In KC it's out of control.
You can't build anything anyplace in KC without corporate welfare being a big part of it. Office projects and even retail centers all have to be tiffed and star bonded and whatever else and when that's going on in the burbs, it dilutes those incentives which were originally designed for urban areas to compete with the burbs. It makes them useless to those that they were originally intended for.
So you end up subsidizing sprawl and creating urban blight in the process, the exact opposite of what tax breaks and other development incentives are intended to do.
Now KCMO has not done itself any favors by letting downtown get so bad. But KCMo still had and has nice urban areas like Crown Center and the Plaza which also can’t compete with Kansas and lose much of what they gain to Kansas regularly. This once again comes back to civic pride and people in KC wanting to be in the city. People in KC would rather be in suburban office parks. Every town has a certain portion of their corporate community in the burbs and that’s fine. In KC it's becoming most of the corporate economy is out in the burbs and that is making the city as a whole a less desirable place because of the donut effect it creates.
You can have booming suburbs surrounding a thriving urban core. It is possible.
It's catches like this that will make it happen. 1300 new jobs, not jobs that were in Downtown or the Plaza. That building was built with close to six million in incentives plus it has a 50% tax break for ten years and they will give US Bank several million for the new jobs. Sounds fair since they are actually growing the economy, not reducing the overall tax and economy by giving existing companies massive incentives to move ten miles.
Do you ever think to reconsider your point of view because you sound like you formed your opinion on this years ago and have never thought to reconsider if the facts on the ground justify your opinion.
You unfairly criticize the corporate culture in Kansas City as being anti-city while lauding the corporate culture in other cities that have many of the same problems and issues. I wrote a comment to you in another thread about this a few weeks ago and you never replied. So I'm writing it again since you keep bringing the same things up. Maybe I can get a response this time.
Of the companies in Johnson County, how many actually moved from Missouri to Johnson County and how many were either initially based in Johnson County or moved directly to Johnson County without ever having been based in Missouri? Name them.
I know Garmin got their start in Johnson County. It was never in Missouri. Sprint has their roots in Abilene, Kansas. They may have had operations in Missouri, but the company originated in Kansas. Applebee's? YRC? Which ones were Missouri-based? Most of the major corporations in Kansas City are headquartered on the Missouri side: Hallmark, H&R Block, Russell Stover, Kansas City Southern, Cerner. To my knowledge these companies are all civic-minded and contribute to the city, as does Sprint and the other major companies on the Kansas side. Sprint contributed $60 million to the downtown arena for naming rights. How is that anti-city?
From what I can tell, the main issue is that Johnson County has a lot of office space that is cheaper than what is available in Kansas City, Missouri. This is NOT a Kansas/Missouri thing nor is it something specific to Kansas City. Suburbs all around the country are known for cheap office space. This is a nationwide phenomenon that is due to urban sprawl. You will see it everywhere you go in any major metropolitan area.
Check the Fortune 500 companies in Minneapolis and Chicago (or any other major city in America). Many of them are in the suburbs. UnitedHealth Group is in Minnetonka. Supervalu is in Eden Prairie. Best Buy is in Richfield. Land O' Lakes is in Arden Hills. Walgreens is in Deerfield. Sears is in Hoffman Estates. Motorola is in Schaumburg. None of them are headquartered in the city of Minneapolis or Chicago. Overland Park is closer to Kansas City than most of those other cities are to their core city.
The only difference in Kansas City is the state line, and the impact of that state line is exaggerated. Overland Park-based companies do not have any less community spirit for Kansas City than Schaumburg-based companies have for Chicago or Minnetonka-based companies have for Minneapolis or Plano-based companies have for Dallas. The supposed lack of community spirit that you think Johnson County-based companies have for Kansas City is mostly a figment of your imagination. The sooner you realize this the more at ease you will be and the easier it will be to read your posts.
Do you ever think to reconsider your point of view because you sound like you formed your opinion on this years ago and have never thought to reconsider if the facts on the ground justify your opinion.
You unfairly criticize the corporate culture in Kansas City as being anti-city while lauding the corporate culture in other cities that have many of the same problems and issues. I wrote a comment to you in another thread about this a few weeks ago and you never replied. So I'm writing it again since you keep bringing the same things up. Maybe I can get a response this time.
Of the companies in Johnson County, how many actually moved from Missouri to Johnson County and how many were either initially based in Johnson County or moved directly to Johnson County without ever having been based in Missouri? Name them.
I know Garmin got their start in Johnson County. It was never in Missouri. Sprint has their roots in Abilene, Kansas. They may have had operations in Missouri, but the company originated in Kansas. Applebee's? YRC? Which ones were Missouri-based? Most of the major corporations in Kansas City are headquartered on the Missouri side: Hallmark, H&R Block, Russell Stover, Kansas City Southern, Cerner. To my knowledge these companies are all civic-minded and contribute to the city, as does Sprint and the other major companies on the Kansas side. Sprint contributed $60 million to the downtown arena for naming rights. How is that anti-city?
From what I can tell, the main issue is that Johnson County has a lot of office space that is cheaper than what is available in Kansas City, Missouri. This is NOT a Kansas/Missouri thing nor is it something specific to Kansas City. Suburbs all around the country are known for cheap office space. This is a nationwide phenomenon that is due to urban sprawl. You will see it everywhere you go in any major metropolitan area.
Check the Fortune 500 companies in Minneapolis and Chicago (or any other major city in America). Many of them are in the suburbs. UnitedHealth Group is in Minnetonka. Supervalu is in Eden Prairie. Best Buy is in Richfield. Land O' Lakes is in Arden Hills. Walgreens is in Deerfield. Sears is in Hoffman Estates. Motorola is in Schaumburg. None of them are headquartered in the city of Minneapolis or Chicago. Overland Park is closer to Kansas City than most of those other cities are to their core city.
The only difference in Kansas City is the state line, and the impact of that state line is exaggerated. Overland Park-based companies do not have any less community spirit for Kansas City than Schaumburg-based companies have for Chicago or Minnetonka-based companies have for Minneapolis or Plano-based companies have for Dallas. The supposed lack of community spirit that you think Johnson County-based companies have for Kansas City is mostly a figment of your imagination. The sooner you realize this the more at ease you will be and the easier it will be to read your posts.
But I have no doubt that kcmo can list several companies that have moved off the top of his head. There's no denying that this was a drain on the city.
But it was a trend that began all across the country decades ago. OP didn't start the trend. They did capitalize on it. And did so very well, with the combination of vision and commitment. KC could have responded decades ago, they didn't. It's unfortunate that they didn't. But it's not OP's fault for picking up the ball that KC dropped and running with it.
This is a classic tortoise and hare story. And 30 year's later, the rabbit is still whining that the turtle cheated him!
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