Last updated on 2013.09.12
I know Madison and Kansas City are two very different places. But Kansas City appears to grasp a key economic development principle that Madison does not: a blue-collar town can also boost itself as an artistic and cultural center. Kansas Citians have invested $413 million in the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which has proven wildly popular:
"It looks like the building is breathing, and it's absolutely sensational," said Michael Stern, music director for the Kansas City Symphony, which now plays in one of two new performance spaces that 55,000 visitors stood in line — some for hours — to see on a rainy September opening weekend [Matt Pearce, "Kansas City, Here It Comes: Arts Center Symbolizes New City Core," Los Angeles Times, 2011.11.25].
This arts center is part of a broader effort to remake Kansas City's downtown:
...[T]he Kauffman Center's arrival signals the late stages of another familiar Midwestern downtown revitalization plan to transform former working-class areas into havens for the creative classes.
By the end of the 20th century, Kansas City's urban core, like those of many midsize metro areas, had been hollowed out by suburbanization and the decline of American industrialism. The city's huge meatpacking trade faded away, as did much of the downtown night life.
"Our downtown just slipped into a real state of neglect for many years," said Mike Hurd, director of marketing for the Downtown Council of Kansas City.
But over the last decade, public and private investment — totaling $6 billion, according to the council — has erased blocks of blight by adding white-collar anchors and neon moneymakers, such as the 18,000-seat Sprint Center, an expansive new bar district and H&R Block Inc.'s corporate headquarters.
On top of that, throw in the imminent arrival of the exclusive Google Fiber project — expected to bring Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than usual and bolster the city's attractiveness to tech start-ups. It all has local officials believing Kansas City could very well be the Paris of the Plains again.
Setting the tone is downtown. "It's really kind of serving as the flag-bearer for Kansas City's new identity as America's creative crossroads," Hurd said [Pearce, 2011.11.25].
Setting the tone is downtown... serving as the flag-bearer.... That scratching sound you hear should be the Madison City Commission furiously taking notes, not the LAIC board scratching its collective noggin and going, "Huh?" Contrary to what you might interpret from Madison's neglect and lack of vision for Main Street, downtown matters. As Kansas City recognizes, investment in the arts and creative cultural development can change a community for the better.
Yes, but what is the condition of their golf clubhouses?
Well, no one notices their clubhouses, as they have a thriving downtown community that keeps visitors and citizens drawn away from the greens, as they support local business and cultural events.