Welcome to a Greater Kansas City

Location, work ethic and common sense: An unbeatable combination.

It’s like something you would have expected to hear from Sun Tzu: Where your opponent perceives you to be weak, find your strength.

With all due respect to ancient Chinese military strategists, the Kansas City region has been doing a bang-up job of that very thing, thank you. Long perceived as part of the great American economic desert because of its location, the region is flexing its muscle as a national center for transportation and logistics. Even beyond that, it will play key roles in shipment of goods on an international level, connecting its rail, trucking and air cargo hubs here with Canada and Mexico and the world beyond.

As it turns out, there are distinct advantages to sitting smack in the middle of the country. And not just as a major inland port, either: This is proving to be a prime location for telecommunications and a powerful, emerging life-sciences sector, as well.

In many ways, such transformation has been the story of Kansas City. After all, location was what made this a business hub in the first place, when the commerce involved amounted to peddling wagon wheels, hardtack and horse flesh. But what was left behind by the early settlers—trails that would become roadbeds, rail lines that would still be in service 150 years later—have helped our economy mature. From way station on the Westward Trails to national center for processing and distributing farm goods, beef cattle and hogs, to the raw power
of heavy industry throughout the 20th century, we’re moving apace to embrace an economy grounded in the needs of a new century not yet into its teens.

A strong influence for this region’s economy is the 2011 announcement that Google would install its ultra-high-speed Internet service in both of the Kansas Cities, on the Missouri and Kansas sides, setting this region up as a national leader in the digital revolution.

Those tools can be leveraged with an asset passed to us from previous generations: The famed Midwestern work ethic you see every day in the people who live and work here. Who among us hasn’t heard a friend visiting from either coast express surprise at strangers greeting them on the street? Imagine that: Talking to someone you don’t know. And employers here continue to find competitive advantages in the productivity of our workers, in some cases at levels approaching twice the output of workers in other areas of the country.

Our cultural and entertainment amenities have expanded, as well, and we’ll soon take a back seat to no community in the nation with the appeal of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. That incredible facility is just the latest in a string of crown jewels that is revitalizing the landscape of the Kansas City area—an entertainment district, a new sports arena/concert venue, and galleries and museums with long-established national credentials.

Those are just a few of the attributes that continue to draw national interest in Kansas City as a place to do business. We invite you to explore the abundance of investment opportunities throughout the Kansas City region and encourage your organization to consider investing in this region’s promising future.