Blog

A Better Way to Connect

Aug 1, 2025
PUBLISHED JULY 2025 Well, the grand high poohbahs of regional transit planning have proffered their latest long-range vision for how we’ll get around 25 years hence. Well, you, anyway—I don’t expect to be burning oxygen by then. The good news?… more

Going Full Potemkin

Aug 1, 2025
PUBLISHED JULY 2025 Not since Chinese potentate Xi Jinping visited San Francisco two years ago has a city undertaken so shameless a makeover as Kansas City is undertaking right now. As the city prepares for the 2026 FIFA World Cup… more

Now Serving . . . Humble Pie

Jul 7, 2025
It began, innocently enough, with this: “Hey, honey: I’ve got a great idea! Let’s build a waterfront resort!” Searching for the correct words here, but from there, it’s safe to say that things became … interesting. A year after opening… more

A World of Worries

Jul 7, 2025
We at Ingram’s are occasionally criticized—unfairly, I’d argue—for being Pollyannas in the face of hard economic data and disturbing headlines. Cheerleaders for the business community, the complaints go. Let’s dispel that. Here are some things that worry me. Should probably… more

Where Have All the Famous People Gone?

Jul 7, 2025
For a complex series of reasons, Kansas City no longer produces famous people the way it once did, and famous people no longer command the universal attention they once did. There is nothing local citizens can do about the latter… more

Rock-Solid Revenues and Rocket Growth

May 27, 2025
We’re 15 years into our Ingram’s 100 ranking of the region’s top private companies, and for anyone wondering about the health of the regional economy, there’s some encouraging news: Nearly half of this year’s Top 100—47, to be exact—experienced year-over-year… more

Of Dolls and Dogma …

May 27, 2025
Two events this month—one an ill-advised and off-the-cuff remark by the putative leader of the free world; the other, an event of truly global impact with the election of the first Catholic pope from the United States—should give at least… more

The Real ‘Threat to Democracy’

May 27, 2025
Given how often we hear someone called a “threat to democracy” today, we are tempted to think that democracy—like, say, the polar bear—is an endangered species. Not so. In Jackson County, at least, there is not too little democracy; there… more

Just … Tariffic

Apr 29, 2025
Tackling a topic as complex as the tariffs that President Trump and his administration are perpetually imposing, revoking, adjusting, then re-imposing—and the market volatility being created and negative effects on confidence thus far appear—I don’t think it’s a stretch to… more

Kansas City Schools: Where’s the Hope?

Apr 29, 2025
Now, it can be told. With this month’s Kansas City school district bond issue vote in the history books, it’s time for one disgruntled taxpayer to sound off. No, I wasn’t part of the electoral majority that signed off on… more