Kansas City’s Economic Diversion
City leaders are still pointing to Kansas City’s downtown as an economic development success story. Taxpayers lose millions each year...
Despite Subsidies, Joplin Rebuilt Itself
On May 22, 2011, a tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri killing 166 people and damaging or destroying 7,500 structures. In...
Kansas City, Economic Development, and Homicide
Kansas City desperately wants to grow, and we’re spending or diverting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money each...
Kansas City and St. Louis in Bad Financial Shape
Marc Joffe, Director of Policy Research for the California Policy Center, has rated the largest 116 U.S. cities according to...
Education Policy for Our Fractured Republic
Like most observers of American society and politics, I am trying to make sense of our current political moment. Two...
Taxpayers’ Subsidy Skepticism Is Warranted
The Kansas City Star published a piece last week about subsidized development and its opposition in the region. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the...
A New Agenda for Cities Must Come from Cities
Recently, Kansas City, Missouri’s mayor, Sly James, wrote in The Hill that America needed a new agenda for cities. No...
No, Charter Schools Don’t Push Out Kids Who Are Too Hard To Teach
Last week, I offered a “Mythbusters”-style blog on the (mistaken) belief that charter schools suspend students at higher rates than...
The Negative Impacts of Development Subsidies
The Kansas City Star’s Joe Robertson has written recently about the closure of the Kansas City office of the National...
Long Security Lines? Not at MCI
The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has been telling travelers to expect longer lines at the airport this summer. Lines at...
Be Like Kansas City-Avoid the TSA
Frequent fliers: get ready for a long summer. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has told the public that it will...
MCI Is the Envy of its Peers
The effort to issue $1.25 billion in debt to tear down and rebuild Kansas City International Airport (MCI) is on...
The Saint Louis City Earnings Tax: Lifeline or Noose?
On April 2, Show-Me Institute Fellow and Senior Writer Andrew B. Wilson gave a speech on the Earnings Tax to...
Report: Saint Louis, Kansas City *Not* Among Most Cost-Friendly Cities for Business
Recently, the Post-Dispatch prominently published an article claiming that, “St. Louis is among the top 10 most cost-friendly cities to...
Millennials Moving Out
My colleague Joe Miller has written much about the idea that millennials are flocking to urban areas. This is important...
Intercity Bus Service on the Rise in Missouri, Nationally
I often find myself traveling to Chicago to visit family, and when I do I have a number of transportation...
MLS to Saint Louis: On Whose Dime?
Last summer I found myself leaning against the railing on the balcony of Toyota Park, home of the Chicago Fire,...
As Uber Surges, Riders Reap the Benefits
As another New Years’ Eve has come and gone, more writers in Saint Louis and across the nation have spilled...
“This Time It’ll Be Different”
I’ll bet that’s what Phelps County officials are thinking as they set out to create a new tax increment financing...
Bad for Borrowing: Saint Louis Bond Ratings Slip
Recently, Moody’s, a prominent credit rating group, downgraded Saint Louis’s debt rating. While the changes are nothing drastic (and the...
