How One Community’s Resiliency Reshaped Its Economy

he Kansas City metropolitan area, which spans more than a dozen counties across Missouri and Kansas, saw its population growth slow significantly from the 1970s to the 1990s, reflecting a nationwide movement of population from the Midwest and East to the West and South.

This century, however, has proven to be a renaissance for the Kansas City area. Kansas City wove together its diverse, homegrown businesses and talent to put itself on the map as the world’s first Google Fiber city. It laid the foundation for its current success in attracting major corporate investment and growing its tech workforce.

The strategies employed by the Kansas City metropolitan area to create a bustling and diverse stable of businesses show how a community, any community, that capitalizes on its existing assets with a long-term plan can demonstrate its resiliency to withstand major upheavals in the economy and avoid reliance on any one company or sector for long-lasting success.