Kansas City’s already a great place, but it’s got many more needs than a new stadium | Opinion

Kansas City is a great place. I moved here almost 20 years ago and love it more than I expected.

And I’m not alone: Plenty of people moved here for work or family and, while we may not have expected to stay, today many of us can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Natives often don’t appreciate what they have, so indulge me while I sing a few of the city’s praises.

Kansas City is more affordable than other places I’ve lived. In my former home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the housing market was not just expensive, but wildly competitive: Prospective home buyers would bid above the asking price and waive inspections just to have their offer considered.

Now, when I have family or friends visit from Boston or elsewhere, I bring them back from the airport through downtown, past Westport and to the Country Club Plaza, then winding south on Ward Parkway. We have a beautiful city with more than our share of amenities to brag about. I love to show off houses of all sizes and vintages and encourage my guests to look up the prices.

You’ve probably done it, too — and you know their reactions.

Then there’s the matter of traffic, or the lack of it. Moving here from Washington and living in Boston before that, I knew instantly that if I ever complained about highway traffic here, I would officially be a local. People complain about the four-hour drive on Interstate 70 between Kansas City and St. Louis, but my experiences have been pleasant. D.C. is about four hours from New York City — that is a stressful drive.

Yes, Kansas City has challenges, including violent crime, underperforming schools and years of deferred maintenance on infrastructure. Most of us know people who moved across the state line or to the suburbs to escape high taxes and poor city services. Many others would if they could.

Kansas City needs to face those problems head on, by focusing on delivering those basic services.

I wish more Kansas City natives would live elsewhere for a while if only to appreciate what they have here. Instead, so many seem eager to grasp at what they believe other cities have. In discussing the stadium election results, Star reporter Sam McDowell wrote that Kansas City, “defines the phrase fear of missing out.” That may explain our economic development policy entirely.

We (or, more accurately, city leaders) get distracted by the new and shiny. It used to be that the amenities city leaders crow about — entertainment districts, convention centers and hotels, streetcars and the like — were lagging indicators of a healthy economy and a sign private investors were attracted to the community.

But somewhere along the line, municipal leaders got it backward. They thought that if they had more exciting amenities, it would make the local economy stronger. But funding major investments such as a new ballpark while ignoring billions worth of failing infrastructure liabilities isn’t wise.

That’s why the downtown-area stadium proposal was so heartbreaking: It would have put so many small businesses in the Crossroads either out of business or at risk. Here were entrepreneurs turning dreams and sweat equity into commerce — and tax revenue! They were dealing with all the obstacles cities put in their way — building permits, health code inspections, licensing requirements — and overcoming them.

And they were repaid with the threat of being wiped out, only to be replaced with another unfunded public liability. That’s no way to run a city.

Too many elected officials imagine themselves as some sort of urban planners, eager to build for the city they think we should be rather than respecting the city we are. It feels better to take credit for something new than to accept responsibility for maintaining what we already have. The result is frustration and wasted energy.

Kansas City is a wonderful place. Most of us already know that. City Hall should get the memo too, serving people by being brilliant at the basics so we — each of us in our own way, every day — can build the city we love.

Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on municipal policy solutions, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to Missouri state policy work.