HOW WILL WE GROW?
An adaptive land-use scenario for Greater Kansas City

Learn how choices we make today will impact our future at public meetings on Feb. 3, 4 or 11

Frank Lenk, the Mid-America Regional Council’s research services director, is working with a Technical Forecast Committee on a future land-use forecast to support the new long-range transportation plan for the Kansas City area, Transportation Outlook 2040.

Over the next 30 years, the region can expect to add 500,000 people and 300,000 jobs, and the future land-use scenarios under consideration show alternate ways of accommodating overall growth. Under a baseline scenario — where past trends continue into the future — nearly all the region’s growth over the next 30 years occurs on previously undeveloped land.

But through focused development, we can grow smarter. The adaptive scenario assumes that 40 percent of population and job growth between now and 2040 will be concentrated in activity centers and along key corridors in existing areas, older suburbs and urban places. This would lead to major differences in infrastructure costs, amount of land used, roadway congestion and transit ridership levels.

How much of the adaptive growth scenario do you think the region can achieve? What policies must we use to get there?