Growth Scenarios

Visualizing the future

To predict residents’ future travel needs, we must first forecast how many people and jobs will be located in Greater Kansas City in 2040. According to MARC’s economic model, the region can expect to be home to 2.5 million people and 1.5 million jobs in 2040, up from 2 million people and 1.2 million jobs today.

Where will the additional 500,000 people live and work? Projecting this is the principal role of the Technical Forecast Committee, which is composed of planners from area governments. They oversee MARC’s work to aggregate local comprehensive plans and use models to forecast future development. The plans tell MARC how each part of the region is expected to develop. The models estimate whether that development will occur by 2040.

What makes one place more likely to develop than another? Generally, places that are close to roads, served by sewers, and are near growing areas with high-income households are more likely to develop than places that are far from services, amenities and activities.

But it also depends on our choices. The policies we put in place to adapt to current and future challenges will shape where people live and work for decades to come. The long-term plans of many area cities and counties are starting to head in a new, more viable direction — one confirmed through community outreach efforts like “Imagine KC.” Residents desire to live in a more sustainable place and, as the vision adopted by the MARC Board states, become “America’s Green Region.” What might such a region look like?

Adaptive growth scenario handout - February 2010 public meetings (331kb, pdf, 2 pages)
"How will we grow?" presentation - February 2010 public meetings (4.7MB, pdf)
Growing smarter policies survey - February 2010 public meetings (542kb, pdf)
Local plans that advance the adaptive scenario (183kb, pdf)

Future growth scenarios workshop brochure - September 2009 MARC Board (2MB, pdf, 6 pages)
Future growth scenarios workshop presentation - September 2009 MARC Board (4.3MB, pdf)

Moving growth in the right direction

To highlight the implications of our choices, the Technical Forecast Committee has created two growth scenarios showing alternate ways of accommodating the region’s expected overall growth. The baseline scenario shows how the region would look if past development trends were extended into the future. As such, it might seem the most likely forecast.

But local governments have already begun to alter their plans and policies to adapt to new realities as their residents demand sustainable growth patterns. The adaptive scenario shows how the region might look if this trend in local plans is extended into the future and carried out at a regional scale.

The adaptive scenario appears to be the one toward which local governments are heading. How can MARC best use it to develop a 2040 forecast?