Nearly one in five KC business license holders is based outside Missouri and Kansas. New York, Chicago, and Austin each hold more KC licenses than some KC suburbs — and 3,660 businesses didn't renew in 2024.
Twenty-seven GO KC bond-funded projects started with $69 million in budgets. The current tab: $121 million. A handful of road reconstructions and a museum renovation account for most of the overrun — and some projects have been running for nearly two decades.
Gun-related reports dropped from 9,862 to 8,566 last year. Murders fell 18.5%, armed robberies nearly 20%. But the East Patrol Division still accounts for a third of all firearm incidents, and the decline slowed in the fall.
Kansas City added 192 buildings to its dangerous structures list last year — more than all prior years combined — and 87% of active cases have not advanced past 'ongoing.'
The city acquired thousands of vacant lots after the foreclosure crisis, sold hundreds back into private hands, and then largely stopped. More than half of the properties acquired in 2013 are still city-owned 12 years later.