Brookings: Topics - Missouri

The Political Geography of Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri: Battlegrounds in the Heartland

William H. Frey and Ruy Teixeira — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:00:00 -0400

This is the third in a series of reports on the demographic and political dynamics under way in key “battleground” states, deemed to be crucial in deciding the 2008 election. As part of the Metropolitan Policy Program’s Blueprint for American Prosperity, this series will provide an electoral component to the initiative’s analysis of and prescriptions for bolstering the health and vitality of America’s metropolitan areas, the engines of the U.S. economy. This report focuses on three major battleground states in the Midwest—Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri—and finds that:

Ohio, Michigan and Missouri all feature eligible voter populations dominated by white working class voters. However, this profile is changing, albeit more slowly than in faster-growing states like Colorado or Arizona, as the white working class declines and white college graduates and minorities, especially Hispanics, increase. The largest effects are in these states’ major metropolitan areas— Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati in Ohio: Detroit in Michigan; and St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri— especially in their suburbs.

In Ohio, these trends could have their strongest impact in the fast-growing and Democratic-trending Columbus metro, where Democrats will seek to tip the entire metro in their favor by expanding their margin in Franklin County and reducing their deficit in the suburbs. The trends could also have big impacts in the Cleveland metro (especially its suburbs), in the Cincinnati metro (especially Hamilton County) and in the mediumsized metros of the Northeast (Akron, Canton, and Youngstown). Overall, the GOP will be looking to maintain their support among the declining white working class, especially among whites with some college, who have been trending Democratic. Also critical to their prospects is whether the growing white college-educated group will continue its movement toward the Democrats.

In Michigan, these trends will likely determine whether the fast-growing and populous Detroit suburbs continue shifting toward the Democrats, a development which would tip the Detroit metro (44 percent of the statewide vote) even farther in the direction of the Democrats. The trends will also have a big impact on whether the GOP can continue their hold on the conservative and growing Southwest region of the state that includes the Grand Rapids metro. The GOP will seek to increase its support among white college graduates, who gave the GOP relatively strong support in 2004, but have been trending toward the Democrats long term.

In Missouri, these trends will have their strongest impact on the two big metros of Democratic-trending St. Louis (38 percent of the vote)—especially its suburbs— and GOP-trending Kansas City (20 percent of the statewide vote). The Democrats need a large increase in their margins out of these two metros to have a chance of taking the state, while the GOP simply needs to hold the line. The trends will also have a significant impact on the conservative and growing Southwest region, the bulwark of GOP support in the state, where the Republicans will look to generate even higher support levels. The GOP will try to maintain its support from the strongly pro-GOP white college graduate group, which has been increasing its share of voters as it has trended Republican.

These large, modestly growing states in the heartland of the United States will play a pivotal roll in November’s election. Though experiencing smaller demographic shifts than many other states, they are each changing in ways that underscore the contested status of their combined 48 Electoral College votes in this year’s presidential contest.

Table Of Contents:
Executive Summary »
Introduction and Data Sources and Definitions »
Ohio »
Michigan »
Missouri »
Endnotes »

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The Political Geography of Virginia and Florida: Bookends of the New South

William H. Frey and Ruy Teixeira — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:00:00 -0400

This is the fourth in a series of reports on the demographic and political dynamics under way in key “battleground” states, deemed to be crucial in deciding the 2008 election. As part of the Metropolitan Policy Program’s Blueprint for American Prosperity, this series will provide an electoral component to the initiative’s analysis of, and prescriptions for, bolstering the health and vitality of America’s metropolitan areas, the engines of the U.S. economy. This report focuses on two major battleground states in the South, Virginia and Florida, which serve as bookends to an emerging New South.

Virginia and Florida have eligible voter populations that are rapidly changing. White working class voters are declining sharply while white college graduates are growing and minorities, especially Hispanics and Asians, are growing even faster. These changes are having their largest effects in these states’ major metropolitan areas, particularly Miami and rapidly-growing Orlando and Tampa in Florida’s I-4 Corridor and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. in Northern Virginia. Other large metro areas in these states are also feeling significant effects from these changes and will contribute to potentially large demographically related political shifts in the next election.

In Virginia, these trends will have their strongest impact in the fast-growing and Democratic-trending Northern Virginia area, where Democrats will seek to increase their modest margin from the 2004 election. The trends could also have big impacts in the Richmond and Virginia Beach metros, where Democrats will need to compress their 2004 deficits. Overall, the GOP will be looking to maintain their very strong support among Virginia’s declining white working class, especially in the conservative South and West region. The Democrats will be reaching out to the growing white college graduate group, critical to their prospects in Northern Virginia and statewide. The Democrats will also be relying on the increasing number of minority voters, who could help them not just in Northern Virginia, but also in the Virginia Beach metro and the Richmond and East region.

In Florida, these trends will have their strongest impacts in the fast-growing I-4 Corridor (36 percent of the statewide vote), which, while Democratic2 trending, is still the key swing region in Florida, and in the Miami metro, largest in the state and home to 27 percent of the vote. The trends could also have big impacts in the South and North, where Democrats will be looking to reduce their 2004 deficits in important metros like Jacksonville (North) and Sarasota and Cape Coral (South). Across the state, the GOP needs to prevent any erosion of support among white working class voters, especially among Democratic-trending whites with some college. They will also seek to hold the line among white college graduates, whose support levels for the GOP are high but declining over time. Finally, the support of the growing Hispanic population is critical to GOP efforts to hold the state, but this group is changing generationally and in terms of mix (more non-Cuban Hispanics), which could open the door to the Democrats.

Both of these states are near the top of the lists of most analysts’ list of battleground states for November 2008. Florida was a very closely contested state in both 2000 and 2004 (especially 2000). But Virginia’s status as a battleground is new to 2008. Yet in both states the contested political terrain reflects the dynamic demographic changes occurring within them. With 27 and 13 electoral votes, respectively, all eyes will be on Florida and Virginia on election night.

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The Political Geography of America’s Purple States: Five Trends That Will Decide the 2008 Election

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 10, 2008
8:00 AM - 10:00 AM EDT

First Amendment Lounge
National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC

The Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, hosted The Political Geography of America's Purple States: Five Trends That Will Decide the 2008 Election, a briefing on a new series of reports on the political demography of "purple" states in the 2008 election.

Purple states-or states where the current balance of political forces does not decisively favor one party or the other-will play an undeniably pivotal role in the upcoming election and include: Virginia and Florida in the South; the Intermountain West states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona; Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio in the Heartland; and Pennsylvania.

On October 10, 2008 at the National Press Club in Washington DC, authors William Frey and Ruy Teixeira highlighted the political and demographic trends in these 10 battleground states, focusing not only on their role in the 2008 election, but their position as toss-ups in years to come.

The session opened with an overview of the demographic shifts shaping all the contested states studied, and evolved into a detailed presentation of the trends that are testing and reshaping the balance of their voting populations, focusing particularly on five trends that Frey and Teixeira believe will decide the 2008 election. Feedback from James Barnes, political correspondent for the National Journal, helped shape the conversation.

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James Barnes

Political Correspondent, National Journal

Organizing for Success: A Call to Action for the Kansas City Region

Jennifer S. Vey — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Though possessing much economic strength, the Kansas City region faces stark barriers to its long term competitiveness, including a limited capacity for innovation, unfocused growth, and wide racial disparities. This paper—in conjunction with two companion papers delving into the region's economic assets and its life sciences economy—examines how Kansas City can overcome these challenges.

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Jennifer S. Vey

Missouri Needs to Focus

Bruce Katz and Mark Muro — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

*A slightly modified version of this commentary appeared in The Springfield News-Leader on October 24, 2004.

The Missouri gubernatorial race is going down to the wire, and guess what? Contentious social and moral issues are predominating.

Last week Republican Matt Blunt questioned McCaskill's values, saying his stand against gay marriage matched the values of mainstream Missourians.

For her part, McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor, has parried Blunt on gays, guns, and abortion by insisting that Republicans don't have a lock on values just because Democrats like her don't wear religion on their sleeves.

Look for more sniping on gays, guns, and abortion as the campaigns careen toward election day.

Which would be too bad.

Missouri—and particularly the Springfield region—needs to talk about some other things this fall.

In a major statewide report, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri," after all, we argued that Missouri today faces an outright land-use, environmental, and competitive crisis that has little to do with gay marriage or concealed-carry gun rules.

The crisis is not new—we described it two years ago—but the fact remains that Missouri's chaotic style of low-density development is gobbling up the state's rural heritage, gutting towns and cities, and exacting a heavy toll on Missourians' pocketbooks and quality of life just when the state needs to compete at a higher level on exactly those factors.

Just look around the Springfield area:

Forty-five percent of the region's growth in the 1990s took place in the unincorporated "open country," the exurban places often least equipped to manage it.

Strip malls and home sites are chewing up the region's beautiful Ozarks scenery.

And all the while newcomers are flocking to small outlying towns like Willard, Republic, Clever, Niza, and Ozark—all of which hit "hypergrowth" in the 1990s and struggle to keep up.

As to the results, they have been predictably mixed: New jobs and vitality have been accompanied by the water-quality problems that have fouled Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake. Taxes are increasing as local governments strain to provide the necessary roads, services, or sewer hook-ups. And with more sprawl coming, more traffic and mini-malls could soon undercut the region's reputation as the quaint heartland of rural America.

Why do these trends matter? For some the concern is cultural. They fear the state is losing its rural heritage. For others the threat is environmental. They are disturbed by the degradation of the Ozark lakes and other nearby natural areas.

However, for us the concern is mostly economic: By remaining virtually laissez faire on growth and development issues, we fear the Show Me State is undercutting its ability to parlay its very real assets into a broader prosperity.

Spread-out development patterns, for example, raise costs in the state for businesses and individual taxpayers. That's because highly dispersed development often increases the capital and operations costs of roads, sewer lines, schools, and police or fire services.

Similarly, Missouri's dispersed development adds to the size of the state's enormous—and crumbling—highway system. Missouri taxpayers consequently struggle with a maintenance backlog that will require half a billion dollars a year over the next 10 years—some $200 million more than current finding will provide.

And likewise, we suspect that the state's spread-out, low-quality development diminishes Missouri's appeal to highly educated workers—that critical factor if the state is going to appeal to entrepreneurs, well-educated retirees, and leading-edge techies and scientists.

This is especially important in the Springfield region, where the recent boom has clearly been built on the appeal of the region's improving downtown and cultural facilities, high quality of life, and stunning natural beauty.

And so we say it again—Missouri and the gubernatorial candidates need to face up to some tough realities this fall:

Missouri can't afford to keep sprawling, even with tax revenues stronger this year. So Blunt and McCaskill need to tell Missourians how they will foster more efficient, less chaotic growth that doesn't break the bank

Or take the highway issue: Notwithstanding rural pleas for new blacktop, Missouri can't afford to keep building new roadways as it tries to dig itself out of the maintenance hole it's paved itself into. Blunt and McCaskill should also say how they will modernize the state's flagging transportation system while aligning it with the principles of sound land-use and fiscal sanity

And what about the whole connection of economic energy to strong cities and higher education? Growth now depends on brainpower and quality of life. For that reason, the candidates owe it to Missourians to detail how they will bolster the quality and accessibility of Missouri's colleges and universities, given the state's inadequate state fiscal system. And they should likewise explain how they plan to revive the state's flagging town and city centers both for the benefit of residents and to attract and retain the best and the brightest for the future

Missouri, in sum, stands at a crossroads.

Other heartland states, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, now recognize the links between educated workers, strong urban and rural centers, and economic competitiveness—and are taking action. Missouri needs to face up to the challenge.

Similarly, other states are moving to reap the fiscal benefits of nudging development into more sensible patterns, so Missouri should think about that too.

As to the agitations of wedge issues like abortion and concealed weapons or gay marriage, Missourians should take them in stride. "Values" are important, sure, but at the same time, there's a land-use and competitive crisis underway in Missouri that both the candidates and voters ignore at their peril this election.

Authors

Bruce Katz
Mark Muro

Publication: The Springfield News-Leader

Missouri Candidates Should Get Real

Bruce Katz and Mark Muro — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 00:00:00 -0400

*A slightly modified version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on October 19, 2004.

So it looks like Missouri's gubernatorial race will turn on "character" issues.

GOP consultant Paul Zemitzsch predicts Secretary of State Matt Blunt will portray Claire McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor, as "an extra-liberal female candidate" and "waffler" when things get ugly. McCaskill, for her part, has already countered one attack on her "hypocrisy" with her own attack on Blunt's veracity.

Look for more talk about character as Election Day approaches.

Yet that would be too bad.

Missouri needs to talk about some other things this fall.

In a recent statewide report, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri," for example, we argued that Missouri faces a land-use and competitive crisis that demands serious attention.

The crisis is not new—we described it two years ago—but the fact remains that Missouri's chaotic style of low-density development is defacing the state's rural heritage, gutting towns and cities, and exacting a heavy toll on Missourians' pocketbooks and quality of life just when the state needs to compete at a higher level on those factors.

Just look around:

Strip malls and home sites chewed across nearly 350 square miles of Missouri prairie and fields in the 1990s as sprawl engulfed rural Missouri and the state continued to develop land almost four times as fast as it's been adding population.

Cities are struggling, as fast exurban growth either outstrips city and town growth or, in the case of St. Louis, drains the center-city of vibrancy.

And recently decline has spread beyond the state's big urban centers into numerous older suburbs, so that inner-ring municipalities like Wellston and Rock Hill in the St. Louis area, or Raytown and Grandview near Kansas City, now suffer from population losses.

Why do these trends matter? For some the concern is cultural. They fear the state is losing its rural ambiance. For others the threat is environmental. They know scattershot development is tainting the Ozark lakes and degrading Missouri's natural areas.

On the one hand, Missouri's dispersed development adds to the size of the state's enormous—and crumbling—highway system. Already Missouri taxpayers struggle with a maintenance backlog that will require half a billion dollars a year over the next 10 years—$200 million more than current finding will provide.

On the other, we suspect that the state's spread-out, low-quality development diminishes Missouri's appeal to the educated workers necessary to prosper in biotech, medical instruments, and infomatics. Educated workers gravitate to vibrant urban centers with plenty of amenities. Missouri's sprawl, by contrast, drives them away by draining the state's downtowns and Main Streets of life and variety.

And so we say it again: Missouri and the gubernatorial candidates need to face up to some tough realities this fall:

Missouri can't afford to keep sprawling, even with tax revenues stronger this year. Blunt and McCaskill need to tell Missourians how they will foster more efficient, less chaotic growth that doesn't break the bank

Ditto the highway issue: Notwithstanding rural pleas, Missouri can't afford to keep building new roads until it contends with the maintenance hole it's paved itself into. The candidates absolutely must explain how they will modernize the state's deteriorating transportation system while aligning it with the principles of sound land-use and fiscal sanity

And what about the whole connection of economic vitality to strong cities and higher education? Growth now depends on brainpower and quality of life. Therefore, the candidates owe it to Missourians to detail how they will bolster the quality and affordability of Missouri's colleges and universities. They also must explain how they plan to bolster the state's flagging town and city centers to attract and retain the best and the brightest

In sum, the Show Me State stands at a crossroads.

With huge issues about their state's future livability and prosperity in the balance, Missourians shouldn't buy into a campaign focused on character issues and divisive wedge issues.

Instead, they should insist candidates Blunt and McCaskill address the state's problems head on and get to work.

Authors

Publication: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Kansas City: Region on the Rise

Bruce Katz — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Bruce Katz's keynote presentation to the Mid-America Region Council discussed what metropolitan areas need to succeed in a competitive world, with specific information about how Greater Kansas City compares to other regions and areas for improvement.

The urban center hosts and participates in a variety of public forums. To view a complete list of these events, please visit the urban center's Speeches and Events page which provides copies of major speeches, powerpoint presentations, event transcripts, and event summaries.

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Bruce Katz

Publication: Presentation to the Mid-America Regional Council

Growth in the Heartland

Amy Liu — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 00:00:00 -0500

This presentation by Amy Liu discusses growth and development trends in the state of Missouri and their consequences. Additionally, it outlines strategies that Missouri and other states can pursue to help communities grow in more efficient and fiscally responsible ways.

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Amy Liu

Publication: Presentation to Greening the Heartland 2004

Examining the Results of the 2/3 Primaries and Caucuses

Anthony Corrado — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0500

Lynn Neary: I'm Lynn Neary in Washington, sitting in for Neal Conan.

John Kerry may not have clinched the Democratic nomination for president in yesterday's primaries and caucuses, but his victories in five of the seven races certainly completed his rehabilitation from an also-ran to a front-runner. John Edwards and Wesley Clark also won last night, Edwards in South Carolina, Clark in a tight race in Oklahoma, where Edwards came in second. Joe Lieberman dropped out of the race altogether. Howard Dean vowed to fight on despite a dismal showing. So did Al Sharpton, who placed third in South Carolina. Dennis Kucinich barely registered with voters. All the candidates now have their eyes on the future with contests in delegate-heavy states now up for grabs.

...

Lynn Neary:...With us to talk about money in politics is Anthony Corrado. He's a professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and is spending this year as a visiting fellow at The Brookings Institution here in Washington.

Thanks for being with us.

Anthony Corrado: Well, thanks for inviting me, Lynn.

Lynn Neary: Do we know exactly how much money's been spent so far by the candidates?

Anthony Corrado: Well, so far the Democrats have raised about $170 million in private donations and public funding all together, and all of that money's now been spent. This very competitive contest has proved to be very expensive so that as we enter this crucial part of the nominating process, no candidate really has a large reservoir of cash that's available to be spent.

Lynn Neary: Yeah. Both Dean and Kerry used the same strategy, focusing on Iowa and New Hampshire, but came up with very different results, didn't they?

Anthony Corrado: Yes, they did, and it was particularly problematic for Howard Dean because what Dean decided to do was use the large store of cash that he had raised in 2003 to spend lots of money in the states that would be voting in February, as well as in Iowa and New Hampshire, and as a result spent over $3 1/3 million on television in states that were voting after New Hampshire. Whereas John Kerry basically took all of the money he had and put it into Iowa and New Hampshire and was able to get the victories he needed to spur additional fund-raising so that he right now is in the best position even though he ended up raising much less than Howard Dean prior to New Hampshire. He's now in the best position to raise and spend money in this next stage of the race.

Lynn Neary: Yeah. And what about Dean? Has he been able to--he was so well-known for his fund-raising. How has his fund-raising been since he has started losing?

Anthony Corrado: Well, his fund-raising has actually held up very well. He's raising about a million dollars a week. He's raised about $3 million since that now-infamous night in Iowa. But one of the problems that he has is that he built such a large organization that it's very expensive to maintain. And as a result he has not had money for television advertising this week. He's not doing any television advertising in the states this weekend. And he probably won't do any television advertising in Tennessee and Virginia. So he's basically gone off of the airwaves in terms of paid television, with the exception of looking towards Wisconsin, which isn't until February 17th.

...

Listen to this entire program, or purchase a transcript

Authors

Anthony Corrado

Publication: NPR's Talk of the Nation

Kansas City in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000

Sat, 01 Nov 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Executive Summary

Census 2000 confirms that despite scant population growth in the 1990s, Kansas City remains at the core of a robust regional economy.

Population in Kansas City has changed little over the last two decades, and the city has dropped from 27th largest in the U.S. to 36th largest. Most neighborhoods in the city and its close-in suburbs failed to grow or actually lost population in the 1990s. Meanwhile, population boomed in the rest of the metro area, growing by a third since 1980. Today, only a quarter of the region's residents resides in Kansas City. Only a doubling of the city's immigrant population in the last decade forestalled greater population decline.

And yet, despite the stagnation of their city's population, residents' economic condition remained healthy. A high proportion of adults in Kansas City work, and employment is diversified among several industries. The city has a strong middle class, with gains in both moderate-income and high-income households in the 1990s. Real median income grew during the decade. Compared to other Living Cities, Kansas City's poverty rates remain low, its homeownership rates remain high, and its rental housing remains affordable. Still, significant income and educational attainment gaps by race and ethnicity point to opportunities to build a stronger minority middle class in Kansas City in the coming decade.

Along these lines and others, then, Kansas City in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000 concludes that:

Kansas City lies at the heart of a rapidly decentralizing region. Kansas City's population grew nominally (1.5 percent) in the 1990s, after declining in the 1980s. The city itself was divided, however, with most neighborhoods in the southern half stagnating or losing population, and most in the northern reaches of the city gaining. Elsewhere in the metro area, population boomed by 16 percent in the 1990s. Outer parts of Johnson County (KS) and Jackson County (MO) grew rapidly, as did population in all suburban counties. Only one in four metropolitan residents lives in Kansas City today.

The city's population is growing more diverse. Like most Midwestern cities, Kansas City's population remains predominantly white and black. The city lost white population in the 1990s, but gained residents of other races and ethnicities. International immigrants have contributed to the changing profile of the city and region. The number of foreign-born living in Kansas City more than doubled in the 1990s, and more than twice as many settled in the suburbs over the same period. What is more, the city's immigrant population itself is quite diverse; Mexico is the most common country of birth, but half come from countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Some parts of the urban core are attracting new residents, but others contain aging populations. With a little over 37,000 members, the 25- to 29-year-old population represents Kansas City's largest age group. These younger residents help account for the city's relatively small household size, and the significant degree of household turnover in neighborhoods around the downtown and northern parts of the city. Many neighborhoods in the city and inner suburbs, meanwhile, house significant shares of elderly residents. The growing representation of seniors is also reflected in the city's two largest household categories, childless couples and people living alone. Reversing a decline in the number of younger married-couple families in the city could be critical to maintaining neighborhood vitality and fiscal stability.

Increasing educational attainment and high levels of work contribute to the economic success of most Kansas City residents. Unlike the trend in many other U.S. cities, Kansas City's income distribution actually "evened out" in the 1990s. Median household income in Kansas City grew at about the national average, and the poverty rate declined. The healthy economic profile of city residents owes to several factors. While unemployment has risen since Census 2000 was conducted, Kansas City's rate remains below the average for large cities. Likewise, high school and college degree attainment among city workers rank above national averages. Workers are also employed in a diverse set of industries throughout the region. Yet racial differences cut against these trends. As elsewhere, blacks and Hispanics in Kansas City significantly lag whites on educational attainment, and those gaps contribute to large disparities in household incomes by race and ethnicity.

Kansas City is a "homeowner city," but some groups are not sharing in the benefits. Among the 23 Living Cities, Kansas City ranks fifth on its homeownership rate, which rose to 58 percent in 2000. The homeownership gap between whites and minority groups widened in the 1990s, however. The black homeownership rate in Kansas City did not increase at all over the decade, and the rate for Hispanics fell. Rents remain relatively affordable, however, and Kansas City ranks last among the 23 Living Cities in the share of renters who face housing cost burdens. While affordability may dissuade some renters from moving into homeownership, it may also present a chance for the city's families to save for ownership opportunities.

By presenting the indicators on the following pages, Kansas City in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000 is intended to give readers a better sense of where Kansas City and its residents stand in relation to their peers, and how the 1990s shaped the city, its neighborhoods, and the entire Kansas City region. Living Cities and the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy hope that this information will prompt a fruitful dialogue among city and community leaders about the direction Kansas City should take in the coming decade.

Kansas City Data Book Series 1
Kansas City Data Book Series 2

Tax Increment Financing in the Kansas City and St. Louis Metropolitan Areas

Tom Luce — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Executive Summary

Tax increment finance (TIF) is a popular and potentially powerful tool for places that need economic development the most yet have the least to spend. By allowing jurisdictions to use portions of their tax base to secure public-sector bonds, the mechanism allows fiscally strapped localities to finance site improvements or other investments so as to "level the playing field" in economic development.

However, poorly designed TIF programs can cause problems. Not only can they increase the incentives for localities to engage in inefficient, zero-sum competition for tax base with their neighbors. Also, lax TIF rules may promote sprawl by reducing the costs of greenfield development at the urban fringe. It is therefore critical that state legislatures design TIF rules well.

In view of this, an analysis of the way TIF is designed and utilized in Missouri shows that:

Missouri law creates the potential for overuse and abuse of TIF. Vague definitions of the allowable use of TIF permit almost any municipality, including those market forces already favor, to use it. Weak limits on its use for inefficient inter-local competition for tax base touch off struggles between localities. And the inclusion of sales tax base in the program tilts it toward lower-wage jobs and retail projects, which rarely bring new economic activity into a region.
Thanks to these flaws, TIF is used extensively in high-tax-base Missouri suburban areas with little need for assistance in the competition for tax base. This is especially true in the St. Louis metropolitan area. There, TIF money very frequently flows to purposes other than combating "blight" in disadvantaged communities' its classic purpose. In fact, less than half of the 21 St. Louis-area cities that were using TIF in 2001 were disadvantaged or "at-risk" when evaluated on four indicaters of distress. On another measure, just seven of the 20 suburban areas using TIF fell into the "at-risk" category.
TIF is also frequently being used in the outer parts of regions' particularly in the St. Louis area. Most notably, only nine of the St. Louis region's 33 TIF districts lie in the region's core. Conversely, 14 of the region's 38 TIF districts lie west of the region's major ring road (I-270). These districts, moreover, contain 57 percent of the TIF-captured property tax base in the region. By contrast, the Kansas City region shows a pattern more consistent with the revitalization goals of TIF. The vast majority of the districts lie in the region's center city, though the huge size of the city means many are still geographically far-flung.

In sum, poorly designed TIF laws are being misused at a time when state and local fiscal pressures require every dollar be spent prudently. As a result, a potentially dynamic tool for reinvestment in Missouri's most disadvantaged communities threatens to become an engine of sprawl as it is abused by high-tax-base suburban areas that do not need public subsidies.

For these reasons, Missouri would be well-served by significant reforms in the laws governing TIF:

The allowable purposes for TIF should be more strictly defined to target its use to places with the most need for economic development.
Higher level review of local determinations that TIF subsidies will support net contributions to the regional or state economy (the "but-for" requirement) should be implemented.
Local TIF administrators should be required to show that TIF subsidies are consistent with land-use and economic development needs both locally and in nearby areas.

If such reforms were put in place, TIF could be returned to its attractive main purpose: that of providing resources that would not otherwise be available to localities that badly need them to promote needed economic development and redevelopment.

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Tom Luce

Springfield's resilience: Plan well to keep it

Mark Muro — Sun, 02 Mar 2003 00:00:00 -0500

Why is Springfield's economy proving so resilient?

Several reasons come to mind: You're a manageably sized regional hub. You've got a university and important hospital assets. And you stand at the brink of an enormously attractive natural area -- the Ozarks.

More and more in today's footloose economy, jobs and people flock to livable places with affordable housing, vibrant downtowns, cultural amenities and lots of close-by outdoor recreation.

And Springfield's got all that. Well, OK: Downtown hardly buzzes with "24-7" meeting and living as yet. But the university keeps students around, and meanwhile, nearby Branson remains one of the nation's foremost "drive-to" cultural attractions. Likewise, the beautiful "lake country" draws visitors and second-home buyers from all over the Midwest. In this case natural beauty really is natural capital: The famous Ozarks ambience continues to support a $1-billion-a-year tourist sector to cushion the blows of any national economic downturn.

No wonder the region paced the state's growth in the 1990s and now holds on better in bad times. Greater Springfield has service jobs, rolling hills, lakes, Andy Williams, retirees and their pensions, and reasonably priced new subdivisions. What's not to like?

But here's the harder question: Can Springfield stay attractive? Can it stay resilient? The worry is that signs of strain have now appeared after a decade of fast growth.

Many of these strains my colleagues and I detailed in a recent Brookings Institution report I co-authored, titled "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri."

Springfield, we demonstrated, sprawled in the 1990s. Yes, the city proper grew by 8 percent. But mostly population moved ever outward during the decade, and that, we said, has brought problems.

Thousands of people flocked to smaller outlying towns like Willard, Strafford, Republic, Clever, Nixa and Ozark, which hit "hypergrowth" in the 1990s and struggled to keep up. Christian and Webster counties grew unsustainably by 66 and 31 percent, respectively. And even more disturbing some 28,000 people settled in unincorporated fringe areas ill-equipped to accommodate them with modern sewers and good services.

The result: Septic and fertilizer seepage from scattered new homes exacerbates the water-quality problems that have fouled Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake. Taxes are increasing as local governments strain to provide the necessary roads, services or sewer lines in places that never needed them. And with more sprawl coming, more traffic and more mini-malls could cost the region its reputation as the heartland of rural America -- quaint, scenic and friendly. The bottom line: Highly dispersed, low-density development may well be undermining the durability of its growth.

In that sense, the real test of Springfield's resilience lies ahead and turns on its ability to manage its growth to make it sustainable. What is more, the best way for Springfield to continue to grow in high-quality ways would seem to be to continue to set the standard for land-use and environmental reform in Missouri -- a state that has lagged on promoting sensible land use and planning.

As a state, after all, Missouri needs to update its badly outmoded planning statutes to provide its regions more tools to manage change.

It needs to promote regional solutions among its many localities. And it needs to better align its transportation and infrastructure investment policies with the principles of sound land use and sensible planning.

In this regard, what the state does -- or doesn't do -- to manage growth matters for Springfield because, ultimately, it is the state that sets the rules for what type of growth occurs all over. By remaining virtually laissez-faire on growth and development topics, the state of Missouri may well be undercutting its future competitiveness.

Given that, Springfield should take seriously the fact that with its strong growth, fresh voice and signature environmental assets, it is well positioned to lead the state in promoting reform.

So Springfield should step forward on these issues -- as the state's new economic driver, and as its most progressive region.

Already southwest Missouri business leaders have come together to protect the lakes. Now the region should show the way in other ways, by hammering out a regional system for managing fast growth; rationalizing local government competition; and insisting on state action to allow all regions to make headway.

For that is the way for the Springfield region to prosper: To help itself, it must help nudge the entire state along. Only in that fashion will a distinctive region maintain its distinctive vitality.

Authors

Mark Muro

Publication: Springfield News-Leader

New Report Details Rising Fiscal and Other Costs Associated with Missouri Development Trends

Mon, 09 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Missouri's population is spreading out, adding to the costs of providing services and infrastructure across the state, according to a new study released today by the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

The 84-page study, Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri, reports that Missouri's population is quickly dispersing, with smaller metropolitan areas experiencing some of the state's fastest growth and residency in unincorporated areas on the rise. Though new residents and jobs fueled prosperity in the 1990s, the report finds that growth has slowed in the past year, and suggests that the state's highly decentralized development patterns could become troublesome as Missouri contends with a slowing economy and serious budget deficits.

Sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Growth in the Heartland provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date body of research and statistics yet assembled analyzing the direction, scope, and implications of development in Missouri. In addition to assessing the consequences of those trends for the state's fiscal health, economic competitiveness, and quality of life, the report addresses the potential role of state and local policy in shaping those trends in the future. Specific findings of the report conclude that:

Growth in the Columbia, Springfield, Joplin, and St. Joseph metropolitan areas strongly outpaced that of the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas in the 1990s. Altogether the four smaller areas captured fully one-quarter of the state's growth and doubled the growth rate of the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.
Population and job growth also moved beyond the smaller metro areas and towns into the state's vast unincorporated areas. Overall, residency in these often-outlying areas grew by 12.3 percent in the 1990s—a rate 50 percent faster than the 8.1 percent growth of towns and cities.
Most rural counties reversed decades of decline in the 1990s, with eight in ten rural counties experiencing population growth and nine in ten adding new jobs. By 2000, more rural citizens lived outside of cities and towns than in them, as more than 70 percent of new growth occurred in unincorporated areas.

"Missouri experienced tremendous gains during the last decade, but the decentralized nature of growth across the state poses significant fiscal challenges for the future," said Bruce Katz, vice president of Brookings and director of the policy center. "The challenge for Missouri is to give communities the tools, incentives, and opportunities to grow in more efficient and fiscally responsible ways."

The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy is committed to shaping a new generation of policies that will help build strong neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions. By informing the deliberations of state and federal policymakers with expert knowledge and practical experience, the center promotes integrated approaches and practical solutions to the challenges confronting metropolitan communities. Learn more at www.brookings.edu/urban.

Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri

Metropolitan Policy Program — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Situated in the heartland, Missouri reflects the full range of American reality.

The state is highly urban yet deeply rural. It contains two bustling metropolises, numerous fastgrowing suburbs, and dozens of typically American small towns. Elsewhere lie tranquil swaths of open country where farmers still rise before dawn and the view consists mainly of rich cropland, trees, and sky.

Missouri sums up the best of the nation, in short.

And yet, Missouri also mirrors the country’s experience in more problematic ways.

The spread of the national economic downturn to Missouri, most immediately, has depressed tax collections and increased the demand for social services, resulting in a troublesome state and local fiscal moment. This has highlighted pocketbook concerns and underscored that the state must make the most of limited resources.

At the same time, Missourians, like many Americans, have many opinions about how their local communities are changing. They are divided—and sometimes ambivalent—in their views of whether their towns and neighborhoods are developing in ways that maintain the quality of life and character they cherish.

All of which explains the double focus of the following report by the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Intended to speak to the simultaneous concern of Missourians for fiscal efficiency and communities of quality, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri" brings together for the first time a large body of new information about both the nature and costs of development patterns in the Show-Me State.

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Authors

Metropolitan Policy Program

Increasing Housing Opportunities in Metro Kansas City

Bruce Katz — Fri, 22 Mar 2002 00:00:00 -0500

This speech focuses on the issue of affordable housing. It is a tough issue that is misunderstood and often maligned. It doesn't receive the kind of national or even local attention that it deserves. It is rarely discussed in a metropolitan context, even though many people realize that housing markets are metropolitan not local.

And it is not just about shelter or social justice. It is about economic competitiveness. It is about quality neighborhoods. It is about rewarding work and building wealth. And it is about community cohesion and continuity.

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Authors

Bruce Katz

Publication: Speech at the Kansas City Affordable Housing Conference