Earlier this past week there was some chatter about a an article that appeared in the Kansas City Star. The article, KC Can Learn from Downtown Des Moines, by Kevin Collision, compares what Des Moines has done for downtown compared to what Kansas City has done. Here are a few excerpts from the article.

Bottom line: Anybody in Kansas City who believes we’ve done enough revitalizing our downtown over the past few years had better wake up. Regional cities such as Des Moines have been striving too, and, more importantly, they’ve been doing it consistently over a longer period of time.

It was 20 years ago that Des Moines civic leaders hired Mario Gandelsonas, a Princeton University scholar of urban design, to help the city come up with a plan to foster its downtown revitalization. The results have been impressive.

More than $2.8 billion has been spent downtown since 2000, much of it aimed at making the area more appealing to that educated, younger adult crowd with an appetite for urban living.

Factoid: While metro Des Moines is much smaller than metro Kansas City, 525,000 vs. 1.95 million people, its downtown has 77,000 workers vs. 100,000 in KC. The city can thank major employers, including the Principal Financial Group, Meredith Corp., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Wells Fargo Financial and the state of Iowa, for its downtown employment base.

With this article in mind, here are a couple of videos I found on YouTube that talk about what people like about Des Moines.

What Do You Like About Des Moines?

I Love This Town Contest – Des Moines

closeAuthor: MulderDSM Name: Larry Bradshaw
Email: admin@livingdowntowndesmoines.com
Site: http://www.larrybradshaw.net
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