Kansas City has lots to brag about. As NFL Draft Day approaches, let’s aim even higher | Opinion

Half a century ago, Kansas City was simply booming.

The Chiefs won the 1970 Super Bowl, then moved to the new Truman Sports Complex in 1972. The next year, the Royals began playing there, too. A new airport opened in 1972 and Kemper Arena in 1974. Two years later, Kemper hosted the Republican National Convention. In 1973, Kansas City got a National Basketball Association team, the Kings, and, in 1974, a National Hockey League team, the Scouts.

Beyond that, downtown and surrounding areas were beginning to stir after decades of decline. For instance, Union Station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Two years later, Kansas City approved a contract to redevelop – and save – the station and surrounding property. Nearby, Crown Center’s initial five-building office complex was completed in 1971. After the City of Fountains Foundation was established in 1973, a national campaign drew visitors with this boast: Kansas City has more boulevards than Paris, more fountains than Rome.

Something like that generative atmosphere is being experienced today:

▪ Two recent thrilling Super Bowl victories.

▪ A new airport terminal full of stunning art.

▪ An extension of the KC Streetcar under construction.

▪ An expanding arts, music and theater scene.

▪ A refurbished Kansas City Museum adding to the stories the Negro Leagues and American Jazz museums tell.

▪ A wonderfully redone Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

▪ More businesses owned by Black, Hispanic, Asian and other entrepreneurs of many backgrounds and experiences.

▪ A stadium for the Kansas City Current on the Berkley Park riverfront — the first purpose-built for the National Women’s Soccer League — is set to open next year.

▪ Talk of another new baseball stadium for the Royals, this time downtown.

▪ A $4 billion lithium battery factory under construction in nearby De Soto.

▪ NFL Draft Day coming here in late April.

▪ And, in 2026, World Cup games here.

Much is going right for Kansas City today. Much, but not everything.

So as we prepare to welcome a huge NFL Draft crowd, let’s think not just about what we want visitors to see and experience, but also what we hope they won’t notice — including some of what Kansas City didn’t get right in the 1970s, such as our really convenient airport that turned into a security problem, and our failure to keep either the Scouts or the Kings.

Public school problems, potholes everywhere

Where to start? How about with the Kansas City Public Schools? We’ve seen progress lead, finally, to regaining full state accreditation. But for every bright spot (Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, a popular new superintendent) there are schools whose students don’t read at grade level, who start the day hungry and couch surf at night because they’re homeless. Let’s fix that.

We now have a free-to-ride public bus system and, soon, a streetcar extension. But our automobile addiction means there’s no serious effort to create effective mass transit. Instead, we get a proposal to add lanes to Interstate 70, a short-term solution to overcrowding that almost certainly will attract more cars. Let’s fix that.

Kansas City is more racially integrated than it was in 1975, when a Star investigation revealed that 50 square miles of the central city had been redlined by conventional mortgage lenders. But the metropolitan area is still profoundly segregated, partly because of racist real estate and lending practices. Let’s fix that.

Let’s also work on:

▪ The stagnant historic 18th & Vine Jazz District, whose 1990s-era renovation has never yet met its full potential.

▪ The culture of racism and sexism found in a recent comprehensive report about the Kansas City Fire Department.

▪ Widespread hunger that still requires free lunches in schools and a persistent need for food pantries.

▪ The periodic racist, homophobic and antisemitic vandalism that defaces public and private property.

▪ The feeble Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, which is held hostage to state control.

▪ Potholes big enough to swallow small cars.

Let’s hope for more Super Bowls, yes. But let’s also aim for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism (Confession: The Star hasn’t won a Pulitzer since way back in 2022); World Series baseball from the Royals; Nobel Prize-winning life sciences discoveries; Pritzker awards for our architecture; top rankings for our colleges and universities; national honors for our zoo.

Imagine a Super Bowl-like parade honoring all of that. Just imagine. And then let’s get busy.