Regional Prosperity

The Kansas City region offers many of its residents a high quality of life, good jobs in diverse industries and an economy that attracts and retains talent. However, not all residents have access to good or promising jobs, and many are challenged with health or other issues. The Mid-America Regional Council works to support building a region that provides quality early education for all young children, a stronger workforce system, partnerships to increase the supply of affordable housing, and support for vulnerable families and older adults through nutrition incentives and Area Agency on Aging services.

The region faces choices on how it will grow to ensure the area remains a choice location for businesses, workers and investment so residents can compete and prosper, generating lasting opportunity for all. 

MARC supports dialogue and collaborations to make Greater Kansas City a stronger community. We provide data, resources, insight and analysis to inform economic strategies and plans. We also bring together elected leaders, stakeholders and community members to take initiatives to the next level of impact — becoming a more resilient, prosperous region that makes data-driven decisions to adapt to and act on emerging opportunities. 

KC Rising

KC Rising brings together civic and business partners to strengthen the regional economy and foster inclusive prosperity for the Kansas City metropolitan area. Formed in 2015 to help the region grow faster and more intentionally, KC Rising supports and amplifies complementary initiatives and serves with community-wide impact. MARC is a supporting organization of KC Rising, along with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, Kansas City Area Development Council and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City.

Purpose

KC Rising exists to achieve a regional vision of prosperity for all by aligning and accelerating community effort for the greatest impact. The partnership measures progress against benchmark metros that we typically compete against. KC Rising has also developed seven pillars to unify and depict a shared vision of regional prosperity:

  • Connectivity
  • Neighborhoods
  • Enterprise
  • Industry
  • Inclusion
  • Education
  • Culture
KC Rising logo that says KC Rising Our Shared Vision for Regional Prosperity

Metrics and Data

As a KC Rising partner organization, MARC tracks the peer metro metrics — including metropolitan gross domestic product, quality jobs and median household income — to gain insight into the impact of strategies. MARC also supports the KC Rising data and analytics resource team, the human capital committee and the diversity task force.

MARC also maintains other data sources related to economic growth and development.