History, Arts, and Culture Goal

Preserve and celebrate our community character, history, arts, and culture


Kansas City’s identity is based on its history and a layering of diverse cultures, economies, and the prairie landscape from which Kansas City grew. This distinctive character fosters a sense of pride, identity, and social connection among Kansas Citians.

History, art, and culture is threaded throughout Kansas City, in public spaces such as the city’s celebrated fountains, parks, and boulevards, in museums, and in historic neighborhoods with distinctive architecture (see Parks and Open Spaces Objective). These places showcase the varied cultural, artistic, and musical traditions that make Kansas City unique, with a character all its own (see Public Spaces and City Attractions Objectives).

However, this shared history has not always included the experiences of all Kansas Citians. Certain groups and people have historically been either deprioritized or excluded from the accepted version of Kansas City’s history, and that must be remediated. The experiences and perspectives of all Kansas Citians should be recognized and respected in the city’s built environment.

The Playbook aims to preserve the city’s character in its architecture, landmarks, and districts (see Historic Preservation Objective). It is also important to preserve the art, monuments, and objects produced by the cultures and communities of the past (see Public Spaces Objective). The city must also preserve spaces that host festivals and events and foster their expansion over time (see City Attractions Objective).


RELATIONSHIP TO VISION STATEMENTS

The Playbook has fifteen Vision statements for Kansas City. The Playbook’s Vision describes what we want to be and outlines how we want our city to develop in the future, in line with community values and priorities. Those that are closely related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Affordable Community: We will create and nurture an affordable community and strive for abundant opportunity and employment at a livable wage for our residents.
The city can attract visitors, tourism spending, and business opportunities by celebrating its history. For example, by preserving landmarks that emphasize the city’s history and promoting cultural community events and attractions.
Cultural Amenities: Our diverse cultural amenities, parks, and open spaces will provide a rich variety of experiences and vibrant environments.
Kansas City’s diverse cultural amenities offer a variety of experiences and contribute to a vibrant environment, providing opportunity for celebration, connection, and improved well-being.
Desirable Place: Our community will attract people and employers through being a desirable place to earn, learn, live, and thrive.
A city with a vibrant arts and culture scene is attractive to employers and creative people, encourages community engagement, and supports economic and community development.
Equitable and Fiscally Sustainable: Our capital investments and growth will be equitable while maintaining the fiscal sustainability of the city.
Fiscally sustainable growth will help ensure the city can maintain elements, such as landmarks and parks, that preserve the city’s treasured history and culture. Equitable growth will ensure everyone can access these amenities.
Healthy Environmental Systems: We will promote and value the health of our environmental and natural systems and protect them from degradation.
Many of the city’s historic and cultural sites are in or adjacent to natural areas. As the city restores and protects natural areas, it also should preserve these historic resources.
History and Heritage: We will preserve places that celebrate all facets of Kansas City’s history and cultural heritage.
While commemorating this cultural heritage, the city should collaborate with the groups and organizations that this heritage pertains to. These collaborations could include public education; the maintenance and adaptive reuse of buildings or places; and securing funding for preservation efforts.
Innovation and Creativity: We will cultivate innovation and creativity in our governance, business, and educational practices related to smart city technology and physical development.
New technologies will create new opportunities for smart city infrastructure that can preserve, enhance, and improve historic, cultural, and arts attractions.
KC Uniqueness: We will preserve and enhance those things that make Kansas City unique – the small town feel with big city amenities and the wide range of diverse environments and neighborhoods.
To retain Kansas City’s unique character, the city must first identify and preserve the elements that define that character. At the same time, the city must balance its development needs and a growing economy over the long term.
Livable Neighborhoods and Diverse Housing: Our neighborhoods will be strong, livable, and authentic while ensuring diverse housing opportunities.
Preserving and enhancing historic resources makes all neighborhoods stronger, as does access to arts amenities, events, and other city attractions.
Mobility Options: Our well-connected and accessible neighborhoods and districts will be walkable and served by reliable, safe, and convenient mobility options.
As the city plans for and builds infrastructure to improve general mobility, it must consider access to historic and cultural amenities, too.
Physical Beauty: Our city will be renowned for the physical beauty of its streets, buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure.
Kansas City must protect its cultural heritage through preservation, adaptive reuse of buildings, beautification efforts, and public art that highlight the city’s historic and cultural structures.
Regional Collaboration: Our city will continue to be the heart of the region. We will remain collaborative with our regional partners with a renewed focus on building partnerships to achieve the aspirations of this plan.
Kansas City shares a history and vision for the future with other cities and municipalities in the region. This collective identity supports regional collaboration and encourages joint tourism initiatives and cultural exchange.
Sustainable Growth and Resilient City: Our community will grow in a sustainable manner and be resilient and adaptable to future changes.
Kansas City can grow resiliently by using history and culture as building blocks for its long-term vision. For example, adaptive reuse of buildings and spaces can preserve the city’s character while encouraging sustainable development.
Thriving Economy: Our economy will be resilient, inclusive, diverse, and thriving and will position our city competitively against our national peers.
Economic and community development centered around history, arts, and culture is an important part of a thriving, diverse economy. These amenities attract visitors and make Kansas City a more attractive place to live or establish a business.
Walkable, Clean, and Safe: Our community will promote the health of our residents and visitors through being walkable, clean, and safe.
Historic and cultural amenities and public art make a community more walkable by providing destinations people want to walk to and by making the walk more interesting.


RELATIONSHIP TO EQUITY STATEMENTS

The Playbook also has a series of statements focused on equity. Those that are directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Addressing Disinvestment: Direct investment to communities that have been abandoned or have experienced long-term disinvestment.
Citywide Accessibility: Ensure services, utilities, and transportation options are provided to everyone.
Community Collaboration: Empower people from different parts of the KC community in working together to solve problems.
Community Engagement: Empower people to shape their communities and recognize that communities value things differently.
Complete Communities: Ensure that people can meet their needs in their own neighborhood without having to travel long distances.
Housing Affordability: Ensure everyone has access to safe and affordable housing.
Inclusive Design: Ensure that development incorporates design features that consider people of all abilities.
Providing Services: Commit to taking care of the built environment and providing the same quality of maintenance and services citywide.
Welcoming Spaces: Ensure that public spaces and amenities are designed to support diverse, culturally authentic, and family-friendly activities, no matter how much money a person is able to spend.


RELATIONSHIP TO BIG IDEAS

The Playbook identifies five Big Ideas for Kansas City. The Big Ideas are the essential themes of the plan. They underpin all that the plan aims to do. Those directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Fostering neighborhoods that accommodate all ages, lifestyles, and incomes by diversifying and densifying housing choices and creating complete communities that facilitate a high quality-of-life
Arts and cultural amenities improve quality of life for residents and make neighborhoods more attractive and complete.
Creating a physically beautiful city by promoting high quality design in public spaces, parks, private development, and capital improvements
Beautiful places are often the result of art and architecture added to the landscape over time. This layering is visible in Kansas City’s high-quality design. It must be maintained and integrated in new, high-quality development.
Respecting land as a limited resource by balancing outward growth with infill development, preserving natural resources, and developing in an equitable and sustainable manner
Preserving the city’s natural resources while expanding ways to experience them, sustainably and with environmental sensitivity, will help ensure the city can maintain historic and cultural amenities and everyone can access them.
Maximizing connections and mobility options by bridging or eliminating barriers and creating new physical connections and a robust multimodal transportation system
Infrastructure for multimodal transportation should be planned to ensure safe and convenient access to historic and cultural attractions, making neighborhoods more walkable.
Creating a  future-proofed city by better anticipating and reacting to new technologies and evolving conditions
The city can use new technologies to promote historic, cultural, and arts amenities. As the impacts of climate change are better understood, the city should develop strategies to ensure the preservation and continued maintenance of these amenities.


RELATIONSHIP TO TOPICS

The Playbook is also structured around five Topics that organize the plan’s recommendations around specific subjects. The topic most directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:



RELATIONSHIP TO OBJECTIVES

The Playbook identifies twenty-one Objectives for Kansas City. The Objectives are the nuts and bolts of the Playbook. Each one contains detailed recommendations, strategies, and initiatives for a specific topic, framed by the overall direction the plan sets for that topic. The Objectives also set priorities and metrics for their implementation and provide supporting context, including relevant data and public input. A single Objective often supports multiple Goals and Topics.

Objectives primarily related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal:


Objectives secondarily related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal:


Preserve and celebrate our community character, history, arts, and culture


Kansas City’s identity is based on its history and a layering of diverse cultures, economies, and the prairie landscape from which Kansas City grew. This distinctive character fosters a sense of pride, identity, and social connection among Kansas Citians.

History, art, and culture is threaded throughout Kansas City, in public spaces such as the city’s celebrated fountains, parks, and boulevards, in museums, and in historic neighborhoods with distinctive architecture (see Parks and Open Spaces Objective). These places showcase the varied cultural, artistic, and musical traditions that make Kansas City unique, with a character all its own (see Public Spaces and City Attractions Objectives).

However, this shared history has not always included the experiences of all Kansas Citians. Certain groups and people have historically been either deprioritized or excluded from the accepted version of Kansas City’s history, and that must be remediated. The experiences and perspectives of all Kansas Citians should be recognized and respected in the city’s built environment.

The Playbook aims to preserve the city’s character in its architecture, landmarks, and districts (see Historic Preservation Objective). It is also important to preserve the art, monuments, and objects produced by the cultures and communities of the past (see Public Spaces Objective). The city must also preserve spaces that host festivals and events and foster their expansion over time (see City Attractions Objective).


RELATIONSHIP TO VISION STATEMENTS

The Playbook has fifteen Vision statements for Kansas City. The Playbook’s Vision describes what we want to be and outlines how we want our city to develop in the future, in line with community values and priorities. Those that are closely related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Affordable Community: We will create and nurture an affordable community and strive for abundant opportunity and employment at a livable wage for our residents.
The city can attract visitors, tourism spending, and business opportunities by celebrating its history. For example, by preserving landmarks that emphasize the city’s history and promoting cultural community events and attractions.
Cultural Amenities: Our diverse cultural amenities, parks, and open spaces will provide a rich variety of experiences and vibrant environments.
Kansas City’s diverse cultural amenities offer a variety of experiences and contribute to a vibrant environment, providing opportunity for celebration, connection, and improved well-being.
Desirable Place: Our community will attract people and employers through being a desirable place to earn, learn, live, and thrive.
A city with a vibrant arts and culture scene is attractive to employers and creative people, encourages community engagement, and supports economic and community development.
Equitable and Fiscally Sustainable: Our capital investments and growth will be equitable while maintaining the fiscal sustainability of the city.
Fiscally sustainable growth will help ensure the city can maintain elements, such as landmarks and parks, that preserve the city’s treasured history and culture. Equitable growth will ensure everyone can access these amenities.
Healthy Environmental Systems: We will promote and value the health of our environmental and natural systems and protect them from degradation.
Many of the city’s historic and cultural sites are in or adjacent to natural areas. As the city restores and protects natural areas, it also should preserve these historic resources.
History and Heritage: We will preserve places that celebrate all facets of Kansas City’s history and cultural heritage.
While commemorating this cultural heritage, the city should collaborate with the groups and organizations that this heritage pertains to. These collaborations could include public education; the maintenance and adaptive reuse of buildings or places; and securing funding for preservation efforts.
Innovation and Creativity: We will cultivate innovation and creativity in our governance, business, and educational practices related to smart city technology and physical development.
New technologies will create new opportunities for smart city infrastructure that can preserve, enhance, and improve historic, cultural, and arts attractions.
KC Uniqueness: We will preserve and enhance those things that make Kansas City unique – the small town feel with big city amenities and the wide range of diverse environments and neighborhoods.
To retain Kansas City’s unique character, the city must first identify and preserve the elements that define that character. At the same time, the city must balance its development needs and a growing economy over the long term.
Livable Neighborhoods and Diverse Housing: Our neighborhoods will be strong, livable, and authentic while ensuring diverse housing opportunities.
Preserving and enhancing historic resources makes all neighborhoods stronger, as does access to arts amenities, events, and other city attractions.
Mobility Options: Our well-connected and accessible neighborhoods and districts will be walkable and served by reliable, safe, and convenient mobility options.
As the city plans for and builds infrastructure to improve general mobility, it must consider access to historic and cultural amenities, too.
Physical Beauty: Our city will be renowned for the physical beauty of its streets, buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure.
Kansas City must protect its cultural heritage through preservation, adaptive reuse of buildings, beautification efforts, and public art that highlight the city’s historic and cultural structures.
Regional Collaboration: Our city will continue to be the heart of the region. We will remain collaborative with our regional partners with a renewed focus on building partnerships to achieve the aspirations of this plan.
Kansas City shares a history and vision for the future with other cities and municipalities in the region. This collective identity supports regional collaboration and encourages joint tourism initiatives and cultural exchange.
Sustainable Growth and Resilient City: Our community will grow in a sustainable manner and be resilient and adaptable to future changes.
Kansas City can grow resiliently by using history and culture as building blocks for its long-term vision. For example, adaptive reuse of buildings and spaces can preserve the city’s character while encouraging sustainable development.
Thriving Economy: Our economy will be resilient, inclusive, diverse, and thriving and will position our city competitively against our national peers.
Economic and community development centered around history, arts, and culture is an important part of a thriving, diverse economy. These amenities attract visitors and make Kansas City a more attractive place to live or establish a business.
Walkable, Clean, and Safe: Our community will promote the health of our residents and visitors through being walkable, clean, and safe.
Historic and cultural amenities and public art make a community more walkable by providing destinations people want to walk to and by making the walk more interesting.


RELATIONSHIP TO EQUITY STATEMENTS

The Playbook also has a series of statements focused on equity. Those that are directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Addressing Disinvestment: Direct investment to communities that have been abandoned or have experienced long-term disinvestment.
Citywide Accessibility: Ensure services, utilities, and transportation options are provided to everyone.
Community Collaboration: Empower people from different parts of the KC community in working together to solve problems.
Community Engagement: Empower people to shape their communities and recognize that communities value things differently.
Complete Communities: Ensure that people can meet their needs in their own neighborhood without having to travel long distances.
Housing Affordability: Ensure everyone has access to safe and affordable housing.
Inclusive Design: Ensure that development incorporates design features that consider people of all abilities.
Providing Services: Commit to taking care of the built environment and providing the same quality of maintenance and services citywide.
Welcoming Spaces: Ensure that public spaces and amenities are designed to support diverse, culturally authentic, and family-friendly activities, no matter how much money a person is able to spend.


RELATIONSHIP TO BIG IDEAS

The Playbook identifies five Big Ideas for Kansas City. The Big Ideas are the essential themes of the plan. They underpin all that the plan aims to do. Those directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:

Fostering neighborhoods that accommodate all ages, lifestyles, and incomes by diversifying and densifying housing choices and creating complete communities that facilitate a high quality-of-life
Arts and cultural amenities improve quality of life for residents and make neighborhoods more attractive and complete.
Creating a physically beautiful city by promoting high quality design in public spaces, parks, private development, and capital improvements
Beautiful places are often the result of art and architecture added to the landscape over time. This layering is visible in Kansas City’s high-quality design. It must be maintained and integrated in new, high-quality development.
Respecting land as a limited resource by balancing outward growth with infill development, preserving natural resources, and developing in an equitable and sustainable manner
Preserving the city’s natural resources while expanding ways to experience them, sustainably and with environmental sensitivity, will help ensure the city can maintain historic and cultural amenities and everyone can access them.
Maximizing connections and mobility options by bridging or eliminating barriers and creating new physical connections and a robust multimodal transportation system
Infrastructure for multimodal transportation should be planned to ensure safe and convenient access to historic and cultural attractions, making neighborhoods more walkable.
Creating a  future-proofed city by better anticipating and reacting to new technologies and evolving conditions
The city can use new technologies to promote historic, cultural, and arts amenities. As the impacts of climate change are better understood, the city should develop strategies to ensure the preservation and continued maintenance of these amenities.


RELATIONSHIP TO TOPICS

The Playbook is also structured around five Topics that organize the plan’s recommendations around specific subjects. The topic most directly related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal are highlighted in grey below:



RELATIONSHIP TO OBJECTIVES

The Playbook identifies twenty-one Objectives for Kansas City. The Objectives are the nuts and bolts of the Playbook. Each one contains detailed recommendations, strategies, and initiatives for a specific topic, framed by the overall direction the plan sets for that topic. The Objectives also set priorities and metrics for their implementation and provide supporting context, including relevant data and public input. A single Objective often supports multiple Goals and Topics.

Objectives primarily related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal:


Objectives secondarily related to the History, Arts, and Culture Goal:


Page last updated: 14 Apr 2023, 07:55 AM