Kansas City, MO

Pioneering a Green Recovery in Kansas City, Missouri

The Green Impact Zone is a targeted green revitalization effort meant to concentrate and coordinate American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) services and funds within a 150-block, mostly poor, economically distressed area of Kansas City, MO.

Conceived by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the Zone now has the support of Mayor Mark Funkhouser, a unanimous city council, and dozens of community and civic organizations.

PolicyLink is working with the Mid-America Regional Council, (MARC) -- the regional planning organization coordinating the Green Impact Zone -- and neighborhood leadership to support the planning and implementation of the Green Impact Zone. Our support work ranges from building community capacity, assisting with strategic communications, identifying federal resources and lifting up creative strategies that can be applied in the Green Impact Zone.

Click here to see Zones by zip code, city council districts, census tracts; and a diagram outlining funding streams.

PolicyLink President Judith Bell talks about how The Kansas City Green Impact Zone, a large, low-income area, could be a stimulus model for the nation. Read "The Stimulus and Poverty: Using the Stimulus to Reduce Poverty and Improve the Environment," on Neiman Watchdog site.

PolicyLink and (MARC) developed a framing paper for Obama Administration officials and local innovators for the White House of Urban Affairs Listening Tour to kick off the Kansas City Green Impact Zone. Click here to read Building Communities of Opportunity: Supporting Integrated Place-Based Initiatives through Federal Policy (pdf).

• Radhika Fox, PolicyLink Federal Policy Director, joined officials and local stakeholders on the Listening Tour. Read her email here.