Situated in the heartland, Missouri reflects the full range of American reality.

The state is highly urban yet deeply rural. It contains two bustling metropolises, numerous fastgrowing suburbs, and dozens of typically American small towns. Elsewhere lie tranquil swaths of open country where farmers still rise before dawn and the view consists mainly of rich cropland, trees, and sky.

Missouri sums up the best of the nation, in short.

And yet, Missouri also mirrors the country’s experience in more problematic ways.

The spread of the national economic downturn to Missouri, most immediately, has depressed tax collections and increased the demand for social services, resulting in a troublesome state and local fiscal moment. This has highlighted pocketbook concerns and underscored that the state must make the most of limited resources.

At the same time, Missourians, like many Americans, have many opinions about how their local communities are changing. They are divided—and sometimes ambivalent—in their views of whether their towns and neighborhoods are developing in ways that maintain the quality of life and character they cherish.

All of which explains the double focus of the following report by the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. Intended to speak to the simultaneous concern of Missourians for fiscal efficiency and communities of quality, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri" brings together for the first time a large body of new information about both the nature and costs of development patterns in the Show-Me State.

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Missouri's population is spreading out, adding to the costs of providing services and infrastructure across the state, according to a new study released today by the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

The 84-page study, Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri, reports that Missouri's population is quickly dispersing, with smaller metropolitan areas experiencing some of the state's fastest growth and residency in unincorporated areas on the rise. Though new residents and jobs fueled prosperity in the 1990s, the report finds that growth has slowed in the past year, and suggests that the state's highly decentralized development patterns could become troublesome as Missouri contends with a slowing economy and serious budget deficits.

Sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Growth in the Heartland provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date body of research and statistics yet assembled analyzing the direction, scope, and implications of development in Missouri. In addition to assessing the consequences of those trends for the state's fiscal health, economic competitiveness, and quality of life, the report addresses the potential role of state and local policy in shaping those trends in the future. Specific findings of the report conclude that:

• Growth in the Columbia, Springfield, Joplin, and St. Joseph metropolitan areas strongly outpaced that of the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas in the 1990s. Altogether the four smaller areas captured fully one-quarter of the state's growth and doubled the growth rate of the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.
  
  
• Population and job growth also moved beyond the smaller metro areas and towns into the state's vast unincorporated areas. Overall, residency in these often-outlying areas grew by 12.3 percent in the 1990s—a rate 50 percent faster than the 8.1 percent growth of towns and cities.
  
  
• Most rural counties reversed decades of decline in the 1990s, with eight in ten rural counties experiencing population growth and nine in ten adding new jobs. By 2000, more rural citizens lived outside of cities and towns than in them, as more than 70 percent of new growth occurred in unincorporated areas.

"Missouri experienced tremendous gains during the last decade, but the decentralized nature of growth across the state poses significant fiscal challenges for the future," said Bruce Katz, vice president of Brookings and director of the policy center. "The challenge for Missouri is to give communities the tools, incentives, and opportunities to grow in more efficient and fiscally responsible ways."

The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy is committed to shaping a new generation of policies that will help build strong neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions. By informing the deliberations of state and federal policymakers with expert knowledge and practical experience, the center promotes integrated approaches and practical solutions to the challenges confronting metropolitan communities. Learn more at www.brookings.edu/urban.

*A slightly modified version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on October 19, 2004.

So it looks like Missouri's gubernatorial race will turn on "character" issues.

GOP consultant Paul Zemitzsch predicts Secretary of State Matt Blunt will portray Claire McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor, as "an extra-liberal female candidate" and "waffler" when things get ugly. McCaskill, for her part, has already countered one attack on her "hypocrisy" with her own attack on Blunt's veracity.

Look for more talk about character as Election Day approaches.

Yet that would be too bad.

Missouri needs to talk about some other things this fall.

In a recent statewide report, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri," for example, we argued that Missouri faces a land-use and competitive crisis that demands serious attention.

The crisis is not new—we described it two years ago—but the fact remains that Missouri's chaotic style of low-density development is defacing the state's rural heritage, gutting towns and cities, and exacting a heavy toll on Missourians' pocketbooks and quality of life just when the state needs to compete at a higher level on those factors.

Just look around:

Strip malls and home sites chewed across nearly 350 square miles of Missouri prairie and fields in the 1990s as sprawl engulfed rural Missouri and the state continued to develop land almost four times as fast as it's been adding population.

Cities are struggling, as fast exurban growth either outstrips city and town growth or, in the case of St. Louis, drains the center-city of vibrancy.

And recently decline has spread beyond the state's big urban centers into numerous older suburbs, so that inner-ring municipalities like Wellston and Rock Hill in the St. Louis area, or Raytown and Grandview near Kansas City, now suffer from population losses.

Why do these trends matter? For some the concern is cultural. They fear the state is losing its rural ambiance. For others the threat is environmental. They know scattershot development is tainting the Ozark lakes and degrading Missouri's natural areas.

However, for us the concern is mostly economic: By remaining virtually laissez faire on growth and development issues, we fear the Show Me State is undercutting its ability to parlay its very real assets in the life sciences and other high-value industries into a broader prosperity.

On the one hand, Missouri's dispersed development adds to the size of the state's enormous—and crumbling—highway system. Already Missouri taxpayers struggle with a maintenance backlog that will require half a billion dollars a year over the next 10 years—$200 million more than current finding will provide.

On the other, we suspect that the state's spread-out, low-quality development diminishes Missouri's appeal to the educated workers necessary to prosper in biotech, medical instruments, and infomatics. Educated workers gravitate to vibrant urban centers with plenty of amenities. Missouri's sprawl, by contrast, drives them away by draining the state's downtowns and Main Streets of life and variety.

And so we say it again: Missouri and the gubernatorial candidates need to face up to some tough realities this fall:

• Missouri can't afford to keep sprawling, even with tax revenues stronger this year. Blunt and McCaskill need to tell Missourians how they will foster more efficient, less chaotic growth that doesn't break the bank

In sum, the Show Me State stands at a crossroads.

With huge issues about their state's future livability and prosperity in the balance, Missourians shouldn't buy into a campaign focused on character issues and divisive wedge issues.

Instead, they should insist candidates Blunt and McCaskill address the state's problems head on and get to work.

*A slightly modified version of this commentary appeared in The Springfield News-Leader on October 24, 2004.

The Missouri gubernatorial race is going down to the wire, and guess what? Contentious social and moral issues are predominating.

Last week Republican Matt Blunt questioned McCaskill's values, saying his stand against gay marriage matched the values of mainstream Missourians.

For her part, McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor, has parried Blunt on gays, guns, and abortion by insisting that Republicans don't have a lock on values just because Democrats like her don't wear religion on their sleeves.

Look for more sniping on gays, guns, and abortion as the campaigns careen toward election day.

Which would be too bad.

Missouri—and particularly the Springfield region—needs to talk about some other things this fall.

In a major statewide report, "Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri," after all, we argued that Missouri today faces an outright land-use, environmental, and competitive crisis that has little to do with gay marriage or concealed-carry gun rules.

The crisis is not new—we described it two years ago—but the fact remains that Missouri's chaotic style of low-density development is gobbling up the state's rural heritage, gutting towns and cities, and exacting a heavy toll on Missourians' pocketbooks and quality of life just when the state needs to compete at a higher level on exactly those factors.

Just look around the Springfield area:

Forty-five percent of the region's growth in the 1990s took place in the unincorporated "open country," the exurban places often least equipped to manage it.

Strip malls and home sites are chewing up the region's beautiful Ozarks scenery.

And all the while newcomers are flocking to small outlying towns like Willard, Republic, Clever, Niza, and Ozark—all of which hit "hypergrowth" in the 1990s and struggle to keep up.

As to the results, they have been predictably mixed: New jobs and vitality have been accompanied by the water-quality problems that have fouled Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake. Taxes are increasing as local governments strain to provide the necessary roads, services, or sewer hook-ups. And with more sprawl coming, more traffic and mini-malls could soon undercut the region's reputation as the quaint heartland of rural America.

Why do these trends matter? For some the concern is cultural. They fear the state is losing its rural heritage. For others the threat is environmental. They are disturbed by the degradation of the Ozark lakes and other nearby natural areas.

However, for us the concern is mostly economic: By remaining virtually laissez faire on growth and development issues, we fear the Show Me State is undercutting its ability to parlay its very real assets into a broader prosperity.

Spread-out development patterns, for example, raise costs in the state for businesses and individual taxpayers. That's because highly dispersed development often increases the capital and operations costs of roads, sewer lines, schools, and police or fire services.

Similarly, Missouri's dispersed development adds to the size of the state's enormous—and crumbling—highway system. Missouri taxpayers consequently struggle with a maintenance backlog that will require half a billion dollars a year over the next 10 years—some $200 million more than current finding will provide.

And likewise, we suspect that the state's spread-out, low-quality development diminishes Missouri's appeal to highly educated workers—that critical factor if the state is going to appeal to entrepreneurs, well-educated retirees, and leading-edge techies and scientists.

This is especially important in the Springfield region, where the recent boom has clearly been built on the appeal of the region's improving downtown and cultural facilities, high quality of life, and stunning natural beauty.

And so we say it again—Missouri and the gubernatorial candidates need to face up to some tough realities this fall:

• Missouri can't afford to keep sprawling, even with tax revenues stronger this year. So Blunt and McCaskill need to tell Missourians how they will foster more efficient, less chaotic growth that doesn't break the bank

Missouri, in sum, stands at a crossroads.

Other heartland states, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, now recognize the links between educated workers, strong urban and rural centers, and economic competitiveness—and are taking action. Missouri needs to face up to the challenge.

Similarly, other states are moving to reap the fiscal benefits of nudging development into more sensible patterns, so Missouri should think about that too.

As to the agitations of wedge issues like abortion and concealed weapons or gay marriage, Missourians should take them in stride. "Values" are important, sure, but at the same time, there's a land-use and competitive crisis underway in Missouri that both the candidates and voters ignore at their peril this election.

This is the third in a series of reports on the demographic and political dynamics under way in key “battleground” states, deemed to be crucial in deciding the 2008 election. As part of the Metropolitan Policy Program’s Blueprint for American Prosperity, this series will provide an electoral component to the initiative’s analysis of and prescriptions for bolstering the health and vitality of America’s metropolitan areas, the engines of the U.S. economy. This report focuses on three major battleground states in the Midwest—Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri—and finds that:

Ohio, Michigan and Missouri all feature eligible voter populations dominated by white working class voters. However, this profile is changing, albeit more slowly than in faster-growing states like Colorado or Arizona, as the white working class declines and white college graduates and minorities, especially Hispanics, increase. The largest effects are in these states’ major metropolitan areas— Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati in Ohio: Detroit in Michigan; and St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri— especially in their suburbs.

In Ohio, these trends could have their strongest impact in the fast-growing and Democratic-trending Columbus metro, where Democrats will seek to tip the entire metro in their favor by expanding their margin in Franklin County and reducing their deficit in the suburbs. The trends could also have big impacts in the Cleveland metro (especially its suburbs), in the Cincinnati metro (especially Hamilton County) and in the mediumsized metros of the Northeast (Akron, Canton, and Youngstown). Overall, the GOP will be looking to maintain their support among the declining white working class, especially among whites with some college, who have been trending Democratic. Also critical to their prospects is whether the growing white college-educated group will continue its movement toward the Democrats.

In Michigan, these trends will likely determine whether the fast-growing and populous Detroit suburbs continue shifting toward the Democrats, a development which would tip the Detroit metro (44 percent of the statewide vote) even farther in the direction of the Democrats. The trends will also have a big impact on whether the GOP can continue their hold on the conservative and growing Southwest region of the state that includes the Grand Rapids metro. The GOP will seek to increase its support among white college graduates, who gave the GOP relatively strong support in 2004, but have been trending toward the Democrats long term.

In Missouri, these trends will have their strongest impact on the two big metros of Democratic-trending St. Louis (38 percent of the vote)—especially its suburbs— and GOP-trending Kansas City (20 percent of the statewide vote). The Democrats need a large increase in their margins out of these two metros to have a chance of taking the state, while the GOP simply needs to hold the line. The trends will also have a significant impact on the conservative and growing Southwest region, the bulwark of GOP support in the state, where the Republicans will look to generate even higher support levels. The GOP will try to maintain its support from the strongly pro-GOP white college graduate group, which has been increasing its share of voters as it has trended Republican.

These large, modestly growing states in the heartland of the United States will play a pivotal roll in November’s election. Though experiencing smaller demographic shifts than many other states, they are each changing in ways that underscore the contested status of their combined 48 Electoral College votes in this year’s presidential contest.



Table Of Contents:
Executive Summary » 
Introduction and Data Sources and Definitions » 
Ohio » 
Michigan » 
Missouri » 
Endnotes »

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Earlier this month, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a 10-year, 3/4 cent sales tax increase to boost statewide transportation investment. With local referendums an increasingly popular method to raise transportation funding in an era of federal uncertainty, the result has lessons for Missouri’s transportation interests and the country as a whole.

Like many states, Missouri has a clear infrastructure deficit. A legislatively-mandated citizens committee found the state needs an additional $600 million to $1 billion in investment per year. The problem is finding the money. Outside of federal funds, the state primarily relies on a 17.3 cent gasoline tax and local property taxes to fund transportation projects, plus location-specific revenue streams like a half-cent sales tax in St. Louis city and county. Yet with Missouri residents driving less in recent years—down 5 percent per capita between 2000 and 2012-—there is less money available to fund critical projects.

This vote offered one remedy. The statewide bump in sales tax would’ve generated upwards of $5 billion over the ten-year period. The new monies would go to 800 projects across Missouri, primarily for roadways. The governance was a similarly unequal split, with the state department of transportation directly controlling all but 10 percent of the new revenue.

And this is where the referendum’s problems become clear. While each of the state’s seven transportation districts managed their own project list, there was no guarantee local sales taxes would be spent on local projects. There were also legitimate questions whether a heightened focus on roadways made sense in the face of falling statewide driving. This was at the heart of the opposition argument, led by Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions.

In many ways, the Missouri results reflect what happened in a failed 2012 Atlanta referendum. That transportation package contained a hodgepodge of road and rail projects, barely increased connectivity across the sprawling metro region and couldn’t align local interest groups. Much like Missouri, Atlanta has clear transportation needs—but voters sensed the current plan wouldn’t do enough to adequately improve their commutes and livability.

As Missouri’s transportation leaders regroup, they’d be wise to follow the “economy-first” lesson of successful referendums in places like Los Angeles, Denver and Oklahoma City. The common thread in all three was a great job proving the need for greater infrastructure investment. But as my colleagues outlined in a recent report, they also captured how transportation could support industrial growth and metro-wide economic health. Americans have proven time and again they’ll pay for transportation projects, but they want to know what they’re getting and how it will benefit their communities.

In this sense, I’m heartened by a recent Kansas City Star editorial related to their failed streetcar vote the same day. Even with a failed vote, the metro area still needs a better infrastructure network. The key is for public, private and civic leaders to continue working with the public to determine which transportation investments will best support regional economic growth for decades to come.

Ballot measures may fail, but they’ll always provide lessons to improve the plans that will pass.