The ICMA Host Committee invites you to visit the Greater Kansas City Region, for the 102nd Annual Conference, September 25-28, 2016. Why Kansas City? Because Kansas City is the heartland of America and a perfect locale to gather local government professionals.
The Greater Kansas City Region is a fourteen-county metropolitan area located at the junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. The region’s principal city is Kansas City, Missouri; however, the greater Kansas City metro area spans the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas.
Kansas City ranks as the second largest metropolitan area with its core located in Missouri. It also has a population in Kansas larger than the size of the Wichita metropolitan area. Alongside Kansas City, the area includes a number of other cities and suburbs, the largest being Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; and Independence, Missouri; all over 100,000 in population. Just think of it as one big metropolitan area that happens to have a state border down the middle of it.
The Greater Kansas City region has a long heritage of professional local government management, which gained increased visibility in 1940, when L.P. Cookingham was hired by Kansas City, Missouri, city reformers and became the “dean of the nation’s city managers.” The council-manager form of government thrives in more than 150 communities within a day’s drive of Kansas City and flourishes in such communities as Topeka, Overland Park, Independence, Olathe, and Shawnee, to name a few.
Why Kansas City? Because Kansas City is the heartland of city and county management!
