Plaza Branch and Central Library will open late at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17 due to the Kansas City Marathon.
Making a Great City
A Signature Events Series Exploring (and Encouraging) Healthy Development in Kansas City
The Library’s popular Making a Great City speaking series, launched in January 2018, is designed to foster the healthy growth of Kansas City and examine the ways that development decisions can strengthen fiscal stability and reduce disparities in wealth across the community.
Programs in series have featured presentations by prominent urban planners and follow-up roundtable discussions among civic leaders. The focus shifted in March and April 2019 to Kansas City’s distinctive system of parks and boulevards, looking at its origins and the challenges of maintaining it.
More recently, former New York City planner M. Nolan Gray assessed the advantages of doing away with city zoning – the use of arbitrary lines that have come to dictate where Americans may live and work.
Participants also have included the mayors of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas; the executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council; Doug McGowen, the forward-thinking chief operating officer of Memphis, Tennessee; and an array of urban planning specialists including New York urban revitalization strategist and entrepreneur Majora Carter and North Carolina-based Realtor and developer Tiffany Elder.
Esteemed urban planner Joe Minicozzi, also of North Carolina, spoke in 2018 and was subsequently commissioned to draft fiscal assessments of KCMO and KCK. He unveiled his analysis in another Making a Great City presentation that drew 303 people to the Library’s Plaza Branch in October 2019.
Nearly 3,800 people had attended a total of 16 Making a Great City events – in person or via livestream – through the end of 2023. Video and/or audio recordings of all programs are archived and accessible on the Library’s website and (in the case of video) its YouTube channel.
The series has been co-presented from the start by the Kansas City architecture and planning firm Multistudio. Also co-presenting one or more programs: the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, Greater Kansas City's LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors, Mid-America Regional Council, National Association of Realtors, Newmark Grubb Zimmer, Penn Valley Park Conservancy, Roanoke Park Conservancy, Urban Land Institute of Kansas City, Verimore Bank (formerly First Missouri Bank).
Here’s the full Making a Great City lineup:
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Psychology professor Paul Stewart discusses how neighbors in his hometown of Oswego, New York, worked together to restore their city and community, leveraging $6.5 million in private investments.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
6:00pm
Online
In Person
David Edwards presents neighborhood reinvestment strategies that are restoring urban core neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Urban planning expert William Fulton discusses how successful cities are built with intention and can create enduring economic assets and prosperity for their residents.
Thursday, April 16, 2026
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Planner Charles Flink discusses how greenways conserve critical real estate for the environment, shape how people travel, reduce the impact of natural disasters, and boost local economies.
Thursday, February 5, 2026
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Development consultant Coby Lefkowitz traces the history of the built environment in the United States from the rise of urbanization in the Industrial Revolution to the present day. He offers a series of concrete reforms to make cities and towns more beautiful, friendlier, and more affordable.
Thursday, November 13, 2025
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Development regulations often make housing, particularly starter homes, more expensive, if not impossible to build. Allison Thurmond Quinlan, an architect and advocate for infill development, discusses how cities can boost affordable housing by removing some barriers.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
6:00pm
Online
In Person
A.J. Herrmann, director of policy and program innovation at Accelerator for America, discusses the link between housing and economic growth. After the presentation, he joins a panel of Kansas City leaders to talk about the local housing market and share ideas about how it can better serve our community.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Like many other cities, Kansas City has a shortage of affordable housing and rising housing costs. Chuck Marohn — founder of the Strong Towns movement and coauthor of Escaping the Housing Trap — discusses why federal and state programs alone can’t solve the crisis, and how local strategies can make a meaningful differe...
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Mandy Chapman Semple was responsible for designing and co-managing the implementation of Houston’s nationally recognized efforts to address homelessness. She speaks about that project and a similarly successful effort in New Orleans and explains why and how the model worked.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
6:00pm
Online
In Person
Downtown Council of Kansas City CEO Bill Dietrich discusses the transformation of the Library District, and how it’s served as a local and national model for downtown revitalization efforts. A panel discussion with local community and civic leaders follows.