Kansas City's elite and affluent minorities need corporate welfare too!!!

Today Steve Penn dutifully chronicles the demise of the 18th and Vine Jazz District. There has been one excuse after the next for the ongoing failure of the place to generate any excitement or foot traffic outside of a two day festival.

Millions upon millions of public dollars have been wasted trying to make the place a viable attraction . . . Still there's a call for even more cash with a rather unique excuse this time around from Peter Yelorda, co-chairman of the Jazz District Redevelopment Corp:

"There’s a big void in Kansas City of minority wealth."

This is just an odd statement. Obviously, a bad investment will lose money no matter who is handing out the cash . . . And the notion that Kansas City lacks minorities with money (an investor class) would be seen as stereotypical if it came from anybody else. Still, my favorite part of the article is when Yelorada mentions the so-called Downtown Renaissance:

"How can you expect this area in the ’hood, so to speak, to be vibrant when for many years, downtown was boarded up? If the private money isn’t building up downtown, how do you expect there to be something over here?"

True enough, corporate welfare has created a sense of entitlement among developers of every race and creed in Kansas City . . . Sadly, any minority business person can attest to the fact that we have to be TWICE AS GOOD in order to succeed. And while corporate handouts still rule the day in Kansas City, even under the reign of Co-Mayors Squitiro and Funkhouser . . . That kind of attitude just isn't going to cut it for people of color.

So far, only politicos have been consistently persuaded to keep throwing good money after bad in support of a Kansas City "attraction" that still hasn't generated a profit in more than a decade. There's no sign of improvement or hope for sustainability, meanwhile supporters of this grossly underperforming non-attraction will continue to sing the same tune despite the millions of dollars wasted on the Jazz District and its celebration of a dead art form.