While more than three dozen Kansas City restaurants have closed for good amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many, many more have managed to survive. But what lies ahead? The Independent Restaurant Coalition, formed earlier this year to advocate targeted federal assistance, has estimated that up to 85% of the country’s independent dining outlets are at risk of shutting their doors. 

Bluestem. Beignet. Poi-O. The Rieger. The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic extends all too sadly to some of Kansas City’s most adored restaurants, from burger joints to fine food establishments, which permanently closed their doors over the past 10 months amid emptied tables and bars and devastated bottom lines. The local­ dining industry may never be the same. And yet … 

Harry S. Truman was scarcely prepared to assume the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945. He’d been vice president for all of 82 days. Seldom in that time had he made contact with FDR. The onetime Missouri haberdasher now would have to help form the post-World War II environment in Europe, where victory was weeks away.

What is Kansas City’s master plan for the next 20 years – for guiding growth, for building up infrastructure, for keeping up with technological and environmental changes?