US cities conference focuses on innovation

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Municipal leaders from across the country are visiting Kansas City for the American City Conference, and they are talking about how to make cities centers of entrepreneurship and innovation.

“Every city is different, but our challenges are very similar,” said Danny Rotert, an aide to Kansas City Mayor Sly James. “We are trying to do more with less money. We are trying to take care of higher expectations from our citizens. We need to provide better service, and we often have less resources to do that, so we are really the places where innovation happens in the country.”

A new product unveiled at the conference today will especially help Kansas City residents. It gives them the ability to see everything they want to know about construction and water projects around the city. When it goes live, citizens will be able to access all the plans for those projects in their neighborhood and then sign up for progress updates.