Film documents downtown KC’s rebirth

Part history lesson, part infomerical, a 60-minute program about downtown Kansas City’s rebirth aired for the first time on KCPT-TV last night.

The Next American Dream is essentially a story about suburban sprawl, peppered with pretty images of the Sprint Center and First Fridays. Funded by the Greater Kansas City Area Development Council, Dream paints a portrait of a city a bit more dynamic and progressive than it really is. But by the end credits, even cynics of the way business gets done in Kansas City will feel excited by what’s taken place over the last five to 10 years.

The program is beautifully photographed and uses an interesting mix of experts. In addition to the ghosts of Kansas City CEOs past (Gary Forsee, Mark Ernst, Peter Brown), the filmmakers interviewed Bob Berkebile, the environmentally conscious architect, and Christopher Leinberger, an urban land strategist affiliated with the Brookings Institute. Leinberger does an excellent job of explaining the postwar suburban flight that left urban centers in decay. At one point, Leinberger chides the U.S. politicians and planners for throwing out the knowledge (“what the ancients knew instinctively”) accrued over 8,000 years of city building.