AMC Entertainment Inc. recently announced it will take a subsidy package from Kansas worth more than $40 million to run away with 450 headquarters jobs from downtown Kansas City, Missouri to the affluent Kansas suburb of Leawood (median income almost two and a half times the state average and home values more than three times the state average) in hyper-growth Johnson County.
It’s the latest episode of subsidized sprawl (the Kansas City
Star
did a great series on that issue 16 years ago!) and of subsidized interstate job flight across the Missouri-Kansas state line that was
decried by 17 prominent business leaders
there just last April.
The AMC drama has played out for a year and a half and is one of the reasons the Missouri state legislature is now holding a special session on economic development.
Who has the best title for a movie about subsidized corporate job flight from distressed cities at your local AMC theater?