Urban planner Joe Minicozzi says too often taxes are paid by residents in poor neighborhoods of a city with the money used to fund improvements elsewhere.

There’s a “math” to effective city building. Minicozzi, principal of the North Carolina consulting company Urban3, understands it better than most, helping communities identify where income is generated and what development patterns create the most valuable and resilient revenue sources. He discusses the financial implications of land use decisions in cities like Kansas City in the second installment of the Making a Great City series.

The series is designed to advance solutions to our country’s infrastructure crisis and point Kansas City, specifically, toward being a great, more productive city. It is co-presented by the Hall Family Foundation, Gould Evans, Greater Kansas City LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), the local council of the Urban Land Institute, the Mid-America Regional Council, Newmark Grubb Zimmer, and the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors.