Criticizing government-led “hip” development does not mean dismissing neighborhoods that are unusual, historic, or culturally distinctive. Those qualities can be genuine assets. The problem is trying to manufacture them through public subsidies and development plans rather than allowing communities to develop organically.

Governments are poor at deciding whether capital should flow to entertainment districts, bars, factories, housing, or some other use because they lack the dispersed knowledge embedded in markets. Cities generally became successful through the choices of people pursuing work, homes, and opportunity—not because officials successfully planned an identity for them.

Kansas City's Old Northeast illustrates the difference. It became a durable immigrant neighborhood because inexpensive housing and nearby employment made it useful to successive groups of newcomers, including my own Italian family. Its identity emerged from people and history rather than from a government-sponsored branding exercise.

Missouri too often substitutes one subsidized development after another for the harder work of creating broad conditions in which residents and businesses can thrive. That risks producing artificiality where authentic growth should be.