A lot of healing has occurred . Rebuilding is moderately steady. Still plenty of room for rebuilding and growth. The new Mercy hospital is struggling. Layoffs. Briefly lost trauma rating. The other hospital (Freeman) took a lot of health care contracts when St. John's went down. Medical school coming to town. Talk of a Dental school. The city is primed. Just need to add a catalyst.

Sad to say if you know the history of Joplin they don't like to grow. They want Status quo. If they were serious years ago they would be bigger then Springfield. But they choose not to grow but Springfield did. Prime location 3 states. Major interstate east west. Major north south Highway Theres no reason why they shouldn't be bigger

My ex FIL was pretty big in Joplin and having my sister live there from 84-99 and me off and on for 3 years 91-96 98-00 05-08 My kids still live there Joplin had a chance to have the Mavericks hockey team but choose not to. City council has always been in shambles. The school district is trying to regain trust

Sad but true

Discuss Dad said the same thing... well before the tornado hit. It's economically stagnant given the few locally headquartered businesses that have a national reach beside Leggett & Platt and maybe Tamko. Everything is chain or franchise service industry spots and a few small businesses.

And it doesn't look like there's going to be any small business growth in Joplin -or any town of a similar size- in the future.

At least we now know where Discuss gets his stupid uniformed opinions from.

Right. Because a small business owner is "uninformed" about the state of the local economy.


Guzzle antifreeze and die, ****.