Yes, Kansas City deserves a pat on the back for everything that&#8217;s been accomplished downtown this decade, from thousands of new residents to a lively new entertainment district.</p><p>Now comes the sobering reality: Downtown is still falling behind its big-city peers in many respects.</p><p>That&#8217;s what <em>The Kansas City Star </em>found when it analyzed, as much as statistically possible, downtown changes in similar-sized cities. For all that has happened here, Kansas City&#8217;s downtown progress often hasn&#8217;t kept pace or produced results on par with downtowns such as Indianapolis and St. Louis, Charlotte and Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City and Denver.</p><p>Sure, our downtown stands out in a few big ways &#8212; we&#8217;ve added more lofts and condos per year than any of our peers, for example. Mostly, though, downtown Kansas City&#8217;s progress has trailed the pack. Many peer downtowns have built more office space, kept more jobs, added more restaurants and gained more tourist visits since the beginning of this decade.</p><p>Overall, <em>The Star </em>analyzed the downtown progress made in Kansas City and 13 peer cities. The downtowns were compared in 16 statistical measures, but these comparisons have limitations. Some national statistics only measure the first half of this decade. Plus, different downtowns are in different stages of rebirth, with some starting earlier than Kansas City did.</p><p>Given all that, <em>The Star&#8217;s </em>analysis represents more of a snapshot than a complete picture.</p><p>That snapshot, though, shows Kansas City&#8217;s downtown progress below average in more than half of the comparisons with its peers &#8212; measures such as new bars, new hotels and office vacancy.</p><p>Basically, even with $4 billion invested in downtown so far this decade, we still don&#8217;t measure up all that well with other downtowns.</p><p>&#8220;I think you&#8217;re right in the middle of the pack of your peers,&#8221; said Christopher Leinberger, who visited Kansas City this year and has written about downtown revitalizations for the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. &#8220;What you&#8217;ve done is good, but it&#8217;s been done better elsewhere.&#8221;</p><p>Local business executives who travel a lot see this, too.</p><p>Take Terry Dunn, president of the JE Dunn Construction Group. He goes to Charlotte, Nashville and Denver every few months.</p><p>&#8220;We have turned a corner, but we&#8217;re probably lagging. All three of those cities are ahead of us,&#8221; Dunn said.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re only in the early stages of renaissance.&#8221;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">KC&#8217;s launch</span></strong></p><p>But what an early stage it has been.</p><p>Downtown Kansas City has evolved into a residential neighborhood more successfully than just about any of its peers. It has added an average of almost 500 new housing units a year this decade.</p><p>As a result, Kansas City&#8217;s downtown population has jumped by more than 4,000 people, ranking Kansas City No. 3 among peer downtowns in average annual population gain. Downtowns in Columbus, Ohio, Milwaukee and Nashville barely gained 1,000 residents.</p><p>&#8220;Four thousand people &#8212; that is a lot,&#8221; said Kathryn Madden, a planning consultant who was principal author of a downtown Kansas City master plan known as the Sasaki Plan, which recommended focusing on residential development. &#8220;It shows a lot of commitment toward investing in your city.&#8221;</p><p>Beyond housing, Kansas City&#8217;s list of downtown accomplishments this decade sounds impressive: a new arena and adjoining restaurant-bar district; a new central library; new office towers for companies such as Kansas City Southern and H&amp;R Block; an expanded convention center; vacant buildings turned into art galleries; and on and on.