Metropolitan Kansas City, straddling the Missouri-Kansas state line, has experienced rapid growth in recent decades. Settled in the early 1800's, to serve as the starting point for many of the famous western trails, Kansas City still serves as the major center for marketing and distribution of farm products and agriculture-related businesses. Endowed with favorable geology, Kansas City has abundant supply of good quality limestone and other construction materials to sustain its growth through the years ahead and into the next century. Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks crop out in the area imparting it an aesthetically-pleasing hills and valley configuration. Desirable engineering properties of limestone and favorable geologic structure have aided in extensive development of underground space in the area. With 1.8 million m2 of developed space, Kansas City has the distinction of being the world leader in human use and occupancy of underground space. A detailed discussion of the history of underground space development, associated problems, and future prospects is presented in the paper. Geologic constraints of concern in the area include flooding, ground subsidence, expansive rocks and soils, mass movements and radon gas hazards. Completion of major dams and other flood protection works on the Missouri and Kansas rivers have nearly eliminated the flooding on the main rivers but the problems associated with flash floods have become very severe. Political factors have been a major obstacle in developing a master plan for flood control. However, recently a cooperative approach, involving more than 40 governments, administering the numerous towns in the metropolitan area, has been formulated and will very likely be adopted for implementation. The city has adequate water supply coming from the Missouri and Kansas rivers and the alluvial aquifers. Low-level contamination of the water supply had occurred in the past, but the problems were effectively remediated and no long-term pollution of the water supply system has since occurred. Instances of poor disposal practices of hazardous wastes are known; efforts are underway to clean up these sites. Numerous buildings and other structures have been completed in the area during the past 25 yrs. Kansas City now boasts of having the tallest building in the states of Missouri and Kansas—the One Kansas City Place stands at 183 m (600 ft), 4 m (13 ft) taller than the tallest building in St. Louis, One Bell Center. Many other ambitious construction projects are in various stages of development. A discussion of geotechnical characteristics of the foundation materials along with a list of major buildings in relation to site conditions and design features are included in the paper.