Inbound Logistics | September 2009 | Digital Issue

MISSOURI: The Perfect Center

Imagine a huge, flat, rigid map of the country covered with millions of identical chess pieces, each representing a U.S. resident where he or she lives. Place that map on a support, and the spot where it balanced would be the mean center. The last time the Census Bureau did that calculation, it found the nation’s point of perfect population balance in Phelps County, Missouri.

That ideal location in the center of the United States is just one of many fea- tures that make Missouri a stellar spot for logistics. Locate a production plant or distribution center in Missouri and you’re within easy reach of 20 states and a large portion of the nation’s commer- cial markets. And “easy reach” doesn’t mean simply as the crow flies. Missouri’s transporta- tion infrastructure includes 18 interstates plus many other four-lane U.S. high- ways, five Class I railroads, 13 public port

authorities, 131 airports, and eight major intermodal facilities. Together, they pro- vide a wealth of options for connecting efficiently with the rest of the country and the world. Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the United States and one of the larg- est in the Midwest. Thanks in large part to its state education system, its popula- tion of 5.9 million residents includes three million highly educated workers. Those workers, and the companies that employ them, have helped to make Missouri one

of the most diversified economies in the nation. The state boasts the fifth-lowest cost of living in the United States and the eighth-lowest business costs of any state. In 2008, the Bureau of Business Research at Indiana’s Ball State University ranked Missouri first among the states for manu- facturing and logistics. ROADS TO EVERYWHERE The story of Missouri as a vital link for U.S. commerce started in May 1804, when the Lewis and Clark expedition pushed off the Missouri River’s banks just north of St. Louis to explore the newly pur- chased Louisiana Territory. That journey of exploration on what would become a major commercial thoroughfare helped open the western half of the continent to settlement and trade. Today, for companies that move goods in and out of their facilities, the big story about Missouri still centers on its transpor- tation resources. For starters, consider the state’s 32,800 miles of highway, including 1,180 miles of interstates. Taken together, these make up the seventh-largest high- way system in the nation, an efficient and largely uncongested network for over-the- road transportation. Major east-west highways in Missouri include I-44, I-64, and I-70; north-south routes include I-29, I-35, and I-55. Other interstate routes providing more localized transportation include 435, 635, and 470 near Kansas City, and 270 and 170 near St. Louis. Numerous four-lane U.S. highways add to Missouri’s inventory of efficient routes. For example, U.S. 61 in eastern Missouri forms part of the Avenue of the Saints, a

MARYVILLE

KIRKSVILLE

HANNIBAL

CAMERON

ST. JOSEPH

MOBERLY

LIBERTY

MARSHALL

COLUMBIA

MONTGOMERY CITY

KANSAS CITY

HAZELWOOD

SEDALIA

ST. LOUIS

CHESTERFIELD

JEFFERSON CITY

WAYNESVILLE

ROLLA

FARMINGTON

LEBANON

SPRINGFIELD

CAPE GIRARDEAU

JOPLIN

WEST PLAINS

SIKESTON

POPLAR BLUFF

PORTAGEVILLE

A WEALTH OF OPTIONS: Missouri boasts 18 interstates, in addition to other four-lane highways, railroads, airports, and intermodal facilities.

72 Inbound Logistics • September 2009

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