Small qualified developer pool to draw from and hard to attract outside talent. I grew up in eastern Kansas and left in part because of dismal career prospects.
They'll end up choosing an up-and-coming city (i.e., positive population growth).
To be clear I'm not saying there's no tech economy in eastern Kansas (though I think all involved would dispute a description of "massive"). Just saying that dropping Amazon there won't magically make 50,000 qualified applicants appear.
“There are simply not enough workers in the area with the technical skills to meet the demand of our region’s companies,” the report commissioned by the KC Tech Council said. “This number will not decrease unless our region does more to support tech workforce development.”
They'll end up choosing an up-and-coming city (i.e., positive population growth).