By: Sunrise Movement KC
Why this zine: Sunrise Movement KC began the zine series because local officials have framed the World Cup as “next big thing” for Kansas City: hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup. But as city leaders continue to celebrate the tournament as a source of prestige, development, and economic opportunity, we see the World Cup as part of a much longer history of mega-events that intensify displacement, policing, environmental harm, and inequality.
Who we are: Although our work is often identified primarily as climate organizing, we understand climate justice as inseparable from struggles over housing, transit, disability justice, economic inequality, racial capitalism, and policing (and this is just an abbreviated list!). Every dimension of the environmental crisis informs all of our organizing – specifically our years-long Better Buses for KC campaign. Fighting for better public transit in Kansas City has meant confronting broader questions about who cities are designed for, whose mobility is prioritized, and whose lives are treated as expendable.
When/where/what zines: The zine series emerged through our art team in late 2025 in response to the transformations already unfolding in Kansas City under the banner of World Cup preparation. The zines aim to collectively document the transformation and serve as a counterweight to the deluge of misinformation propagated by local officials. We wanted to create something accessible, locally grounded, and politically agitating: a project that could trace how mega-events reorganize urban life while amplifying already existing harms.
Each issue in the series focuses on a different dimension of World Cup urbanism:
- Issue 1 explores transit as the city is renting out tourist-centric transport during the world cup, the city residents are seeing a quarter of bus services removed.
- Issue 2 examines the recently passed police budget for Kansas City, Missouri, as social services experience cuts, the world cup is being used to justify greater investment in militarized policing.
- Issue 3 investigates the construction of a so-called “temporary” jail in time for the World Cup exposing how mega events are used to justify the expansion of carceral infrastructure and state violence.
- Issue 4 concludes the series by centering on the climate and environmental injustice under mega-event development, Kansas City cannot be a playground for billionaires as the world burns.
We hope the zine series dismantles the dominant narratives surrounding the World Cup and inspires another political imagination of the city. One rooted not in spectacle, securitization, and corporate development. Instead, an imagination that is rooted in collective care, dignity, and justice.