From high-rise cityscape to Lawrence: incoming city manager brings development experience to new role

The world incoming city manager Craig Owens departs is a very different one from what awaits him in Lawrence.

The approximately 2.5-square-mile city of Clayton, Mo., where Owens has been the city manager since 2008, has been booming by many accounts. The city has about 16,000 residents and brings twice that number of people into the city for work. On a recent weekday morning, people with briefcases in hand crossed downtown Clayton’s intersections in the shadows of gleaming business towers and new high-rise apartment buildings.