LVEDC Annual Meeting 2011 Recap

After Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation's Annual Investor Meeting on January 20, 2011, their keynote speaker, Christopher Leinbeger took the stage to speak about walkable urbanism.

Leinberger, a visting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is recognized as one of the leading thinkers on strategic downtown redevelopment and walkability. His presentation covered some national trends, outlining the ways that we used to live, how we got off course, and how a new generation is steering development toward sustainability. His points that resonated with the crowd were that we are heavily subsidizing unsustainable development, we have made walkable urban development illegal and that suburban living shifts a signifcant portion of a family's income from discretionary spending to transportation.

He also supplied the Lehigh Valley with a to-do list (his to-do items in italics, our commentary afterward):

1) Visit comp[arable metropolitan area]s: Chattanooga, Boise, Lancaster. We might have some difficulty getting to Boise, Idaho but Lancaster is a 90-minute drive from here. Check out AEDC's experiences with co-working in Lancaster.

2) Understand "export" industries & business/employee locational requirements. LVEDC and the Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board have begun this work. Healthcare and higher education dominate employment in the Lehigh Valley, although research by the LVEDC and the WIB has that there are six industrial clusters present.

3) IF knowledge economy, determine where your walkable urban places will be and make it legal to build them (LANTA's toolkit). Mr. Leinberger suggested that we not only develop our existing urban cores, but begin the long process of rebuilding the suburbs as walkable places as well as build new communities. At AEDC, we would like to see efforts concentrated on our existing urban environments and if the Lehigh Valley builds new communities, we hope that they are built on brownfield sites rather than farms and open spaces.

4) Plan a transit system (even rail) to get you there, recognizing you will pay for it locally (tax increases & private value capture). After the meeting, Leinberger had a conversation with members of the Lehigh Valley economic development community, and expounded on this notion. He suggested that the return on an investment in a transit system would be significant and encouraged us to think streetcars rather than commuter rail.

5) Develop non-profit management. Much of this effort needs committed civic leadership and nonprofit management. Business improvement districts can help steer development in the right direction.

We hope to expand on some of these thoughts in blog posts over the year, so stay tuned here.