Local Manufacturing + Urban Manufacturing

You may have already seen this in your various feeds, but this week Allison Arieff authored a piece on local manufacturing in a New York Times blog.

The post, titled The Future of Manufacturing Is Local piqued my interest and fanned the flames of AEDC's passion for urban manufacturing. Just rereading it now got me jumping up and down with excitement. Here are some folks in much larger cities repeating what we've been saying for a while now: the 100-mile diet of "locavorism" is coming to manufactured products, people's relationship with their possessions is changing, and small manufacturers that focus on specialization and being lean will be winners in the next economic wave.

In case you aren't familiar with locavores, they are the folks that help make the Emmaus Farmers' Market such a special place. They are willing to pay a slight premium for high-quality produce that comes from places that they have heard of and is sold to them by the same people that planted and harvested it. In San Francisco, that looks like Rickshaw Bags selling a uniquely San Francisco product out of their own factory. As their found Mark Dwight said, "People want to buy stuff that's made locally. It started with food, but it's permeating fashion, woodwork and the like."

Also, we are watching a rejection of the throwaway culture (Dwight calls it the culture of disposability) that has taken root in America. It turned deck chairs into commodities and allowed the production of those chairs to move off-shore. But now it seems like people are more interested in a higher-quality product that will last more than one season. Additionally, they are looking for products that are made for the environment in which they are sold. A consumer looking for that same deck chair in Phoenix will be shopping for something different than a buyer in Maine. Radically different environments, with radically different local aesthetics.

Finally, smaller manufacturers that have walked away from commodity products are finding their niche here in the US. And they are at home in cities. Small manufacturers are more at home in the smaller shops and buildings that are readily available in our urban environments, but not so much in the 10-acre buildings built on 50 acres of former cornfield in the suburbs.

Read the article yourself and post some feedback here. Learn more at our Urban Made web page and let us know about your favorite urban-made products.

This or That? Site Selection Edition

Imagine that you own a small business owner that manufactures a product. You decide to move to a new city and need to find a place to call home for your business. Most of your workforce is earning around $50,000 per year (an average salary for manufacturing). Do you choose a location with a relatively low population spread across a wide area (car-dependent), high home value ($340,000) and high median household income ($97,000)? Or do you choose a densely populated location, with median household income around $40,000 and home values around $126,000? What if I told you that the denser environment featured lower rents?

Seems like a simple choice, but a lot of companies on the move find themselves directed to higher rent environments where they cannot access their workforce. Urban environments feature accessible, affordable workforce at low cost.

Your First Time Coworking at Hive 4A

We recently read a short article in Deskmag by Angel Kwiatowski of the Cohere Coworking Space in Fort Collins, CO providing some guidance on how to welcome new members to a coworking space. The pointers inspired us to prepare a blog post guide to your first day at Hive 4A.

Your first time in the space. You should know a couple of things, best illustrated in pictures. First, if you're driving, you can take advantage of free parking in a secure environment. Use our water tower as your landmark. If you are bicycling, feel free to bring your bike into the space. Here's the first thing you will see when you get out of your car and look toward the building. Go up the ramp to get to the front door.

follow the arrows to Hive 4A

When you enter the building, you'll be greeted by our friendly receptionist Marsha Cox. She will ask you to sign in and she will point you to the space, presently located in Unit 105. If it's your first time in the space, you'll get some history of the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center from Matthew Tuerk, AEDC's Assistant Director, followed by a tour of the building. Matt will then introduce you to the coworkers in the space and ask you to tell them a little bit about yourself. You'll get a password to Hive 4A's wifi network and you can get to work!
Matt will give you some ideas about ways to be part of the community and point you to space resources that you can take advantage of. We are working on a calendar for Hive 4A that will include coworking events and hackerspace events (and some that blend the two).
By lunchtime, you'll want to know where to get something to eat, unless you've brought your lunch (we do have a microwave, in case you want to bring something to heat up). Amigo Mio, Anastasi's Pizza, and Zandy's Steak Shop are all within a short walk of the building. If you want to bike or drive, Allentown's restaurant row is just on the other side of the 8th Street Bridge.
You should have no reason now to not at least give us a try. Remember we are coworking in the temporary space every Tuesday until we can get the permanent space open. The permanent space will be just across the hall and will be open during business hours.

Public Private Partnership Roundtable

Public-private partnerships have changed. As illustrated by the anticipated Allentown Arena/Entertainment District project, we are in a new era of public-private partnerships. If they are structured well, they are proving to create powerful new opportunities with winners on all sides.

The ULI Philadelphia Lehigh Valley Council and roundtable sponsor City of Allentown invite you for a presentation and roundtable discussion being held on March 30th about current and future opportunities that will define a successful public and private collaboration in our urban cores. You will hear a brief presentation from Sara Hailstone, Director of the Department of Community and Economic Development for the City of Allentown. Ms. Hailstone will discuss the role of financing, sustainability, and leveraging existing infrastructure to produce the highest return for your real estate development project. In the process, she will uncover why the future of the most successful public-private partnerships is hidden in a return to core urban development values and building long-term relationships that change a single development project into a thriving economic engine for generations to come.

This program will be held at on March 30th at Sangria Restaurant, 840 W. Hamilton Street, Allentown, PA 18101 from 12:00-1:30pm. Be sure to register before the March 25 deadline as only 25 people can attend. Learn more and register by clicking here.

Show & Tell Event at Hive 4A Hackerspace

Tomorrow, March 10, at 6:30 p.m., MakeLehighValley and Hive 4A will host a Show & Tell event in the Hive 4A makerspace. After the presentations of MakeLehighValley projects, the space will be open to networking.

Josiah Ritchie plans to present Electronic Discovery, an arduino-based toy. "The idea is to create something that is able to engage the whole family in construction, coding and play," said Ritchie.


Scott Piccotti will bring one of his pinhole camera projects, in anticipation of World Pinhole Photography Day on April 24. Make Lehigh Valley is planning a pinhole camera workshop on April 23, location TBD.


Hive 4A is an entrepreneurial development initiative of the Allentown Economic Development Corporation, located in the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center at 905 Harrison. Both a makerspace and a coworking space are in the works at Hive 4A, and events like this build toward the creation of those spaces. Learn more by following Hive 4A on Facebook.


MakeLehighValley is a collection of makers, crafters, artists and tinker-ers who love to build and make things. MakeLehighValley is local to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and meet to discuss projects they are working on and help each other. "If you have even the slightest interest in making crafts, electronics, software or hardware, please come and join us. We'd love to hear what you are interested in, share, and learn together as we build really exciting things."

Waste Reduction in Urban Manufacturing?

We are presently working on a post about waste reduction and industrial efficiency in urban manufacturing. We are wondering if urban environments facilitate lean manufacturing by virtue of their physical layouts. Any thoughts out there to help guide our research?

Young Engineers Growing in Allentown High Schools

The Allentown School District recently introduced the ACE Mentor Program to Allen High School and Dieruff High School, allowing students to investigate the application of science and math as they explore an industry that is central to sustained urban revitalization.
The ACE Mentor Program’s mission is “to engage, excite and enlighten high school students to pursue careers in the integrated construction industry through mentoring.” ACE stands for architecture, construction and engineering and students have the opportunity to explore all of the careers under that heading, including landscape architecture, civil engineering, construction management, and interior design. What makes the program really special is that it provides students with an opportunity to work next to industry professionals who can show the students that there is some reward for hard work.

These industries all require that students have a depth of understanding in science and math. Investments in those fields of study will position Allentown’s youth for success in the construction industry and elsewhere. As a region, the Lehigh Valley is counting on our students to bring technological and technical innovation to our economy. We need to keep pushing at the edges of innovation to remain globally competitive.
To sustain our cities, we need fresh minds to explore these fields. Allentown’s buildings and infrastructure are aging and we will need creative approaches to revitalization of our built environment to make us an attractive destination for individuals and industry. We will continue to see our city embrace its urban character when we engage these young residents to imagine new ways of living, working and playing in our built environment.
Kudos to the Allentown School District and to Langan Engineering for their role in bringing this concept to Allentown.

Temporary Coworking Space every Tuesday in Allentown

Hive 4A hosted the second of its weekly coworking events today at the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center.

While AEDC builds the environment that will eventually host the permanent coworking space, members of Hive 4A have been getting together to work in temporary space across the hall. After two coworking parties, we have had 11 different people join us to work on their individual projects. Their areas of expertise include graphic design, photography, professional writing, computer programming, computer coding, urban planning consulting, and nonprofit consulting. We’ve also had interns from a couple of different area schools get away from their offices to work with us for a bit. Members have reached across the table to help their fellow coworkers solve some simple problems and have consulted with each other on design decisions. Our interns have gotten guidance on their projects and some members have begun to develop formal working relationships. We’re still getting feedback on the space, but overall input has been positive.
The space that we are building will feature 16 seats for coworkers at “community” tables. They will have access to the space, be able to book conference room space to meet clients, share wifi and printing, and benefit from a thriving community of independent professionals, at a basic rate of $25 per month. The 2,200 square foot space will also feature 4 desks, available to full members at $150 per month. Those full members will be able to access the space after hours and will have a dedicated desk where they can count on sitting every day that they come to work. We are also building dedicated office space that will be a little larger for $250 per month and an even larger office space suitable for a small firm at $400 per month. Every member of the coworking space at Hive 4A will benefit from having ample, free parking, a business address at 905 Harrison and the collective wisdom of the brightest creative professionals in the Lehigh Valley.
While we build the space, we will open coworking every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. We have space for up to 16 concurrent coworkers and can make the existing conference room space available by reservation. For more information and to book your space for next Tuesday, join the Coworking Lehigh Valley Meetup or email info@hive4a.org.