Project Description:

Tony Proscio examines what some skeptics consider competing efforts: community development and Smart Growth. These skeptics claim that Smart Growth concentrates on the outer urban areas where sprawl is occurring, while community developers are concerned with the inner neighborhoods and lower-income residents. Proscio however points out that history has actually shown that these two efforts compliment one another. In focusing efforts to rebuild the urban core through community development, you are diminishing the pull to move to the outer urban areas. This has led community organizations to “recognize that their neighborhoods are far more likely to rebuild and prosper in a strong, well-managed regional economy than in a weak and haphazard one.” He paints a picture of an unhealthy community: “developed land is being abandoned and wasted, while remote, undeveloped green space is being paved over for new residents.” This is a regional issue: the inner city is losing its economic base and left with “blight,” while the outer land is being lost to development. Through his example of Allegheny West, he suggests that a healthy community and region are dependent on rebuilding and reusing the developed spaces in the inner city which then also rebuilds the employment potential of those properties. This will require a state-local collaboration of government representatives, businesses, residents, and community developers.