Equitable Development

A collection of blog posts on themes of equitable and inclusive economic development.

Making the Economy Work for Working Families

In the first two weeks of 2023, 6.8 million adults could not go to work because of caregiving responsibilities at home. At a time when...

Three Considerations for Developing Your Outreach and Engagement Strategy

Equitable community engagement is an essential component of building and maintaining strong communities. It involves creating...

Five-Year Plan to Make Allegheny County a Healthy Place to Live, Work, Play

The nationally accredited Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) regularly assesses and updates recommendations for improving the...

How the Inflation Reduction Act Changes the Game for Economic Developers

Paired with the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act...

Transforming Industrial Heartlands

In North America and Europe, the erosion of the economies of the industrial heartlands has given rise to a new populism that, in its...

Defining Resilience

Clients often ask us, “what does resilience actually mean?” Turns out, there are many definitions of this word. Ecologists may think of...

Four Observations from Three Conferences

I enjoyed meeting and re-meeting lots of people at the City, Nation, Place conference in London, the Association of Metropolitan Planning...

Three Takeaways from IEDC

IEDC’s annual conference gives economic development practitioners a chance to share ideas, best practices, and talk about the major...

Allegheny Together Helps Business Districts Thrive

What is Allegheny Together? Allegheny County Economic Development (ACED) manages business retention, expansion, and attraction for...

Three key takeaways from the Promising Practices of Outdoor Recreation Economies Webinar

In August 2022, Fourth Economy hosted Promising Practices of Outdoor Recreation Economies. Five industry experts across Pennsylvania led...

Best Practices: Climate Action Plans

What is a CAP? Climate action plans (CAP) are tools designed to help state and local governments mitigate and adapt to the effects of...

Scranton, Chester, and Berks: Lessons from Three PA Communities

This past year we had the opportunity to work with three very different Pennsylvania communities — Berks County and the cities of Chester...