Greater Pittsburgh Tri-State Outdoor Economy
Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC)
Economic Resilience
PEC provides information on environmental issues to individuals, organizations, government, and business. PEC focuses on legislative, regulatory, advocacy, and analysis, as well as innovation, collaboration, and education to protect and restore Pennsylvania’s natural and built environments. PEC believes in partnerships to improve the quality of life for all Pennsylvanians.
PEC engaged Fourth Economy to explore opportunities to develop and promote the Pittsburgh region as a hub for outdoor economy opportunities within a three-hour drive, a region including 11.5 million people in Maryland, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. The biggest opportunity is outdoor recreation’s ability to drive community improvements, including job creation, small business development, tourism, talent attraction and retention, and societal wellbeing. This is especially true for the region’s rural and formerly industrial areas, which have few economic growth opportunities. Key goals include supporting current outdoor recreation components, investing in key areas for improvement, and promoting the sector to drive tourism, economic development, and quality of life.
Our Approach
We profiled leading and peer case study outdoor economy regions to understand what makes them excel and learn best practices. We identified the regional Outdoor Economy’s customers through research and data analysis using Policymap, ESRI, and Replica software, which provides mobile location, consumer resident, and credit transaction data. Scenarios were developed for the future regional outdoor economy, and recommendations were built for strategies, policies, and programs to strengthen it.
The Results
In addition to the full report, From Rust Belt to Rec Belt: Growing the Outdoor Recreation Economy in North Central Appalachia, Fourth Economy developed a short pitch deck and executive summary for distribution. PEC is using these deliverables to explore report themes with collaborators and garner support for recommendations around promoting outdoor assets, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, coordinating investments into connected infrastructure, and communicating the outdoor economy’s impacts in a unified voice.
Location
Pennsylvania