Community-Centered Urban Redevelopment: Case Study of Carlisle, PA

Carlisle, a Central Pennsylvania borough positioned twenty-five miles west of Harrisburg, has a deep and rich history through the American Revolution and Civil War until today. Especially during the Industrial Revolution and the latter part of the 20th century, many factories provided a majority of the jobs in the town and were the economic foundation for the community.

However, as seen in countless other communities across the country, these factories fell away and left the town in quick succession due to widespread deindustrialization and globalization: the International Automotive Components factory closed in 2008, the Tyco Electronics factory in 2009, and the Carlisle Tire & Wheel factory in 2010.

The Borough of Carlisle was faced with an enormous challenge yet an enormous opportunity in how to develop the three brownfield sites on the northern side of town. In 2013, after a long and deliberative process, the Carlisle Urban Redevelopment Plan was published, and is an interesting case study to highlight how the CED-SS model can and has been applied in urban communities.

Rounding out the Cycle: Completing the CED-SS Model

In my last post, I built the first portion of the community economic development-opportunity-social sustainability model and explaining the relationship between the first two. Now, it’s time to take it one step further and see how the model rounds out and comes full circle.

Opportunity is at the center of the model, and we saw it is supported and enhanced through community economic development. How do opportunity and social sustainability relate, though?

The Connection Between Community Economic Development and Opportunity

Buckle up, ladies and gents; we’re moving on.

The last several posts have focused on defining the three concepts that we’re playing with and trying to connect: social sustainability, opportunity, and community economic development.

Now that we have those well-defined, we can move on to the meat of the project: exploring the connection between the three.

Community Economic Development: Reawakening Democracy

What’s so important about the community, anyway? Aren’t the national and international stages more important?

In terms of building and growing social sustainability, the more macro-scale policy arenas have their place in laying down broad strokes, but the real heavy lifting comes on the community level. A national or international policy that attempts to fulfill social sustainability as we’ve come to frame it will not be effective in all communities because, inherently, each community is unique in its composition and its reaction to such a policy. However, if that same policy is tailored on the community level for their unique circumstances, the effectiveness of that policy will logically be higher.

This is where community economic development enters into the social sustainability picture, as it’s the mobilizing strategies and framework that lie behind effective social sustainability.

Community Capital: A Lens for Social Sustainability

The past few posts have focused primarily on opportunity and what exactly I mean by that. Yet, you may be wondering how that is relevant to what this blog is supposed to be about: social sustainability and community economic development.

That’s a fair point, I’ll give you that. But give me a chance to connect the dots. I swear it won’t be for naught.