Intersection of Freight, Freight, Freight, and Freight

Nearly doubling industrial square footage in eight years adds pressure on road, bridge, transit, airport, railway, sidewalk, bikeway, and even trail connections to new job centers. It compounds housing and labor shortages and poses new challenges to the educational system. State enabling legislation, outdated municipal comprehensive plans, zoning, and subdivision and land-development codes exacerbate the situation. But the jobs, especially for people with technical skills, and the growth in the economy overall are huge benefits. In fact, the Allentown area's GDP is now larger than Vermont's or Alaska's because of the Lehigh Valley’s reindustrialization.

This workshop introduces mega-regional, multi-municipal, public-private-nonprofit partnerships as well as a reconfigured land use and planning toolkit that can successfully manage the transition to the new industrial economy.

Industrial economies are built on access to employment of all types, from low to highly skilled. Learn about the Lehigh Valley's Access to Opportunity tool, network of government and educational employers, and transit-trail-mobility partnerships that are building a successful, equitable industrial economy.

Participants walk one mile on uneven surfaces.