(8th in a series of posts on City Government)
In his Wednesday “Divides” post, Gadfly mused over not fully understanding the difference between economic development and community development.
Thanks to Steve Melnick and Peter Crownfield for very recent posts on the subject.
And – duh! – it finally hit Gadfly that we have a whole city department under that title: “The Department of Community and Economic Development.”
So he went to their web site.
At first glance, the info looked primarily “economic.” But then I saw “community” in the sidebar link to Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley.
And that enabled me to work to the Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem.
So much Gadfly doesn’t know about city operations. Seriously. He’s only entering his sophomore year.
And that took me to things like Southside vision 20/20 with foci on housing, safety, public spaces, and so forth.
Paydirt!
Gadfly hopes to explore and learn more about this “community development.”
This all started with CM Callahan’s “who pays the damn bills?” as a full-fledged endorsement of “economic development” as a means to improve the quality of life in the city.
Gadfly admits that he knows little about city finances. And needs to know more.
But he is also interested in learning about other metrics in determining the “state of the city.”
