From the Ground Up: How Local Efforts Drive Economic Growth

Professor/Instructor/Speaker: Lavea Brachman

In recent years, the U.S., the U.K. and other Western Countries have been experimenting with a range of top-down, "place-based" policies aimed at turning around disinvested, or "left-behind," places, with varying degrees of success. Routinely neglected are targeted efforts to bolster local infrastructure and capacity that drive inclusive, holistic, and sustainable regrowth. Yet, communities are taking charge – stepping up to launch collaborative and innovative community-building strategies that strengthen community and social infrastructure, broadly defined as, "the systems, institutions, and relationships that support the community capacity to solve problems, pursue shared goals, and foster well-being." Join Lavea Brachman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as she explores the power and potential of this local infrastructure – from physical spaces and organizational networks, to supportive relationships – and examines the conditions that generate these ground-up efforts, the risks and rewards of these strategies, and what it means to places like Erie, Pennsylvania.

You may also like the following events from Jefferson Educational Society:

• Next Thursday, 10th July, 07:00 pm, Robert Garland Residency: A Day in History-The Assassination of Francis Ferdinand: June 28, 1914 in Erie
• Next month, 17th July, 07:00 pm, Preserving Blues and Jazz in Erie: Examining the Past, Experiencing the Present in Erie
• Next month, 21st July, 12:00 pm, Crafting Erie's Inclusive Future in Erie