Lessons from Atlanta and Baltimore About Linking Economic and Community Development

This commentary describes selected revitalization initiatives in Atlanta, Georgia and Baltimore, Maryland to illustrate the challenges and opportunities local policy makers face when linking economic and community development. The authors draw on more than 30 years of observation and research. Fragmented power, complexity, conflict, mistrust, and resource scarcity make policy coordination a daunting challenge. The cities studied have faced these challenges by creating organizations and intermediary institutions to plan and execute local revitalizations initiatives with mixed success. The authors discuss the challenge of coordinating economic and community development (Ec&CD) policies and then compare the economic context of Atlanta and Baltimore and summarize several efforts to coordinate economic and community development policy making. The authors review the cases to discuss their commonalities and differences and conclude with advice for local leaders who hope to pursue a coordinated Ec&CD policy agenda.