Allegheny Conference
| Founded | 1944 (73 years ago) |
|---|---|
| Focus | Regional development & commerce |
| Location | |
|
Area served
|
Pittsburgh metropolitan area |
|
Key people
|
Dennis Yablonsky, CEO |
| Website | AlleghenyConference.com |
The Allegheny Conference on Community Development is an nonprofit, private sector leadership organization dedicated to economic development and quality of life issues for a 10-county region in southwestern Pennsylvania, United States.
It grew from efforts in the 1940s to coordinate improvements to regional transportation and the local environment. During World War II, the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association President Richard King Mellon, Carnegie Institute of Technology President Robert Doherty, and others organized local leaders to create a postwar planning committee. Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence and Allegheny County Commissioner John Kane were early recruits. The Allegheny Conference was officially established in 1944.
The city's most visible problem in the first half of the 20th century was air pollution. The Conference brokered an agreement for phased-in implementation of smoke control that became city policy. After the Conference voiced its concern for legal loopholes to the state legislature in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a comprehensive anti-pollution law was passed in 1949 for Allegheny County.
The clearer skies over the city both attracted new business and encouraged local corporations to retain and expand their Pittsburgh headquarters. The pollution-control program explicitly influenced the decision of the Equitable Life Assurance Society to invest in planning the Gateway Center project, a keystone of economic revitalization in Downtown Pittsburgh during Renaissance I. This also led to the development of Point State Park. The Conference also played a role in the appropriation of funds for the construction of flood control dams on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.
...
Wikipedia