Allegheny Conference on Community Development (Pa.)

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development (ACCD) was organizaed in 1943 as the Citizens' Committee on Post-War Planning. The Committee was established to improve Pittsburgh from a dirty, smoky, easily flooded place where no one would voluntarily live into an improved city that could benefit from the post-war recovery period. This began a very successful plan that has been copied by many other cities. The Conference has changed its emphasis to meet special needs within the community and has had three distinct periods of history. In 1946, the Conference, along with Mayor David L. Lawrence, began the smoke control program, construction of flood control dams on the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and urban redevelopment programs including construction of limited access highways, public parking authorities, and forty renewal projects in housing, commercial, industrial, and open space developments. In 1955, the Conference created the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC) to help diversify the region's economy and create new job opportunities. The second period of the Allegheny Conference began in 1968 and focused on social issues including developing minority businesses and establishing neighborhood and youth programs. During this period, the Conference also created Penn's Southwest Association, which began marketing the nine couty area of Southwestern Pennsylvania. The ACCD also created ACTION-Housing, Inc., which has created housing opportunities for middle and low income families. Conference Programs entered their third period of history in the late 1970s when the Conference turned its attention to community improvement, public education, and housing improvements. In cooperation with Mayor Caliguiri, Pittsburgh began its second renaissance with an acceleration of downtown construction and housing improvements throughout the community. In the early 1980s the Conference focused on the slumping local economy and developed a series of initiatives designed to spark targeted sectors of the local economy in order to expand sales of products to federal agencies, improve transportation networks, and to promote advanced technology research, development, and manufacturing. More recently the Greater Pittsburgh Office of Promotion, the Health Policy Institute, and the Public Education Fund have all been created by the ACCD.