The key philosophy fueling Chester County’s high-octane economic engine has been the right mixture of strategic development and landscape preservation, and the county’s new Take the Pulse business survey is bringing that machine in for a tune-up to see if quality of place should remain the driving force.
“A shortage of skilled labor and affordable housing have started to emerge as problems that need more attention,” a Philadelphia Business Journal report stated. “What hasn’t changed and continues to be vital to building and maintaining a strong, diverse economy is sustaining and cultivating a quality of place.”
That’s been the thrust behind Chester County’s VISTA 2025 roadmap, and any tuning done from the survey will further refine that plan this spring.
“The No. 1 goal in Chester County is quality of place,” Chester County Economic Development Council President and CEO Gary Smith said in the article. “It’s preservation and progress together.”
And it’s backed by fact. A 2011 study by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and GreenSpace Alliance concluded that preserved open spaces enhance the value of housing by $16.3 billion on top of generating $240 million a year in property tax revenues. Those lands also enrich the environment, increase demand for nearby development and bolster job creation.
“It’s a fundamental feature in what defines Chester County,” Natural Lands Trust President Molly Morrison said in the article. “A lot of other things are important and go into the quality of economic health of a community. Education, transportation, training are all part of the mix, but in Chester County, a predominant feature that makes the county unique is quality of place.”
Read more about the eco-development priority in the Philadelphia Business Journal here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of the Take the Pulse survey here and county land preservation here.
