Allentown Neighborhood Capacity Building, Collaboration, & Data Sharing

Working Together

What are we working on and how are we getting there?

Current Status of Work:

Between 2017 and 2018, three coalition or collaborative groups within Allentown collected data through surveying community members and residents of Allentown. Upside Allentown, a Neighborhood Partnership Program aimed at building on the momentum of the redevelopment downtown in ways that will benefit the adjacent neighborhoods, sent surveys to every home in the Upside Allentown area in May 2017.   Then the Allentown Promise Neighborhood, in collaboration with Lehigh Valley Health Network and Cedar Crest College, conducted it’s tri-annual Neighborhood Survey, going door-to-door and  collecting surveys at different retail and community locations within 4 census tracts in downtown Allentown. Finally Allentown Vision 2030, the city of Allentown’s Strategic Planning process, surveyed residents and those who work in Allentown in the fall of 2018. The aim of these survey efforts were to assess the residents’ and those who live,work, and play in Allentown feelings about the neighborhood they live in and what they need.  This data and information can be more powerful and useful when the results of all three surveys are examined together rather than individually. Therefore, Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Department of Community Health, the City of Allentown, Allentown Promise Neighborhood, and faculty from Cedar Crest College have looked at the results of all three surveys to take a moment to reflect on our collective learnings both about the community and about the process of collecting this information. We created a series of brief stories that highlight some of the key findings of this analysis. which are provided in this hublet for the entire community to use.

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