Excellence in Economic Adjustment Strategies: The City of Pueblo Rebuilds Its Economic Base

by Jim Munch, Assistant City Manager for Community Development, City of Pueblo

The Historic Arkansas Riverwalk Project (HARP), a 26-acre urban waterfront that includes trails, sidewalk cafes, commercial and retail development and public spaces for art and entertainment, is a key element in the revitalization of Pueblo’s downtown.

For years, Pueblo, Colorado, was known for – and proud of – its blue-collar background. Among its nicknames were “The Pittsburgh of the West” or simply “The Steel City.” Both were nods to the industry that had formed the city’s backbone for decades and its dominant employer, CF&I Steel. Pueblo was one of the few cities in Colorado that seemed to identify more with the gritty histories of eastern industrial cities than with neighboring mountain towns.

For decades, the children and grandchildren of those who had come to Pueblo to work in its steel mills could be sure of one thing: If they chose not to go to college, they didn’t have to worry about their futures. As it had been for their fathers and grandfathers, they could always get a job at the steel mill. Not only that, but they could make a good living and raise families who would more than likely continue that legacy.

But in the early 1980s, Pueblo’s way of life came to a grinding halt.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the troubles that the steel industry was facing in the U.S.’s eastern factories were making their way west. In Pueblo, it was obvious that reliance on steel across the world was certainly decreasing, and that cities whose economic lifestyles were based on that industry were about to change forever.

By the end of 1982, Pueblo’s largest employer, CF&I Steel, had cut its workforce by 2,400 employees. A ripple effect among other companies that depended on CF&I to at least partially operate their own businesses added to those numbers, and suddenly the number of unemployed people in Pueblo County had increased by more than 4,400. The decade had barely begun and in total, more than 9,900 persons were out of work, an unemployment rate in the county of 19.7 percent.

Planning to get back on track

In 1985, with funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, the City of Pueblo undertook an Economic Dislocation Adjustment Strategy study. The plan articulated long-term economic development strategies that would put the brakes on the city’s slide and get its economic fortunes back on track.

The study identified four focus areas: downtown revitalization; expansion and retention of existing firms; employment and training options; and airport industrial park infrastructure. Following a series of meetings and discussions, community leaders chose three economic development strategies that would best respond to these focus areas:

1. To create new employment opportunities for those 4,400 recently unemployed residents, the city adopted a strategy to immediately attract new manufacturing business to the Airport Industrial Park, located east of the city’s metropolitan area. The greatest challenge to accomplishing this was the quality of the existing infrastructure at the park.

2. To stabilize and diversify the local economic base from primarily manufacturing to other employment sectors, the city would partner to provide business assistance programs and foster opportunities for businesses to locate both at the Airport Industrial Park and in the city’s downtown.

3. To anticipate and prepare for future economic change, the city would improve workforce training options. Training and economic development partnerships would be developed and strengthened with a newly created economic development body (the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation), Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce, Latino Chamber of Commerce, Pueblo Community College, the University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo School Districts 60 and 70, the City and County of Pueblo and the State of Colorado.

» Page 2 of 3