Scaling Economic Development Goals for Place-Based Needs: Insights for Rural and Urban Communities
Mon, Apr 20
|Virtual Event
When & Where
Apr 20, 2026, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
Virtual Event
About the Event
Post-Event Materials
Presentation from Amanda Weinstein
Presentation from Charles Buki
Introduction and Next Steps slides from the Hub
Many communities in Southwestern Pennsylvania continue to contend with the impacts of shifting economic priorities and labor markets, population and job loss, and persistent underresourcedness. But what is reality today does not mean it is reality forever.
Rural and low-population urban communities from across the country have worked to scale their efforts to meet the needs of their residents while also adapting to present conditions and trends. Join us for an engaging conversation with two community development experts whose work and impact span various geographies and cross-cutting issues.
Our panelists will provide insights and advice on:
Diminishing tax bases, trade-offs, and priority-setting for shared success
Demographic realities today and considerations for the future
The importance of placemaking in rural economic development strategies
Alternative approaches to traditional rural economic development models
Strategic investment ideas for sustained cycles of future reinvestment
This session is for local economic or community development leaders from both the public and non-profit sector who want to affect positive change in their communities through thoughtful, right-sized economic development strategies.
Meet the Speakers
Amanda Weinstein, Ph.D
Director, Research, Knowledge, & Evaluation
Dr. Amanda Weinstein is the Director of Research at the Center on Rural Innovation, where she leads a team in developing data-driven strategies rooted in real-world insight to build more innovative economic ecosystems that drive rural prosperity.
With a Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics from The Ohio State University, she provides key insights into workforce development, entrepreneurship, and local quality of life and has published in academic journals including Small Business Economics and the Journal of Regional Science. Her research has also been featured in various media publications, including the Daily Yonder, MarketWatch, Washington Post, Forbes, and TIME. She has advised a wide range of local, state, federal, and international organizations. Before earning her Ph.D., she was a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force.
Charles Buki
Managing Partner, Director of Strategy Development
Charles Buki founded czb in 2001 after working in the nonprofit community development sector, and after growing disillusioned with what he believed was a lack of imagination in the planning and design fields in their response to the real world challenges faced by low-income and working families in America.
In establishing czb, he sought to bring focus to the decisions that all households make with the capacities they have so that policy and other interventions could have positive and lasting impacts on families and communities. He has two main professional interests: the challenge of improving neighborhood residential life without displacement, and the challenge of constructively orienting the disequilibrium in communities undergoing change.
He was a Mesa Fellow, a Loeb Fellow, and has served in numerous volunteer roles in his home communities. His primary volunteer aim is to help increase childhood literacy in his home community.