In Cleveland and Pittsburgh, entities created by CDCs particularly strive to support the remaining manufacturing or assembly firms which are major employers of local residents. In New York, CDCs form shared manufacturing facilities to assist small firms needing access to equipment they could not afford individually. Those same CDCs and related organizations connect neighborhood companies to capital, management assistance and new markets via a network of subsidiary Business Outreach Centers. In Chicago, CDCs attend national conventions of shopping center developers to tout neighborhood retail sites or work with the chairperson of Helene Curtis Industries to connect their recycling ventures to national research laboratories. In Los Angeles, a prominent CDC inter-relates the activities of its shopping centers, its business incubator, its supportive conventional bankers and its community development credit union. In Newark, the nation's most admired CDC (and the city's biggest private employer) runs ventures ranging from nursing homes to construction companies while also managing a state-wide multi-bank CDC.
In each of these settings, CDCs have learned to expand relationships and credibility gained during their organizations' successful housing development phase to secure relationships with business leaders who can connect emerging neighborhood businesses to the regional economy and even the global economy.