“Stronger Than Steel: Forging a Rustbelt Renaissance” is Jeff Parks’ intensely personal perspective on the role that the arts played in the revitalization of Bethlehem when it was struggling in the wake of deindustrialization and the ultimate demise of the once-prosperous Bethlehem Steel. In the preface, Parks asserts that there is “a direct connection between the arts and economic success,” and he spends the next 348 pages making his case.

While the focus of his book is on the history and contributions of the arts initiatives he was instrumental in creating, it is clear he has a broader mission, urging community leaders everywhere to “take a close look at cities like Bethlehem that have demonstrated that the arts, if accessible and relevant, can play a pivotal role in building social capital.”

Parks lays the foundation for his case in “Part I: The Rise and Fall of an American Industrial City.” In these first 60 some pages, he provides an incredible amount of historical detail from the founding of Bethlehem by the Moravians in 1741, to the coming of the industrialists, the rise and impact of suburbanization, and ultimately the growing number of efforts to preserve the city’s history and heritage.

The historical journey is fascinating, and among its salient points are that music and the arts were important to the founding Moravians-a tradition that continues today-and early efforts in the ’60s and ’70 to revitalize Bethlehem involved historic restoration and a proposal for a performing arts center.

“What was unique in Bethlehem’s plight,” Parks notes, “was the community’s proud historical and cultural tradition with many surviving, but deteriorating, landmarks that spanned more than two centuries.”

Moving to the two decades between 1982 and 2000, “Part II: A New Paradigm” introduces the origin of Musikfest, the 10-day musical event that today is the largest free festival in the United States. The then-head of the Bethlehem Tourism Committee, Jean Kessler, had asked Parks in1982 to come up with an idea for an event that would bring people downtown in August instead of just at Christmastime.

By 1982, Bethlehem “was becoming the poster child for the tragedy of deindustrialization,” Parks writes. “I realized a new event could do more than simply attract tourists in August. It could become a significant first step toward changing the narrative about the city. It would have to present Bethlehem as the historic, culturally vibrant city that it needed to be to survive.”

Parks, who grew up in Bethlehem and returned there to live after graduating from law school, attributes the ideas for Musikfest to the cultural heritage of the city and to a trip he made to Germany in 1976. Bethlehem’s roots are German, Parks explains.

“German was the language of the community for the first 100 years.” He adds that the city has the largest collection of 18th-Century Germanic buildings in the country.

“I reasoned that the festival needed a German flavor. Given the history and significance of music in Bethlehem from the day it was founded, it was obvious to me that the key content of the event had to be music.”

Parks also reasoned, based on other successful festivals he attended in Munich and Milwaukee, that Musikfest needed to run for two weekends and the weekdays in between.

Coming up with the vision was only a small part of the battle. Selling it to community leaders, businesses, donors, media and the public was an ongoing challenge. Pulling it off and dealing with all the details was another. How Parks and the Musikfest Association managed it makes for very interesting reading.

The first Musikfest opened Aug. 18, 1984, and by the time it closed eight days later, 182,000 people had attended the event. The Morning Call proclaimed that “Musikfest ’84 was a success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams-even those of Attorney Jeffrey Parks, who conceived the notion and is most singularly responsible for bringing it about.”

Also detailed in Part II are the other initiatives that Musikfest wrought in the ensuing years, particularly the ArtsQuest organization that replaced the Musikfest Association, and the Banana Factory in South Bethlehem. The idea for the Banana Factory germinated after a visit to the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Alexandria, Va., Parks writes.

“I began to think about how to stretch a music festival organization into a visual arts institution.”

Part III of Parks’ book is a must read. It deals with Bethlehem’s transformation, and the SteelStacks and the redevelopment of the site of the Bethlehem Steel Plant during the years 1993-2016. It traces the coming of Sands Casino, as well as the intricate financial, political and environmental ins and outs involved in building the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks. Parks also lists specific positive impacts of the arts on Bethlehem’s economic growth, quality of life and image building.

Throughout the book, Parks is generous with his identification and praise of all those persons and organizations that were vital to the success of Musikfest, ArtsQuest and SteelStacks He includes his dog Gypsy, who he said accompanied him on long walks when he first came up with some of his ideas.

He is also candid about his own inexperience when starting down the Musikfest road. He says he got involved “with more conviction than common sense.” Later he admits, “What we now know is that holding a free festival is a bad business plan.” Despite that, Parks made it work, and took it even further. As he notes, “Musikfest became the portal to the rest of what we achieved, culminating with SteelStacks and its key role in Bethlehem’s Renaissance.”