The Lehigh Valley’s economic renaissance is no longer a secret.

For decades we worked below the radar, toiling in the shadows. When the steel mills went silent, the textile factories moved out, and manufacturing jobs declined, we went to work. We never whined or complained. We pivoted. City by city, community by community, we redeveloped our vacant industrial sites, made our downtowns destinations for visitors and residents, built new roads and bridges, preserved farmland, and planned new industrial centers, recruited new employers, incubated our own, and worked to retain and grow those already here.

Victory truly has a thousand fathers and mothers. And many who laid the early groundwork have passed on. It’s upon their shoulders we stand. It takes a couple of decades and generations to write a complete story of success.

Eli Lilly and Company’s development of a new $3.5 billion pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Upper Macungie Township is the largest economic development project in Lehigh Valley history. It’s the largest life sciences development in Pennsylvania history.

Gov. Josh Shapiro and his team’s financial support and unprecedented attention to the Lehigh Valley has helped us create our next chapter as a life sciences center. We are grateful to both Lilly and the state.

Big wins are fabulous. We’re also grateful to many others, to all of you. To everyone who’s adding a piece every day — no matter how big or small — to solve a puzzle many thought impossible. We have a unique public-private coalition — started and led by private sector leaders three decades ago — that reaches across county and municipal lines, industries and sectors to develop regional economic strategy and implement it.

This Lehigh Valley coalition of community is our secret sauce. It’s the reason that things happen here that don’t happen elsewhere.

The Lehigh Valley is the No. 1 mid-size market in the U.S. for economic development. We’ve been in the top ten for a decade. This is our second first in three years. The region’s GDP now tops $57 billion, more than two states.

Manufacturing is once again our largest sector with $9 billion in annual output by more than 700 manufacturers producing everything from consumer products, brand name food and beverages, medical devices, construction trucks, military hardware — and soon high-quality medicines to the world.

Made in Lehigh Valley is our brand. We make things here. Manufacturing is 16% of the economy, compared to 11% in the U.S. Manufacturing jobs have grown at three times the U.S. rate — and that’s before Lilly hires 850 new workers with an average salary of $100,000 per year.

The region has the most total jobs in its history with 343,975 and its largest population with 708,644 people living in Lehigh and Northampton counties. Our population of young people — ages 18-34 — has grown at twice the rate of the U.S. since 2020.

How?

We welcome newcomers. Both counties have been hotspots for migration and immigration. People are coming here. Lehigh is in the top 5% of U.S counties for international migration, Northampton in the top 5% for domestic. Last year, Northampton led all of Pennsylvania’s counties in growth of young people.

The most important metrics, however, are what it means for our people. Median household income here exceeds that of the state and nation and has grown by more than $17,000 in the last five years, outpacing inflation. The Lehigh Valley poverty rate — although ideally 0% — is lower than the state and nation and has not grown since 2010.

While celebrating success is important, it’s equally important to recognize the new challenges that it creates. Housing is harder to find, and less affordable. Working parents struggle to pay for and find high-quality child care. Like every growing market in the U.S., availability and affordability are of concern. Young people today encounter obstacles and financial challenges not known to their parents and grandparents.

Land, water and energy resources are more limited while new houses and higher-value economic growth are needed. And there are more and more hurdles for developers to deliver them. That’s why LVEDC’s new three-year strategic plan goes beyond job-creation to focus on targeting high-value development and building regional coalitions to address challenges of scarcity or high costs for our workers and residents.

We’ve conquered challenges before. When others said we couldn’t, we did. The collective work of the last 25 years has made the Lehigh Valley a middle America success story. A comeback kid. The underdog, up from the ashes.

Our mission is lofty but simple. It’s for everyone to have a good-paying job in a safe community with quality schools, health care and neighborhoods regardless of their skills or socioeconomic status. A good job is still the best pathway to a good life. From the Ph.D. to the picker and the packer, there’s dignity — and importance — in all work.

The region’s focus today must be different than yesterday. That’s the way it should be. Solving one set of problems and challenges creates a new set. We’re not the same Lehigh Valley as when these blast furnaces were firing. Change is life’s constant. The key is to bend it to the good.

And if we learned anything in this economic renaissance, we’ve learned the power of working together, to embrace the new while honoring the old. We are a place infused with the new — new residents, new companies and new leaders — young and ambitious, using new technologies, and with a new set of dreams and goals.

That’s what makes us different. That’s what Made in Lehigh Valley means.

This is a contributed opinion column. This column is excerpted from an address at the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.’s Annual Meeting last month. Don Cunningham is the president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. He can be reached at news@lehighvalley.org.