{"id":159373,"date":"2026-04-07T11:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T11:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159373\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T11:40:08","slug":"a-region-rises-together-or-not-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159373\/","title":{"rendered":"A Region Rises Together \u2014 or Not at All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over multiple decades, Greater Philadelphia business leaders and government officials have repeatedly called for a regional approach to economy building. But too much economic development continues to rely on jurisdictions bidding against each other for corporate relocations, or states dangling tax incentives to lure the next big employer. That framing is outdated \u2014 and trying to compete on that basis is costing us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Listen to the audio edition here:<\/p>\n

The arena of economic competition has fundamentally shifted. Think tanks like the Brookings Institution, respected academics like Harvard Business School\u2019s Michael Porter, and many others persuasively argue that today\u2019s economic map is defined by clusters \u2014 critical masses in one place of linked industries and institutions, from suppliers to universities to government agencies \u2014 that enjoy unusual competitive success in a particular area. These clusters help to define regions and how they compete against other regions.<\/p>\n

The Greater Philadelphia region has all the raw ingredients of a competitive powerhouse: world-class universities and health systems,<\/a> a deep manufacturing legacy, a life sciences innovation engine,<\/a> and a diverse, talented workforce. What has too often been missing is the coordination \u2014 a unified regional voice capable of telling that story to the world and executing on a shared strategy.<\/p>\n

While good news is around the corner on reversing this deficit, Southeastern Pennsylvania historically has been a near-perfect case study in what happens when that regional coordination is absent.<\/p>\n

A close look at the economic landscape of our five-county region reveals two intertwined challenges: a pace of job creation that lags far behind our potential, and declining economic mobility that darkens prospects for residents and businesses alike.<\/p>\n

For all its considerable assets, Southeastern Pennsylvania simply isn\u2019t generating enough jobs. The Brookings Institution made this painfully clear in a rigorous assessment of our region\u2019s economy released last summer.<\/a><\/p>\n

Our region\u2019s critical tradeable industries \u2014 the sectors that sell goods and services beyond our borders and play an outsized role in driving prosperity \u2014 have fallen behind. If we had kept pace with national benchmarks over the past decade, our region would have generated more than 104,000 additional traded-sector jobs. This slow-growth reality exists alongside an even more troubling finding: Greater Philadelphia ranks last among the 50 largest U.S. metros for measures of upward economic mobility.<\/p>\n

Dead last. Among 50 communities. That should stop us cold.<\/p>\n

The divisions that have long fragmented our regional efforts are precisely what this collaborative is designed to overcome. Shared purpose, not shared politics, is what drives regional economies forward.<\/p>\n

The most actionable finding in the Brookings assessment is this: Our region invests three to four times less than peer regions such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami in efforts to intentionally grow our economy. We are trying to compete at a national level without investment that matches our ambition \u2014 and our lagging results reflect it.<\/p>\n

To get on the right track, cross-sector leaders across Southeastern Pennsylvania must align around shared, data-driven strategies to drive better outcomes. We have many promising efforts and resources dedicated to addressing growth and mobility in our region \u2014 the issue has been that they have been nowhere near as focused, coordinated, or scaled as they need to be to make the impact our region needs.<\/p>\n

What we have long lacked is a unifying regional growth initiative capable of matching the scale of the challenges we face with the necessary resources to meet them. That is now changing. With The Pew Charitable Trusts<\/a> serving as catalyst, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Economic Collaborative has been formed to do exactly that \u2014 helping to bring together leaders across the private, public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors to align around a common vision for regional growth in a way that hasn\u2019t happened here before.<\/p>\n

This work is anchored by economic and workforce development leaders from across the five-county region committed to driving growth in sectors rich in good jobs that provide pathways out of poverty. It is the kind of unified, forward-looking cooperation that has propelled other regions into new eras of growth.<\/p>\n

The divisions that have long fragmented our regional efforts are precisely what this collaborative is designed to overcome. Shared purpose, not shared politics, is what drives regional economies forward.<\/p>\n

That the two of us \u2014 one rooted in the city, one in the suburbs, one Republican and one Democrat \u2014 are writing this together is not incidental. It is the point.<\/p>\n

The United States\u2019 250th anniversary will draw eyes from around the world to Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. What story do we want them to see? One of a region resting on its historical laurels, or one seizing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rewrite its economic future?<\/p>\n

The pieces are in place and partnerships are forming to change our growth trajectory. What\u2019s needed now is the will \u2014 from business leaders, elected officials, and civic partners \u2014 to commit to this work at the scale it demands. Our region has shaped this nation before. It\u2019s time to shape what comes next.<\/p>\n

David L. Cohen, Citizen Media Group\u2019s Board Chair, is former U.S. ambassador to Canada. Christopher Franklin is chairman and CEO of Essential Utilities and Chair of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.<\/p>\n

\"\" MORE ON OUR LOCAL ECONOMY<\/p>\n

Header photo courtesy of Visit Philly <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over multiple decades, Greater Philadelphia business leaders and government officials have repeatedly called for a regional approach to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[61,3314,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-159373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-guest-commentary","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","12":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}