I had the good fortune at lunch yesterday to be seated at a table opposite David Thornburgh, who is the executive director of the Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Economy League, an economic development organization, in Philadelphia. (Equal time disclosure: The PEL's Western Division, headquartered in Pittsburgh, has a website here.
He made an interesting observation. For all of the hand-wringing locally about the stagnation of Pittsburgh's economy, and particularly about downtown, this *region* is widely viewed elsewhere as doing pretty well in terms of institutional cooperation that supports *regional* development. The various groups involved in development efforts here are in close contact with one another, and all things considered, they work pretty well together. Philadelphia, by contrast, has a downtown that is the envy of many major cities, but its regional economy is doing poorly -- partly as a result of a complete failure of the kind of cooperation that exists in Western PA.
Is it possible for a mid-size or small city to have *both* a thriving downtown *and* a growing regional economy? If so, what does it take to get there? If not, which should we prefer?
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