Russell Mills from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland opened the State of the Economy event with three economic themes that matter for how legacy regions perform. Most of what he said was obvious. The way he was saying it wasn't.
Growth That Builds Actual Business
The first theme: growth with purpose. Not growth as a headline number or a GDP line item. Growth that creates jobs in sectors where people can actually build careers. Growth that requires infrastructure investment before the jobs can exist. Growth that happens because the policy environment lets businesses operate, not because government subsidized one company into temporary viability.
He wasn't being revolutionary. But he was being specific. And that specificity matters because most regional development strategy is vague. "We want to be a tech hub." "We're attracting young professionals." "We're positioning for the knowledge economy." None of that means anything without naming what jobs, what companies, what actual business is happening.
In the Mon Valley, you can't bullshit this. You can't claim you're going to compete with Austin or San Diego on their terms. But you can say clearly: what we're building is conditions where someone can afford a house, run a business, raise a family. That's growth with purpose because it's grounded in what the place can actually be.
Energy Transition as Immediate Opportunity
The second theme was energy. Not energy as a future thing. Energy as immediate economic activity. Natural gas infrastructure. Renewable energy projects. Energy storage. Battery production. The jobs exist now. The investment is flowing now. Regions that have industrial capacity, skilled workers, and adequate geography are participating in that economy right now.
Pennsylvania is positioned here better than most states. You have grid infrastructure. You have workforce experience in industrial processes. You have land. You have capital for manufacturing. The question isn't whether the opportunity exists. The question is whether the Mon Valley actively positions itself to participate in it rather than treating it as someone else's opportunity.
Small Business as the Underrated Growth Engine
The third theme: small business formation in mid-sized towns is rising, and it's not following the old narrative about brain drain to coastal cities. People are starting things locally. They're choosing to locate in communities where they have roots, where their cost structure is manageable, where they can actually execute on their business idea.
That's the cultural shift that matters. A generation ago, if you had an idea, you moved to New York or San Francisco or Boston. Now, if your business can work remotely or serve a regional market, the economics often favor staying put. Better housing. Lower overhead. Real community. A person starting a business in Charleroi today has better economics than someone starting the same business in Brooklyn.
What This Connects To
The Mon Valley Alliance is positioned directly in the middle of all three of these themes. They're focused on coordinating growth that actually creates sustainable business. They're thinking about the energy transition as local opportunity. They're creating conditions where small business formation is possible. That's not volunteer work—that's economic development infrastructure.
Whether any of this actually moves the needle in the Mon Valley depends on capital. Some of it needs to be public—infrastructure, education, policy environment. Much of it needs to be private. Investors and business operators who look at these conditions and decide to deploy capital here instead of somewhere else. That's still not guaranteed. But the fundamentals for it to happen are present in a way they haven't been in years.