Economy with a broad base

And, Long says, Philadelphia business leaders who share a regional focus are especially hopeful about Mayor-elect Michael Nutter, who, as a city councilman representing a mix of West and Northwest Philadelphia neighborhoods, gained the respect of business leaders for articulating concern about the city's failure to contain gun violence and improve public schools.

"Nutter is a mayor we can put in front of people. The business community is just giddy over him, and he's being very well-received," Long said. "He understands it, and gets it, that if a company locates in Camden or Malvern or Wilmington, Philadelphia benefits. Some of their people will live in the city. Some of their kids will go to Philadelphia colleges. They'll watch Philadelphia sports teams. They'll be patrons at Philadelphia restaurants and cultural events."

With Philadelphia's mayor and its biggest company making overtures to their suburban counterparts and willing to share resources, Long says the area is more likely to be taken seriously in competition with Atlanta, Washington, and other East Coast markets.

"We may have been the last part of our country to start marketing itself as a region," Long said.

General Electric's local operations embody the recent shifts in the region's economy.

In the 1960s, GE's West Philadelphia factories built power-plant generators, military missile parts, and satellite components for the U.S. space program. GE and its local predecessors made radios, records and lamps.

Those factories are closed, and many of the business lines have been sold to Lockheed and other companies. GE's workforce has shrunk to 3,000, compared with 7,000 local retirees, said Ellen Mellody, spokeswoman for GE Infrastructure's Water & Process Technologies unit in Trevose.

But GE's local operations, most of which did not exist 30 years ago, now include all six of the company's major business lines - medical, industrial, infrastructure, broadcasting, and both business and consumer lending, Mellody said. GE workers fix locomotives in Philadelphia, service mortgages in Marlton, and sell environmental systems from offices in Exton.

Like the region's workforce as a whole, GE has diversified its operations, focusing more on profitable services and manufacturing for growth fields such as medical equipment.

"We're very engaged in this community," Mellody said.

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