I can picture the scene at a hotel conference room somewhere in the rust belt. It’s a meeting of “Bad Local Economies Anonymous.” A gentleman stands up and says, “Hello, my name is Erie, and I’m terrible for business.” The rest of the cities chime in, “hello, Erie.”

With that metaphor, please know that I mean no disrespect for the amazing work of 12 step programs to change peoples’ lives for the better. But indeed, the metaphor holds up for cities both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere that have been facing a half-century of economic decline. The first step on the road to recovery is to name your problem. For quite some time, there has been a community conversation on what Erie’s problem is that has led to our present state, and what are the cures for its turnaround. Some people are given to the idea that we have no problem, other than our negative perspective; that our “half-empty” mentality blinds us to the really remarkable things that are happening here. There has even been a campaign to start going after the media messengers who in their laziness just reinforces established prejudices instead of digging for the real story on Erie.

I for one see this as a very complicated “both/and” (homage to Jim Collins). We live in an amazingly beautiful area, with unmatched natural resources, strong diversity and quality of life, with access to just about any leisure pursuit, with people who exhibit a faith in God and uniquely American values. And we live in an area with, at minimum, dysfunctional government at all levels, high taxes, tight credit, uncompetitive research and development and capital investment, and an undereducated work force. We’ve got some problems, people, and it will take real solutions to solve them, not just positive thinking.

We have spent literally close to billion dollars in the last decade, with more money to come, trying to turnaround this real decline, with little success. Why do I say that? Because the report card is in.

Last week, the very influential Forbes magazine released its Best Places for Business and Careers list. Now with the proviso that one Top 200 list doesn’t make or break a community, consider this: every politician runs on a platform of creating good-paying jobs, drawing businesses to their town, economic prosperity. We spend a fortune on economic development strategies and corporations. We talk and talk and talk about the impact of moving toward tourism, new manufacturing opportunities, and the brain drain of our kids leaving Erie for jobs elsewhere. The Forbes list gives us an important tool for evaluation; they crunched the data, compared it to 199 other metros, and we were found to be: #184.

What?!? Behind Youngstown? Just a little ahead of Flint and Detroit?

Time to embrace our reality. If not being in the top 100 (50%) in any category means an “F”, then we aced Cost of Living and Crime Rate, got a C for our Colleges, and flunked in Cost of Doing Business, Culture and Leisure, Educational Attainment, Income Growth, Job Growth, and with the worst ranking, Net Migration. Only 14 other metros had more people leaving than coming as a percentage over the last five year than Erie.

Is this overly pessimistic? Maybe…but it is also loaded with opportunity.

Much like “No Child Left Behind” standardizes outcomes for school students, this Forbes list can allow Erie to “teach to the test.” Let’s consolidate efforts to make doing business in Erie and PA cost less, lets energize our support for the arts, if a community college will finally work in increasing the skill level of our workforce, then lets do it. Let’s focus on support our homegrown industries so that they can have better profits and pay their people more income. Let’s continue to spark innovation and entrepreneurship to increase jobs and stem the brain drain.

Let’s be positive about changing the way we do things, then we can see positive results. This has to be our focused agenda.