Integrated Economic Vitality Model: Pittsburgh Regional Alliance

History of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance

In 2000, the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance (PRA), the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, and the Pennsylvania Economy League of Southwestern Pennsylvania entered into a strategic affiliation with the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

The affiliation plays to the strengths of each organization – the marketing intelligence capabilities of the PRA, the advocacy efforts of the Chamber, and the research and analysis expertise of the Economy League. These strengths, guided by private sector leadership, enable an efficient model for regional improvement.

The PRA is the only organization in southwestern Pennsylvania dedicated to marketing the entire 10-county Pittsburgh region for capital investment and job creation. It does so across the economic spectrum, as opposed to other organizations that seek to develop one particular industry. The PRA does, however, employ market research to target its business development activities around industries with particularly high regional economic growth potential.

The PRA began in the mid-1990s, when business and civic leaders worked together with the Conference’s “Working Together Coalition” to define the critical requirements for ensuring the growth and global competitiveness of the region.

Above all, the region needed to better focus and integrate its many creditable – but fragmented – economic development activities. The PRA was chartered in 1995 to provide that focus and did so by operating on the same principle of regional partnership and coordination that define it today.

It began with five core member organizations – the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce; Penn’s Southwest Association; Pittsburgh High Technology Council/Southwestern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center; Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania; and World Trade Center Pittsburgh – but even at that time, these organizations were just a starting point.

The PRA has always aimed to develop a broad coalition of citizens, businesses, regional development agencies and government organizations, working together to make the Pittsburgh region a global economic growth leader.

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