This column, written by LVEDC President & CEO Don Cunningham, originally appeared in The Morning Call and on the newspaper’s website on Nov. 8, 2026.
In his retirement, my dad was a fan of watching the progress of construction projects. 
A blue-collar worker and do-it-yourself handyman, he had expertise — and a lot of thoughts — about how things should be done. He once famously turned a prolonged summer visit to our house during the building of a deck and patio into his own construction reality show with better color commentary than the Monday Night Football booth. He’d post up with his coffee in front of the sliding glass doors in the morning and fill evening dinners with his thoughts on the general ineptness and slowness of that day’s work.
“Where the hell did you find these guys, Donny? It took three guys to figure out how to cut the boards. I think they put down about four boards all day.”
He was a character whose thoughts effortlessly became colorful words.
I’ve thought of him a lot lately.
Construction of a 30-plus unit apartment complex is taking place across the street from our house in Bethlehem. It was a nice, single-family home on a large corner lot but consistent with new housing development trends it will soon be home to dozens of renters.
If Dad were still with us, it could’ve been a glorious fall for him at the front window. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time — or the experience — to carry on the tradition.
Even if I don’t like our new sightlines, I’ve been impressed by the coming and going of crews and the methodical process of demolition, site preparation, foundation work, laying out of roads and parking lots, and the floor-by-floor towering construction.
Those who develop and construct things have a fine-tuned process. From those with the idea, to those that finance it, to the architects and engineers that plan and design it, to the various specialty trade workers who build it, it takes a symphony of people working together during an extended period of time for it to happen.
It’s a process much like the one that revitalized the Lehigh Valley during the last three decades. No one person or government or company or organization made it happen. It took a lot of people planning and financing, attracting and developing, investing and building to bring two counties, its cities, and economy back.
It took a regional approach and sustained cooperation regardless of differing viewpoints and disagreements along the way to make it happen. Some who started it have passed on. A new generation built upon their foundation.
It took demolition and reuse, new roads and infrastructure, talented workers, risk-takers and visionaries to create ideas, and gritty, day-to-day work, year-after-year, decade upon decade — across many disciplines, public and private — to make it happen.
Most of all, it took time and a steady course. No big swings of change in search of a quick fix or the latest idea. No one charismatic leader. No pie-in-the-sky promises or solutions. Just grit, hard work, a trust in the process and keeping our collective head down, staying below the radar and doing the fundamentals, both Democrats and Republicans.
Sometimes the fundamentals are hard. Nothing good comes without some level of pain. Money was spent. Taxes were raised. Cornfields became centers of employment. Resistance was overcome. Some sacrificed political careers along the way to do the unpopular that made it possible.
Our country would benefit from this approach.
Today, the Lehigh Valley economy is the largest in its history, a $57 billion GDP that’s more than two states. Its 345,000-plus workers are the largest ever. For two of the last three years, it’s been the fastest growing mid-sized market in America with manufacturing, again, its largest sector, with manufacturing jobs here growing three times faster than in the U.S.
American politics — its voters and politicians; the opposite sides of the same coin — has pursued quick fixes, believed absurd claims, sought salvation in false prophets, and untested and disproved ideas, and has been willing to shift course — and tear down foundations — every 24 to 48 months.
You can’t build a building, revitalize an economy or sustain a country and make it thrive that way.
Demagogues, social media, and partisan news and propaganda outlets have pitted Americans against Americans. They’ve told us that our neighbors are to blame. Immigrants are the enemy. And cooperation and compromise — the foundation of a democratic republic — are a pathway to hell.
In the Lehigh Valley, cooperation and consistency have been the pathway to success.
We have many natural assets. But, in the end, we’ve gone from a region and economy in decline during the 1990s to the cultural and economic renaissance of today, because we’ve remained above — or depending how you frame it, below — the political fray. We don’t always agree but we work together. Politics hasn’t blinded us. An old school work ethic guides us. We know there are no quick fixes, snake oil elixirs, or magic wands that replace hard work, discipline and a steady course, which require cooperation.
Fewer waves and calmer seas create success.
The Lehigh Valley can be an example to America.
My dad loved watching a construction process and commenting on it, but his real joy came in seeing the finished product. He understood that however slowly it happens you can’t change the plans, tear it down and start over again and again and expect it to get built.
(Photos by Marco Calderon Photography and LVEDC)