James Rohr, who runs Pittsburgh's largest bank and chairs the business booster group known as the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, took the stage last night at the conference's annual meeting in Oakland and ticked off the reasons why Pittsburgh should be proud of what it has.

But critics, he said in an interview before the Carnegie Music Hall event, always challenge the positive evidence and instead highlight the region's ongoing population loss or slower-than-average job growth. Is Pittsburgh really that bad, he asked, when compared to faster-growing regions struggling with the higher taxes, crime, traffic and crumbling roads that sometimes accompany a booming economy?

"What do we really want to be?" he said. "Is meeting the national [job growth] average good enough for our kids? I think it probably is. Do we want to grow at 15 percent? I don't know if we want to. Our infrastructure, our roads couldn't handle a 15 percent growth rate. We couldn't handle a 10 percent growth rate."

Entering his third year as chairman of the 65-person conference, Mr. Rohr is realigning expectations for the public policy group that achieved legendary status for clearing smoke from the skies and redeveloping Downtown after World War II. Its reputation for miracle-making has suffered in recent decades as Pittsburgh struggled with the loss of more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs, several high-profile headquarters losses and the most dramatic population loss of any big city in America. In the 1990s and earlier this decade the conference challenged the region to create a certain number of new jobs, only to fall short due in part to the vagaries of the national economy.

The goal now under Mr. Rohr is to return to business basics, control what the conference can control and hammer home the message that southwestern Pennsylvania is better off than we think. Yesterday, Mr. Rohr was upfront about the barriers to business success he believes the conference still can address: high taxes, government fragmentation, transportation gaps and school performance. While sweeping progress is not evident in all these areas, there are signs of "directional change," he said in the interview. "We just need to move the ball in the right direction" so "we can turn the region over to the next generation in at least as good a shape as we inherited it."

Here are his views on the current challenges and accomplishments:

• Taxes and regulations. Mr. Rohr noted that the state still has the second-highest corporate net income tax in the country, and while corporate taxes did drop by about $600 million across the state this year, "we did not touch the corporate net income tax. If we want to be competitive, that's a problem." But the conference, he said, was able to fight for a change in state law allowing manufacturing companies to negotiate long-term power contracts and "that was a win for us this year."

• Transportation. "We have a bankrupt Port Authority," he said, "and we have an airport in transition" -- a reference to dramatic service cuts from US Airways and the continued lack of international service. "That is a problem. We understand it, we recognize it and we've got to work on it. That's all of us." Progress on this front, he said, "just takes time." It's a "perfect example of something that takes more time than people think." But some carriers, such as Southwest Airlines, have been adding service at Pittsburgh International, and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato yesterday announced an agreement between Allegheny County, private-sector entities, and Chinese authorities to establish an air cargo route between Pittsburgh International Airport and China's Xi'an Xianyang International Airport.

• Education. The conference last night announced a Pittsburgh Regional Compact, an employer-educator partnership designed to link students with local companies.

• Cost of government. While there is talk about a city-county consolidation, "we don't have any major breakthrough" on that issue, Mr. Rohr acknowledged. "I think there is progress. We just need to move forward on that progress and try to pick up some speed."

• New companies. The region was able to keep the Westinghouse Electric Co. headquarters this year, with the nuclear power plant design firm agreeing to move from Monroeville to a new facility in Cranberry. The Allegheny Conference was part of the team that worked to keep the company here. So far this year, the conference claims 34 "wins" -- the number of companies that either expanded here or located here with direct help from the conference. That is up from 29 last year and 20 in 2005.

• Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary. While Mr. Rohr said the conference should not be in the "party-throwing business," it has agreed to plan a series of events and projects designed to promote and celebrate the birthday. To date, the conference has raised $11 million for marketing the anniversary and is looking to raise another $1 million. Of the $11 million, $800,000 came from the state, $750,000-$1 million came from local foundations and the rest came from local companies.

Pittsburgh, Mr. Rohr noted, was named "most livable" by one rating agency this year. "Whether you want to believe it or nor, we are the most livable." While the conference is "not going to take full credit for that," it "might as well because if we were the worst place someone would blame us."