The head of one of Australia's big four banks has given Newcastle a ringing endorsement, declaring it "checks more boxes than most parts of the country", including the capital cities.
ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott was also full of praise for the Hunter Valley, which he described as a "part of the country that stacks up incredibly well", on his regional tour of the nation.
"This is a really vibrant place with lots of opportunity, the economy feels like it's got real resilience to it and population growth is really strong," Mr Elliot said in an address to the region's business leaders.
"Good lifestyle, jobs, opportunity, infrastructure... You've got a lot of things here that are going to attract talent. Not all of regional Australia has those sorts of opportunities.
"Newcastle checks more boxes than most parts of the country - including frankly, the capital cities."
Housing in the region - although still expensive - was more affordable than Sydney, and attracting "housing refugees".
"They're people who can't afford to buy - or rent for that matter - in greater Sydney and [the Hunter] looks like a pretty good alternative to them," Mr Elliot said.
"What is really interesting to me is that population growth is now largely millennial. It's young people with skills who are coming here to create a future."
Although it was Mr Elliot's first time in Newcastle, he said the city "is actually in my blood", as his great grandfather was born in Newcastle in 1869.
However, he assured the crowd his glowing appraisal of the city had nothing to do with his genetic Novocastrian bias.
"That optimism and investment opportunity isn't uniformly the same around the country, so I don't want people to think 'oh, that's what you say everywhere'," Mr Elliot said.
The region may have all the right ingredients for a strong economic future, "everything still need to get everything lined up" to unlock its potential, and "that's the hard work".
"To unlock that potential, our role is to provide capital," he said.
"There's lots of things that need to be provided - infrastructure, planning approvals and obviously labour.
"A big part of why we're here is to ask 'how do we divert capital to assist all that transition that's going on?'."
ANZ released a report into hydrogen on Wednesday, which gives an insight into the emerging industry that Mr Elliot believed would be a large
"Hydrogen is a big chunk of [the region's future economy]," he said,
"As is the offshore wind we've heard about. All the renewable pieces, a lot of that stuff requires significant investment and that's what we're here to do."
