Alyson Stone, the executive director of Empower Lewiston, took out her checkbook recently to make a purchase in Portland. When the clerk saw her address on the check, she remarked about Stone, “Not everyone in Lewiston is a bad person.”

It was an offhand remark, probably, but for Stone – a downtown Lewiston homeowner and leader of an organization striving to improve the city’s image – the verbal jab cut to the heart of an important issue. The city’s self-esteem is fragile, as its old reputation remains strong outside, and inside, the Twin Cities.

The clerk should have sat with Stone, and a few hundred others, on Thursday during the unveiling of the Brookings Institution report, “Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Prosperity and Quality Places,” at a lunchtime ceremony inside the Bates Mill complex.

Hailed as a blueprint for Maine’s economic future, the Brookings report makes fresh arguments for old suggestions: raising the lodging tax, for example, and making state government more efficient. With these respective money-making and cost-saving initiatives, the report states, Maine can then invest in itself through new community revitalization, land conservation and economic innovation programs.

Some hard truths were also revealed. Maine has spent $200 million on school construction it didn’t need, according to Brookings, and unchecked “chaotic sprawl” combined with outdated building and zoning codes have made for haphazard community investments statewide.

Beyond its recommendations, however, the report infuses optimism into a state accustomed to being kicked around by national rankings: high taxes, low incomes, lost jobs, found debt, an exodus of youth and students, and, most recently, a two-star governor according to Inc. magazine.

Perhaps nowhere in Maine is optimism more welcome than L-A, which despite great investments and achievement by community organizations, businesses and local government, revitalization remains overshadowed by a downtrodden reputation.

It is starting to fade, though. “I just love visiting this building,” said Noah Keteyian, of Rockland, who attended Thursday’s presentation. Keteyian, 30, is director of the Midcoast Magnet, which formed to foster the “creative economy” along the coast, a movement which began in the Bates Mill in 2004.

The mill complex, according to Brookings, exemplifies the type of projects Maine can, and should, support in the future; with undeveloped acreage the size of Rhode Island recently consumed by suburbanization, they said, Maine’s cities have been overlooked for investment.

L-A has gone against this trend, and it’s been noticed.

“[L-A] is one of the most striking places I’ve seen, not just in New England, but in the United States,” said Bruce Katz, of Brookings, during the unveiling. Whether hyperbole or not, just having this statement made speaks volumes about the present, and potential, surrounding L-A.

Brookings’ report is a welcome ray of sunshine in Maine’s cloudy economic atmosphere, and a break from the gloom being spouted by the gubernatorial campaigns. There is hope for the future, especially in L-A, where the report proves the old reputation is wrong.

The Twin Cities are now doing it right.