Cheshire is home to major employers in science and manufacturing, housing developers are eager - some would say too eager - to build new homes, and it could soon have two high-speed rail stations.
The presence of the Northern Powerhouse's chief architect, Chancellor George Osborne, as the MP for Tatton, means there is the will within Whitehall for Cheshire to benefit from devolution.
The Powerhouse allows Cheshire companies "to be part of something far greater", according to Cygnet Group chief executive Matthew Kimpton-Smith.
His Northwich firm sells specialist machinery, predominantly to China and the United States. He says the Northern Powerhouse gives his company "real power, real punch" on the world stage.
But Cheshire has been beaten in the race to take on devolved powers.
Officials have had to watch as devolution deals were done with the noisy neighbours in Manchester and Liverpool. They've even lost territory as the Cheshire borough of Halton decided to become part of the Liverpool city region.
Over the summer, anxious to avoid being left behind, the two councils in the east and west of Cheshire, plus Warrington, hurriedly put together their own devolution bid to meet a tight government timetable.
Warrington Borough Council's chief executive Steven Broomhead, who used to run the Northwest Regional Development Agency, said the bid wouldn't just "enhance and grow" the county's economy - it would allow the borough to escape the influence of its neighbours' elected mayors.
But as city regions have so far been the only places to have agreed deals, there's a lack of clarity over what a Cheshire deal might look like.
It seems so unclear that the leader of Warrington Borough Council, Terry O'Neill, recently said his authority wasn't sure whether devolution would be "a poisoned chalice or an opportunity".
A report by the think tank IPPR North seems to acknowledge this, calling for "greater clarification of the purpose, process and timescale" of devolution deals for counties.
It's also not clear whether the government will insist on a Cheshire elected mayor.
Until there are firm answers to questions like those, the county's Powerhouse ambitions may just be held back.

The letter - published in the Guardian - said the coalition's approach has been characterised by broken promises, cuts and destructive legislation.
And it warned the squeeze was "hitting patients" with pressures growing on A&E units and hospital waiting lists.
But the Conservatives rejected the claims - and suggested it had been orchestrated by Labour.
The letter was organised by Dr Clare Gerada, a Labour member and former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, but she denied the party had had any input into it.
Signatories include Sir George Alberti, who worked as an emergency care tsar under Labour, Dr Laurence Buckman, a London-based GP and former senior member of the British Medical Association, and Prof John Ashton, a retired director of public health and president of the Faculty of Public Health.
Dr Helena McKeown, a GP from Wiltshire and Liberal Democrat councillor, also signed the letter.
The letter said: "The NHS is withering away and if things carry on as they are then in future people will be denied care they once had under the NHS and have to pay more for health services.
"As medical and public health professionals our primary concern is for all patients. We invite voters to consider carefully how the NHS has fared over the last five years."
In particular, the letter went into detail about the government's reforms, saying they had led to a "rapid and unwanted expansion of the role of commercial companies".
A Conservative Party spokeswoman described the group as a "small number of doctors" and pointed out that some of them were Labour supporters and advisers.
"The facts are clear: we have cut the number of managers and increased funding for the NHS so we can have 9,500 more doctors and 6,900 nurses treating patients.
"The NHS in England continues to perform better than other parts of the UK, with patients more likely to be seen within four hours in A&E than in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland."
Looking at a map, Cheshire might appear to be on the fringes of the Northern Powerhouse, but officials in the county say it's actually the Gateway to it - bringing in commuters and investment.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
The government has "undermined and weakened" the NHS in England, a letter signed by 140 doctors says.