We all know this. The key talking point is how to attract or grow the businesses that create "bodies with spending power".
Right now, the only unified areas I truly see is the Golden Triangle and the Coast. Those two areas have their shlt together, but both also face some challenges. GTR is 3 small towns to begin with, and not on an interstate, bad soil and MSU suffers from being so close to Ole Miss and Alabama). The Coast is in a proven hurricane-prone area.
Hattiesburg-Laurel has a good economy and seem to be pulling the right strings, and located on an interstate. Some potential there.
Jackson has all the potential in the world but cannot behave. Interstates, employers, governmental and business center of the state - and still sucks. It's been rehashed over and over.
And on the state level, we spread out our wins, but you take what you can get I suppose. State was spread out from the beginning, and we always fight over the scraps. I mean take Tupelo and the GTR for example.....if you combine those, you'd have something serious, probably similar to NW Arkansas. Just think if you had combined the airport, business and infrastructure resources of those two areas and located in Tupelo, with Ole Miss not far away, and now the Toyota plant, all semi-along I-22. And then if MSU was down somewhere west of Clinton, I-20 from Vicksburg to Jackson would be totally different. You'd have two incredible development corridors. But nope, we are as spread out as physically possible. It's very frustrating. And I get that I have the benefit of hindsight now, but there's no doubt we've made this as difficult as possible.
Not to mention the benefits of having a Memphis or Mobile inside our state borders.