Richard T. "Flip" Phillips, a Batesville attorney, told members of the Senatobia Rotary Club last week that there was a "New Regionalism" at work in our state.
Speaking at the request of his sister, member Julie Correro, Phillips spoke about the increasing importance of Northwest Mississippi to what happens in the rest of the state, both politically and economically.
In the past, he said, there were two main population centers in Mississippi: the Jackson area, and the Gulf Coast. In the middle of the last century, Tupelo became a major manufacturing and commerce center.
Now, he said, Senatobia is situated in the middle of the region, surrounded by the retirement meccas of Oxford and Tunica, the residential growth giant of DeSoto County, and other areas of growth such as Clarksdale.
He said that economic development must play on the strengths of this region to differentiate itself, at least in the eyes of the rest of the state, from the northeastern corner of the state.
Phillips told the club that it no longer mattered where in the world a person was, they could do business anywhere because of the advances in technology and communications.
He is involved with the M3 Alliance, which promotes Tate, Panola, Tunica, and DeSoto counties as a region, as well as touts the advantages of easy access to the Memphis metro area.
Email News Editor Melissa Turner
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