Brunswick County and Wilmington Business Development now have a formal agreement outlining opportunities for cooperation on the economic development front. The board of directors of The Southeastern Partnership, another regional economic development entity that is, like WBD, a public-private partnership, has approved requests by three counties to become part of their organization’s geography and marketing. Craven, Lenoir, and Moore Counties. The brings the number to 18 of counties marketed by the Southeastern Partnership – which is based in Elizabethtown. That’s in Bladen County.
Progress on recommendations from The Garner Report, Pathways to Prosperity, was recently the subject of a joint meeting of New Hanover County and City of Wilmington officials. as their measuring stick. Promoting the region as a cohesive group – rather than a separate collection of counties – was one of the recommendations from that report.
On this edition of CoastLine, we’re going to hear about the efforts going on in the tri-county area, and we’re also going to take a step back and look at how the philosophy behind and approach to economic development has changed over the decades.
Guests:
Mike Hargett, Director, Economic Development and Planning, Brunswick County
Adam T. Jones, Regional Economist with the Swain Center and Associate Professor of Economics at the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina - Wilmington
