Tri-State Summit discusses Regional Alignment
CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – Leaders across the region were invited to downtown Chattanooga for the Tri-State Summit across the last couple of days to access tools, connections, and resources to inspire responsible growth. This event was designed for the elected and community leaders across Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee to engage in a program of education, professional development, and more.
One event that took place at the event was The Power of Regional Alignment with former congressmen Zach Wamp and head of Government Relations for McKee Foods Connie Vaughan.
Regional alignment refers to the overall collaboration effort that occurs between Northeast Alabama, Northern Georgia, and Southeast Tennessee within the geographical area to work together on a variety of shared challenges.
Zach Wamp discussed a plethora of issues like transportation, traffic control, and environmental concerns with the decreased regional alignment throughout the tri-state area that are declining quality of life for citizens in these areas.
Key benefits discussed regarding regional alignment included solving larger scale problems, economic benefits, various cost efficiencies, improving policy impacts, and also enhancing resilience when it comes to preparedness and response to natural disasters.
As questions continued to be asked throughout the seminar regarding the reflect on centrality of cities in regional development, challenges in competition between other cities and tri-state areas will continue to arise as well as larger versus smaller cities having unequal power dynamics.
