Substantial Challenges
An Invaluable Vehicle for Progress

A Critical Framework

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Substantial Challenges
The challenges confronting the region as it undertakes this project are substantial and extend well beyond what many other regional heritage initiatives across the nation have had to contend with:

*an underdeveloped philanthropic infrastructure;

*lack of community, organizational and institutional capacity;

*an educational level in the general public lower than the national average;

*a lower household income; and

*a shortage of capital in local governments.

An Invaluable Vehicle for Progress
Impressive data is available concerning the positive economic impact heritage areas across the nation have on their host regions, and it is anticipated that the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area will result in both direct and indirect job creation.

By helping to create a regional heritage tourism infrastructure, it will create new tourism-related jobs. And by serving to improve the quality of life within the region, it stands to aid in attracting new businesses, thereby creating significant new employment opportunities throughout the area.

The Mississippi Hills Heritage Area will serve as a framework for regional resource conservation, economic diversification, and infrastructural enhancement. It represents not just an opportunity to do better, or to do more with what we already have: it is literally a chance to take an exponential leap forward. It is an opportunity to move beyond our historically-disadvantaged status, and to become a nationally-, perhaps internationally-significant model for environmentally-sustainable economic development in rural areas.

Further, this project will bring a strong focus on many positive aspects of our state's heritage, thereby helping to dispel the generally negative perception many persons around the nation have of our state.


A Critical Framework
The management plan for the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area will be a strategy for regional heritage resource conservation and development, and will seek to make optimal use of historical, cultural and natural resources in a manner that is protective of the environment and socially responsible in terms of distribution of economic gains.

As an environmentally- and socially-responsible blueprint for future regional development, it stands to become a valuable model for rural, traditionally-disadvantaged, historically-impoverished areas seeking to successfully negotiate the problems associated with population growth, increased development pressures, and the myriad challenges of the emerging global economy.