The Mississippi River crosses throughout community, but it doesn’t divide us. Natchez, Vidalia and Ferriday make up one region, one community.

The flowing boundary is only a line of political demarcation. It means little to the thousands of residents, who live, work and play in our community jumping across city and state boundaries without much thought.

Each little area of our community is interdependent on the other. Natchez depends on Vidalia and Ferriday and Ferriday and Vidalia depend on Natchez.

It’s truly a matter of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Collectively, our community is not only bigger, but it’s better, too.

So since we consider ourselves one community, it only makes sense that we begin considering how we could market the area together.

We need to be pushing and pulling the economic development efforts of our area in the same direction and with the same goal.

Next week, the combined force of the area’s chambers of commerce will bring business leaders together to discuss the benefits of thinking more regionally. Tuesday’s luncheon sponsored by the Natchez, Vidalia and Ferriday chambers will bring all eyes and ears to the table.

And at that table, the person leading the discussion will be someone who has seen regionalism work first-hand in Charlotte, N.C.

The Charlotte organization successfully brought together 12 counties in North Carolina and four counties in South Carolina to work as one.

Certainly, if our local leaders work on it, three cities and two parishes should be no problem.