Over 150 people attended the North Georgia Forum on Rural Prosperity on July 23 in Dahlonega. (Georgia Chamber/Facebook)
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce recently hosted the inaugural North Georgia Forum on Rural Prosperity on the campus of the University of North Georgia (UNG) in Dahlonega. The event brought together civic, business and elected leaders to discuss solutions to common challenges.
Topics ranged from talent development and retention to opioid issues, the housing crunch to innovations in technology, and raising capital to legislative outlook on rural revitalization.
“The Rural Prosperity North Georgia Forum is an opportunity for attendees to hear from industry leaders, government officials, business owners, and key community partners about new concepts to help our rural communities grow,” says President and CEO of the Georgia Chamber Chris Clark. “We are invested in finding real solutions for Georgia and believe that this Forum is an important part of that process.”
A different approach
State Sen. Senator Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega) and Rep. Rick Jasperse (R-Jasper) discussed the legislative outlook on education, access to broadband, and infrastructure needs.
Gooch says cultivating prosperity in rural Georgia requires a completely different approach than cultivating it in metro areas. He says more needs to be done to advertise and market rural areas to developers. And, while government can help in some areas, Gooch says small communities should not solely rely on “big government” to fix things.
“They’ve got to step up and provide the infrastructure, they’ve got to have access to the internet,” he says.
Gooch also points to education and health care as key components of rural prosperity. He says Georgia’s rural hospitals are in trouble will continue to suffer unless something is done. He points to the partnership between Northeast Georgia Medical Center and UNG in reinventing and reopening a failing hospital in Dahlonega as an example of how innovative partnerships can help save them.
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Partnerships are also important in education, according to Merrill Wilcox of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Wilcox addressed the importance of building an educated workforce by partnering with local school systems.
A different perspective
Not only does achieving rural prosperity require a different approach than that used in metro areas, some business leaders say it also requires a different perspective.
“When we consider what prosperity looks like in White County, we are not talking about what prosperity looks like in more urban and sub-urban locales of Atlanta or the metro area. Our communities have a generational understanding that we must be good stewards of our resources like lands, water and our people. Our agricultural heritage and family farming that is central to our economy creates a different definition of prosperity,” says president of the White County Chamber of Commerce Beth Truelove. “There are many business and civic leaders that are committed to a rural vision of prosperity by leveraging our assets.”
White County Development Authority Chairman Michael Foor, formerly of North Georgia Network and now Vice President of Governmental Affairs for Windstream’s Kinetic Business, was one of the sponsors of the event. Executive Director for the Habersham Partnership for Growth Tim Lee was among the presenters.
