Nothing is more important to our region’s future than collaboration. We firmly believe that by moving forward together with an open mind for new ideas and healthy skepticism of old ways of thinking, success will take care of itself.

Each issue outlined in this narrative benefits from regional collaboration. Our port is a global leader in efficiency and design because we recognize its importance to our economy and we support its efforts on local, state, and federal levels. Business and job growth occur only because our region shares the workload on regional planning, workforce housing, infrastructure, quality schools, a clean environment, and more. Active and informed citizens help push responsible government to new levels of innovation and accountability. Major successes have occurred in the past two decades: North Charleston is the East Coast home to Boeing and its support industries that employ thousands of highly skilled workers, engineers, and executives. Daimler and a manufacturing center for its Mercedes-Benz van vehicles also call North Charleston home. Nearby, Berkeley County’s Google Data Center is ever-expanding as production hums at the Volvo Cars Ridgeville plant. The City of Charleston has its Digital Corridor and West Edge, a medical research Discovery District collaboration by the City of Charleston, MUSC, and private investment. And there is new life in the once tired, abandoned urban centers of Charleston’s upper peninsula and North Charleston’s redevelopment master plan.

In this sense, working together becomes central to our region’s personality, an attractive trait, our brand. It has become a point of difference and a pitch for new businesses, job creation, more investment, and, yes, better ideas.