I’ll admit my info on Hattiesburg may be a bit dated. Regarding the coast, I never said it was on decline, just that its growth has held the same status quo for two decades (not losing population, but not necessarily booming either).
The overall point is that there is only one Mississippi-centric urban MSA in the entire state, which is far behind pretty much every surrounding state in the Southeast. Even under the best circumstances, the Hattiesburg / Meridian / Tupelo / Gulf Coast MSA’s will never, ever, ever grow to the scale of Jackson, Little Rock, Baton Rouge, Huntsville, etc. The existing infrastructures of those cities (along with numerous economic disadvantages already mentioned) simply will not allow it to happen. It is a problem that it is far too late in the game to change, unfortunately.
This is unfortunately largely true. We are a knowledge based economy and what is most valuable now is smart, educated people in close proximity to each other. There are going to be some cities with all the advantages in the world that screw it up through bad governance (looking at you places like Chicago) just like places like Detroit screwed themselves, but the cities that are going to benefit from that will largely be cities like Raleigh, that are still significantly ahead of where we are now.