THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 8, 1994 TAG: 9412080011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A22 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
``Regions stand and fall together,'' said Kat Imhoff, director of the Virginia Commission on Population Growth and Development, ``and you can't talk about one locality without talking about the other.''
But here in South Hampton Roads we too often do talk about one locality without talking about the others. We have ample regional forums; yet cities still address individually problems that could better be solved together.
Take Virginia Beach's long, costly bid to bring in water from Lake Gaston. Lacking total commitment from neighbors, the city's struggle goes on, with all of the region the loser if delays continue or the effort fails. Also, both Portsmouth and Virginia Beach competed recently for a horse track. Neither landed it.
Ms. Imhoff's comment came in response to a University of Virginia study of the state's three largest metropolitan areas - Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and Richmond. This study found a tendency among our region's cities to work against one another in pursuing development has been a detriment to all.
The study emerges as The Urban Partnership Energizing Virginia, an alliance of business and government leaders, convenes an urban summit in Richmond today.
In connection with the alliance's effort, James F. Babcock: ``Because Virginia's core cities do not perform as well as their metropolitan competitors in other states, Virginia's suburbs and counties also are not competitive in income, job growth and business development.''
Many years ago someone said regionalism couldn't flourish in this area until there had been a certain number of funerals. By now those funerals have been held. Yet the intercity animosities implied in the remark remain alive today.
But perhaps there is a starting point. In Portsmouth, the most beleaguered of the municipalities and perhaps the most isolated, City Manager V. Wayne Orton wants a 4-cent rise in the real estate tax to help fund the city's economic-development plan. That council members have responded cautiously is no surprise, given the public's anti-tax mood demonstrated so clearly at the polls.
What, though, might be the reaction - and result - if each city raised its tax just 1 cent and all pooled their efforts to attract business simply to this region?
KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM by CNB