THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9412120063
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
In Richmond on Thursday, a summit of Virginia cities was filled with references to North Carolina's regions cooperating to solve problems. So impressed was reporter Mike Knepler that he devoted a story to North Carolina's successes.
As, four decades ago, did English historian Arnold Toynbee in writing his multivolume history of civilizations.
Toynbee chose North Carolina, lying between South Carolina and Virginia, as the prototype of a civilization that at the start is outshone by its more advanced neighbors.
But, he wrote, the other two societies, obsessed with glorious pasts, rest on their laurels - or oars.
And the upstart, not burdened by baggage of antiquity, works all the harder and outstrips the other two.
To sum it up, Toynbee quoted a long-popular saying: ``North Carolina is a valley of humility between two mountains of conceit.''
That is not often heard these days, nor is another one expressing some Virginians' feeling of superiority:
``North Carolinians know the three R's: reading, writing, and the road to Richmond.''
North Carolinians retorted: Virginians know reading, writing, and the road to Raleigh.
An example of North Carolina cities' willingness to set aside rivalries for the sake of their region was the creating in the early 1960s of the Research Triangle.
Under Gov. Luther Hodges, the universities of Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State pooled resources with a modern campus complex at their center.
Firms around the nation turned to the Triangle for guidance. North Carolina boomed with new industries.
At the turn of the century, Charles B. Aycock was the first governor to coax North Carolina to invest heavily in its public schools.
During the 1950s, Virginia political candidates cited the superior standings of North Carolina schools so often that the races might have been taking place in Carolina.
On another front in the 1930s, North Carolina relied on bond issues to fund a road system that drew admiration nationwide while Virginia, fearing bonds, struggled in trying to build highways on a pay-as-you-go basis.
In the long run, on that gamble, Virginia fared better. By the time this state was ready to launch a modern system, construction techniques had improved markedly and Virginia highways exceeded Carolina's for a time. Our very inertia contributed to a boost.
Carolina is not averse to looking this way for ideas. When Virginia turned to Massive Resistance of school segregation, North Carolina picked up the moderate program that Virginia had abandoned.
In the late 1950s while Virginia suffered closed schools in Norfolk and other localities, North Carolina came through the crisis relatively unscathed.
In 1995 when our legislators receive bills that would make it easier for cities to cooperate, they would do well to look down the road to the General Assembly in Raleigh. by CNB