THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412160263
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LOUISA STRAYHORN
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline states: ``If any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it's the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to cre-ate.''
I believe when there is a genuine vision - as opposed to the all-too-familiar ``vision statement'' - people excel, learn and become involved, not because they are told to, but because they want to.
Virginia Beach needs to start that process.
The decision by Chesapeake to scuttle the Southeastern Expressway has probably ended part of a vision to improve accessibility to our area that many of us shared for Virginia Beach. However, Chesapeake has given us the opportunity to put in place a comprehensive plan that calls for us to work together to create a new vision for our city.
It was reported at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in January 1994 that today, for lots of reasons, economic growth will take place on a sustainable basis only where there is a high quality of life. The New York Times reported last year that institutional investors in municipal bonds are increasingly looking at a locality's quality of life to determine if they want to buy its bonds.
``Quality of life'' is an amalgam of those things that make a place out of a location and a community out of a bunch of houses and business dwellings. To improve our quality of life, we should take the following into consideration as we develop our new vision:
Our city will become a collection of interrelated communities that are politically active and believe in participatory government. Communities are important because our sense of place has an immense impact on how we think and act as human beings.
These communities will be in part self-sufficient, but will understand they are part of the whole system - the city.
A key is that these communities will have different personalities based on the interests of those who live there. They will not be based on income, race or religion.
The city will have the responsibility of ensuring that all communities have the elements - manpower, knowledge, self-help tools - to be safe both environmentally and personally.
There will be opportunity for superior education for all children.
We will revise and continually update our comprehensive plan and our master highway plan so that our streets will not be choked with traffic and will be people-friendly.
We will integrate all new resources into our new vision. The purchase of Lake Ridge presents us with an opportunity to improve an already superior quality of life.
We should have two primary economic development strategies: the development of high-tech and service industries, and the continued development of a year-round tourism industry whose target market is families of all nationalities who like good music and outdoor recreational activities.
We should cooperate regionally to develop transportation, water and economic development plans. Regional cooperation in areas such as these are key to the future growth and prosperity of all the cities in Hampton Roads. In many respects, we can only be as strong as our sister cities.
How do we make this vision a reality?
The master plan should be clear, attractive, easily understood, and backed by a great deal of very thorough and highly professional work. We should arrive at agreement through a process that includes the whole community. This could eliminate all those costly, knockdown, dragout fights over individual projects. We need a shared vision: one that involves the skills of all our talented groups in unearthing our ``pictures of the future'' and one that fosters genuine commitment rather than compliance.
The vision process will take time, but the Central Business District plan, which is a wonderful example of how to translate a vision, demonstrates what is possible. Following the CBD lead, we need to create one plan to deal with the physical form and design of the entire city. It will take a lot of work and time, but this is our city and we deserve an image that is more than what I heard from one visitor the other day: a collection of strip malls and housing tracts.
These are the possibilities I see for Virginia Beach.
What do you see? MEMO: Mrs. Strayhorn, a resident of Kempsville, is a member of City Council.
by CNB