THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504280211
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
What's wrong with Hampton Roads? Nothing says it better than a quote from Virginia Beach's new economic development director.
``The potential growth of Virginia Beach is tremendous. I'd like to be part of that, but I don't want to be part of the region's growth,'' Donald Maxwell said in an interview with a reporter for The Beacon, the Virginia Beach equivalent to Currents.
Maxwell is moving to the Beach job from a similar post in Hampton, so he is not unaware of the regionalism efforts.
No doubt, the natural instinct of any city's business and industry hunter is to take care of himself and his employer. However, one has to wonder how anyone working in a place such as Hampton Roads can make such a blatant anti-regional declaration.
Around here strangers don't know where one city ends and another begins. What happens in one is going to affect another. Virginia Beach cannot separate itself from the others. Nor can it continue to be the spoiler for regional projects that do evolve.
Whether or not Portsmouth would have benefited from a horse-racing track, the fact is that Hampton Roads missed out on the state's first and only track because of Virginia Beach's refusal to honor the regional concept.
The race track only could have been successful if it had been developed as a regional facility. It could not have been a Portsmouth project or a Virginia Beach project, yet Virginia Beach insisted on trying to get the track in an inferior location rather than buying into the regional track located in Portsmouth. By fracturing a regional effort, Virginia Beach probably caused the racing commission to look elsewhere.
The statement from Donald Maxwell indicates no change in Virginia Beach's lack of respect for the rest of Hampton Roads.
Virginia Beach can no more afford to be independent of the rest of the region than any of the other cities if all are going to prosper in the new economy and move beyond dependence on the military.
Because of city lines that grow more invisible all the time, no place in Hampton Roads can afford to ignore the others. As studies across the country have shown, problems of a metropolitan area sooner or later affect everybody.
It's distressing that Virginia Beach somehow feels compelled to compete against its neighbors. If that energy were combined with similar energy from other cities for joint efforts, Hampton Roads would be competing more successfully for major sports franchises as well as businesses. by CNB