THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230484
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: IN THE CITIES
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
A recent Saturday in the civic life of Hampton Roads found:
Residents of Pecan Gardens West, a Virginia Beach townhouse community, holding a street festival to boost neighborhood morale.
Leaders of civic-league coalitions reaching across municipal boundaries to work on common concerns.
Professors and graduate students at Old Dominion University seeking ways to get involved in regional problem solving.
Call it ``civic Saturday,'' if you will. The confluence of events was not something coordinated by any particular group but a coincidence of scheduling. And that might make the timing more remarkable.
In the cities and counties of Hampton Roads, there's a growing notion that the many diverse segments of society cannot live in isolation if they want strong neighborhoods and a prosperous region.
Days like Saturday, June 17, are happening more often, not only here but across the nation. ``Astute elected and appointed officials do not view these activities as threats, but embrace them warmly,'' notes the National Civic League, based in Denver.
Corporate leaders recognize the potential. David R. Goode, head of the Norfolk Southern Corp., recently said a region's strength - and most enlightened and creative leadership lies in communities.
Despite the progress, there's still tentativeness and suspicion.
The three-month-old Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations on June 17 adopted a mission statement encouraging cooperation: ``We will work with our neighbors and fellow citizens across municipal boundaries on issues which affect Hampton Roads' neighborhoods and actively promote citizen involvement.''
But civic-league leaders from Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk and Hampton were disappointed that neighborhood groups from Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News did not participate.
At ODU, faculty and students from a range of disciplines created an experimental course to develop leaders who understand each other's field of expertise.
``We not only build walls between the communities, but we build walls between the professions, and those walls really hold us back,'' explained William G. Cunningham, an educational-leadership professor.
The assignment: apply what they learn to problems facing Hampton Roads. The program promoted real-life insights above theoretical research in hopes of gaining ``a profound understanding of the possible,'' Cunningham said.
``If a university is not working with real problems then there's a tendency that any solution could do,'' he said.
For participants, the inter-professional leadership project was a first stab at collaboration on regional issues. But Cunningham acknowledged an error in not including neighborhood groups, although the idea was to improve quality of life for Hampton Roads communities.
``If we involve more and more people, it gets really complicated,'' he said. ``They need to be involved, but how do you manage it?''
In such neighborhoods as Pecan Gardens West, leaders like Laura Schultz struggle with the opposite end of the involvement question: how to get more participation?
Schultz is involved, and believes more people should be, because she doesn't like other folks or government doing too much for her. She also wants to preserve and enhance what attracted her here from New York City two years ago.
``It was community oriented. That was something I was looking forward to. Where I come from, people would close their doors and not pay attention,'' Schultz said, while grilling hot dogs at the neighborhood festival. ``Here, when we moved in, our next door neighbors came out and helped us. They had dinner for us the first night, and they didn't even know us.''
Yet, while Schultz is boosting participation through efforts like the festival, she knew little about the Virginia Beach Council of Civic Organizations, let alone regional neighborhood alliances and the potential for sharing solutions.
Neighborhoods, cities, regions, universities and professionals. They're working closer together, but still apart.
Who will make the next move? by CNB