THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 30, 1996 TAG: 9605300001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By BRAD FACE
LENGTH: 75 lines
I applaud the creation of the Hampton Roads Partnership. This visionary and courageous leadership shown by many of our elected officials - working with business, educational and civic leaders - is heartening. The formation of the Partnership represents a historic step for a region facing serious problems.
Our economy is a concern. The wages we earn in Hampton Roads are lower than those of our competitors in the Southeast. Our per-capita income is 11 percent below the national average, and the trend is down.
In transportation we have no way of paying for nearly two-thirds of the highway projects that we absolutely must build in the next couple of decades. Sixty-two percent of those essential projects have no funding source. Unless we take action, within a few short years the average commuting speed on our highways will be 10 miles per hour or less. That means a trip from the Oceanfront to downtown Norfolk at peak time could take more than two hours.
But in one category our area is still No. 1. We remain the largest metropolitan area in the country without a major sports franchise.
These are depressing facts. So serious discussions of regionalism are welcome, indeed. Maybe this time something - other than enlightened discussion - will come of it.
Let's not flatter ourselves. What is being explored now - and what the Future of Hampton Roads Inc. has been talking about for more than a decade - is not a new idea. Regional cooperation is a decidedly old idea in our area. It's just that we have failed over and over for more than 150 years to do those things which are so clearly in our best interests.
James Etheridge (letter, March 7) reminded us that back in 1964 our leadership had come to the same conclusion which we revisit now. Thirty-two years ago, an Urban Policy Conference concluded - according to a Virginian-Pilot report - that we must shift our economic gears and develop a framework of regional politics in order to meet the challenges of a changing urban society.
Twenty years before that, The Daily Press reported that leaders on the Peninsula were convinced that their communities must merge in order to compete effectively.
And one can go back another 50 or 100 years and find that regional cooperation was a major issue. In fact, the compelling arguments for greater political cohesion can be traced back to the beginning of local government in our area.
For almost two centuries, from the late 1600s to the late 1800s, the ports of Virginia steadily declined.
In 1697, the colony of Virginia dominated trade with the Old World. Together with Maryland, Virginia accounted for 68 percent of the total foreign trade of the American colonies. That compared to little more than 3 percent from New York - some 300 years ago.
By 1767, the trade figure for Virginia and Maryland was down to 29 percent.
By 1821 the number for Maryland and Virginia was down to 9 percent, with Virginia claiming only a third of that.
By 1861 we had less than 1 percent of foreign trade. And remember New York, with 3 percent in 1697? By 1861 New York had risen to 68 percent of American foreign trade, the exact percentage held by Virginia and Maryland 164 years before.
Paul Wilstach wrote in his 1929 book Tidewater Virginia: ``Within a century after Tidewater had reached its highest expectations of civilization, its densest population and its greatest prosperity, it had degenerated into a sparsely populated, neglected, meagerly productive region . . . and had become significant largely as a memory. But what a memory!''
Well, what happened? We have a far superior port when compared to New York. And our location is ideal - in the middle of the coast and closer to the manufacturing centers of the Ohio Valley. The answer is simple and, sad to say, familiar: New York was successful politically while we were abject failures. New York built the great Erie Canal while we built little more than petty local jealousies. MEMO: Part I of a two-part commentary
Brad Face is chief executive officer of Face Industries in Norfolk and
president of Future of Hampton Roads, a nonprofit organization committed
to improving Hampton Roads. by CNB