THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130024
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A21 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: 83 lines
Hampton Roads is in a daily race to secure a prosperous, livable, sustainable future. We're vying with other regions to attract the good jobs and skilled work force needed to succeed.
Last week, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce got a sobering look at the competition when Mike Burton addressed the group. He's the executive officer of Metro, a regional government serving the 1.2 million residents, three counties and 24 cities that make up metropolitan Portland, Ore.
The two regions are similar in some ways. Both boast attractive natural settings. They are roughly the same size, are made up of a cluster of municipalities and have experienced rapid growth. But in the race for 21st-century viability, Portland has outpaced Hampton Roads. It may have lapped us.
We have a plan for the region we hope to see completed in 2007. Portland is planning for 2040. Our cities have been failing to agree for eight months on which consultant to hire to help decide how to attract a major-league sports franchise. Portland has the Trailblazers.
We are trying to decide what to do about suburban sprawl. Portland has decided - against it. Portland has established tough land-use rules that seek to integrate the central city, town centers, urban villages centered around rail stops, open spaces and rural reserves. They insist on redevelopment of existing neighborhoods, infilling of vacant lots and development of higher-density housing. Townhouse dwellings have gone from 3 percent of new housing starts to 12 percent.
We are talking about light rail and an adequate road transport system. Portland has built light rail and designed roads that do more than move people. They are economic-development tools used to create new retail-, residential- and job-growth patterns that fit into the 2040 plan.
Burton said that if he had one message it's that transportation decisions are land-use decisions and that it's best to view them in that light and plan ahead. He admitted his city had made mistakes. He showed before-and-after slides demonstrating that Portland was among the first cities to build downtown superhighways and parking decks and among the first to tear them down and replace them with plazas, mass transit and riverside green space. In all, Portland Metro has 5,000 acres of park land and is buying 6,000 more.
Is the attention to planning, controlled development, livable urban spaces and preservation of natural beauty paying off? Handsomely. Portland is often cited as the next great American city. Educated workers flock there, 75 new arrivals a day. Companies choose to locate there. Last year, 10 percent of all capital investment in the U.S. electronics industry found its way to Portland.
None of this just happened. Burton said it required a vision, clear lines of authority, good data, regional cooperation and public persuasion. The region spends $4 million a year informing the public of plans and soliciting feedback. As a result, residents buy in. Land-use laws have been tested in the courts and at the ballot box and have repeatedly won Oregonians' support.
And those laws are why Hampton Roads isn't about to emulate Portland. Portland's success is founded on a willingness to accept government restrictions that Virginians have shown no taste for.
Oregon localities, and regional entities like the Portland Metro, must conform to state land-use restrictions that channel growth and preserve the environment. The Metro, not the 24 cities of the region, has control over parks and open spaces, air quality, water quality and supply, transportation, solid waste and public education on matters such as conservation, recycling, waste reduction and pollution.
Virginians have chosen less government regulation than Oregonians. Hampton Roads has chosen competition among its cities rather than regional cooperation. The choice entails a price.
One of Portland's biggest employers is Intel, the world-beating chip maker which pushed for light rail so that its lower-wage workers could ride to affordable housing. Hampton Roads would love to attract that kind of corporate citizen. But it has got to ask itself how the two cities would fare if they went head to head for the next Intel plant.
Portland would probably show Mike Burton's slide presentation with its light rail and smoothly flowing traffic, long-range plan and present amenities, sports team and open spaces, park land and low pollution, recycling and planned communities.
Hampton Roads could discuss its water shortage and regional antagonism, its tunnel backups and crowded interstates, its unplanned sprawl of suburbs and troubled urban neighborhoods, its downsizing employers and out-migration.
The Portland model of regional cooperation and Metro government may not be the only way to get from here to the 21st century, but if we don't like that route we'd better find an alternative. The race is on: to attract capital, quality employers and highly skilled workers. We aren't winning. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB