DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710020014

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   69 lines

TOGETHERNESS PAYS OFF REGION RECEIVES $2.2 MILLION FROM STATE FOR COOPERATIVE PROJECTS

Hampton Roads has taken a big bite out of a carrot that the state dangles to encourage localities within each economic region to cooperate.

The carrot is a $6 million incentive fund for regional cooperation. Hampton Roads has been awarded $2.2 million of the total. The Richmond area, the state's third major metropolitan region, got skunked.

The $2.2 million goes to the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group of local business, military, education, political and community leaders. The money will be distributed among a number of regional projects. One provides planning and marketing support for the technology industry. Another is developing a regionwide consensus for a series of economic development projects. A third provides workforce training for technology industries, in conjunction with Old Dominion University.

All 16 Hampton Roads localities agreed to apply jointly for the money and to let the partnership decide how to spend it. Such a level of cooperation, uniting the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads, itself frequently split, would have been highly unlikely a few years ago.

The newfound cooperation is based on the growing recognition that individual Virginia cities cannot compete against powerhouses like Jacksonville and Charlotte. Those cities can expand, if need be. The most Virginia localities are allowed to do is cooperate, and in fact Virginia's government structure tends to discourage even that. Only in Virginia are cities kept separate by law from surrounding suburban counties.

The incentive fund was the brainchild of the Urban Partnership, a statewide organization of localities and business. The Urban Partnership, which Hampton Roads leaders played an important role in creating, is dedicated to finding regional solutions to problems and to making economic regions more competitive. Its three main goals are more jobs, higher wages and a lessening in the disparity of income between urban areas and suburbs. Studies have shown that regions prosper most when that disparity of income is least.

The Urban Partnership successfully pushed for the passage of the 1996 Regional Competitiveness Act, which set up the incentive fund.

The Urban Partnership executive committee will decide at its meeting Oct. 10next month how much to seek for the incentive fund from the 1998 General Assembly. Last year the partnership sought $50 million but obviously got much less.

Hampton Mayor James Eason, co-chair of the Urban Partnership, called this week's award of incentive-fund money ``revolutionary.''

``Think about it,'' he said. ``Of the 19 economic regions in the state eligible to at least apply, 17 did. Who would have thought two or three years ago you would have localities come together within those regions. Seventeen regions have identified the strategic issues in their regions and have made some kind of regional effort to address those issues. People should stop to think about what has happened. This is very dramatic.''

Only seven of the 19 regions received money, but presumably the regions will continue to apply. The next chance is in December, for whatever money the 1998 General Assembly puts into the fund.

Hampton Roads leaders said Friday that the award shows that area localities are looking beyond their immediate self-interest.

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said, ``We were repeatedly referred to at the state level as the folks who really seemed to be thinking cooperatively.''

The 1998 General Assembly should ensure that adequate money is provided to the incentive fund. Six million dollars is a start, but far more is needed as an inducement to communities to cooperate to make their economic regions competitive world wide.

The state must realize that isolated and underfunded cities cannot do economic battle with giants. Only cohesive economic regions have a prayer. And if Virginia's economic regions do not prosper, the state certainly cannot. KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM

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