THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412090637
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Participants in Virginia's first-ever Urban Summit came up with an answer to the state's urban problems: Learn from North Carolina.
Throughout the daylong conference Thursday, more than 400 mayors, city managers, business leaders and neighborhood activists blustered, fussed and joked about how development of North Carolina's metropolitan areas has powered past competing regions in Virginia.
``We don't want to hear that other state mentioned again. We want to hear `Virginia-Number One!' '' Hopewell Mayor Robert Saunders Jr. said as he discussed ideas for more coordinated economic development in Virginia.
Jean Clary, chairwoman of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, flashed a picture of Money magazine's cover story naming the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., region as the best place to live in America. ``I am tired of North Carolina eating our lunch,'' she said, declaring that she wants Virginia to get such national recognition in the future.
But if Virginia's metropolitan areas are to compete with fast-growing regions in other states, they must work harder together to solve urban problems, many conference participants agreed.
``We cannot have a competitive state, a healthy, vigorous commonwealth, so long as we have various cities in a state of sickness,'' warned Warner N. Dalhouse, CEO of First Union National Bank of Virginia.
There was little disagreement about the problems. Most speakers trotted out the traditional list of issues: crime, housing, poverty, poor-quality public education, widening income gaps between cities and suburbs.
But for the first time, many participants were encouraged that city and business leaders from across Virginia were beginning to talk about regional solutions. The Urban Summit was sponsored by 15 cities that joined with the Virginia Chamber of Commerce to create a new statewide organization, the Urban Partnership.
Ideas discussed at the Urban Summit included:
Reducing poverty by creating regional governmental entities to ensure equitable delivery of social services.
Reducing the fear of crime by making downtowns more attractive to shoppers, businesses and residents.
Helping local governments make ends meet by offering financial incentives to promote greater cooperation - even resource sharing - among cities and suburbs and by giving localities more tax-levying choices.
Improving education by developing more equitable formulas for state funding of urban and suburban school districts.
Promoting strong economic development through regional sharing of some revenues from development and taxes.
Regional sharing of revenues could be one of the most controversial proposals, but it received strong backing from some of Virginia's top business leaders Thursday.
``You need to look at the legal issues of how to share revenue and solve problems,'' said Richard G. Tilgham, CEO of Crestar Bank. Participants acknowledged that advancing regional solutions will not be easy.
``We're only at the starting line,'' said W. Robert Herbert, city manager of Roanoke. ``And this is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash.''
The strategy of the Urban Partnership includes convening another Urban Summit in May for participants to work out the details for a package of legislative proposals for the 1996 General Assembly. The group also has accumulated about $400,000, much of it to sponsor research to prove that suburbs as well as central cities will benefit from regional cooperation.
Already, some of the analysis shows that regional cooperation in North Carolina and other states allows those jurisdictions to outperform Virginia in economic development.
For example, private sector employment increased 81 percent between 1970 and 1990 in six North Carolina areas and 76 percent in six Virginia regions, said Michael Pratt, director of the Virginia Center for Urban Development at Virginia Commonwealth University.
``The difference is almost 300,000 private-sector jobs,'' he said. ``At an average private-sector wage of $20,000, this amounts to a $6 billion injection into the economy.''
Scott Keeter, a VCU associate professor of political science and public administration, is researching public attitudes about urban problems. He's finding that many suburban and rural Virginians value central cities and believe their problems can be solved.
Herbert, the Roanoke manager, said such studies will help the Urban Partnership move away from ``preaching to the choir'' and toward persuading suburban communities to join in.
He and other Urban Partnership leaders said they were pleased that some suburban representatives attended the summit.
Among them was James W. Rein, city manager of Chesapeake. ``We need to know what's going on and be a part of what's going on,'' he said, ``because, as it was very well pointed out today, the empirical data is in that cities and suburbs are all tied together. As goes the city, so go the surrounding suburbs.''
``Any solutions ultimately are going to need to be grassroots solutions,'' said James B. Oliver Jr., city manager of Norfolk. ``We're all in this together,'' said Neal Barber, executive director of the Urban Partnership. ``We're not about pitting cities against suburbs. We're looking for win-win solutions for all.'' MEMO: Staff writer Mylene Mangalindan contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dr. James Rhodes, president of Virginia Power, talks Thursday at the
Urban Summit in Richmond.
by CNB