THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 23, 1995 TAG: 9501200018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Adversity brings out the team player in all of us. Give us a common enemy - a hurricane or the threat of military base closings - and suddenly we're as one.
Together, we're mighty - 1.4 million strong - a muscular metropolis. Apart, we're a bunch of forgettable, albeit lovable, small cities.
Most powerhouse economic regions are propelled by a dominant city. In the South, Atlanta, Charlotte and Jacksonville spring to mind. But when Virginia Beach and Chesapeake blocked Norfolk's expansion in the 1960s, they guaranteed that no city would dominate Hampton Roads, that no single city could serve as the economic engine to drive this metropolis through stormy seas.
Instead, Hampton Roads became a large boat with many state-of-the-art outboard motors. The motors would perform powerfully if they were all in back, propelling Hampton Roads forward, but usually they are not. For example, when one Hampton Roads city lures a company away from another Hampton Roads city - with tax favors or whatever - the two motors strain in opposition, so the whole boat gains nary an inch.
Right now, local residents can only watch with admiration as business leaders, politicians and governments band together to fight military-base closings in Hampton Roads. Even the Navy, Army and Air Force are cooperating to keep local bases open.
Suddenly we are no longer the mere site of a dozen major military bases. We are the local Navy, Army and Air Force MEGABASE! Who'd dare mess with a MEGABASE of 180,000 military personnel and Department of Defense employees?
For the moment, for one cause, all the motors are in back, propelling us in a single direction with a force that will be difficult to deny.
Art Collins, administrator of both the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (10 cities and five counties) and the Sports Authority of Hampton Roads, noted that this cooperation did not arrive out of the blue.
He correctly called it ``part of a process that has been going on.''
Still, if we could work together for economic development with the same fervor with which we are fighting base closing, if we could get all the motors at the back of the boat, our strength would be the strength of 1.4 million.
We'd have major-league teams and major-league transportation. People everywhere would know Hampton Roads is Virginia's own metropolis - not a resort on Long Island. by CNB