THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 70 lines
George Gallup, the man who developed the poll that bore his name, used to complain in speeches that Americans act as though their problems have never been solved elsewhere.
Rather than see what solutions other nations have devised, we reinvent the wheel.
Cities make the same mistake. One city struggles with a problem that others already have solved.
The Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce is working to avoid that mistake. It sponsors annual tours - called InnerCity Visits - to cities that have met challenges similar to ones facing Richmond and the surrounding suburban counties.
Top elected officials and administrators from the Richmond area take part. So do business leaders, regional planners, educators and the heads of museums and social agencies.
They pay their own way. This year's tour of 90 people cost about $1,400 a person. Participants fly on a chartered plane and stay at the same hotel.
James W. Dunn, president of the Greater Richmond Chamber, said the trips build trust and camaraderie between public and private officials, as they spend three days and two nights together.
A faciliator goes along and leads a debriefing session as soon as the participants return to Richmond. Participants discuss what they learned and ideas that could be implemented in Greater Richmond.
An InnerCity Visit this past May was the fourth one sponsored by the Chamber. Afterward a businessman who had been on all four trips made an interesting observation to Dunn. Following the first visits, the businessman said, participants would mutter to each other that what they'd seen was nice but that Greater Richmond could not do as well, because its localities would never cooperate. After the most-recent visit, the businessman observed, no such excuse was heard. The feeling was that the city and surrounding counties could cooperate to achieve a mutual goal.
That, by any definition of the word, is progress.
Each InnerCity Visit has had a specific agenda.
The first, in 1993, was to Jacksonville, Fla., which has a nationally known economic development program. For whatever reason, Greater Richmond has since gotten very good at attracting top-paying manufacturers. Also, Jacksonville was starting an engineering program, which Richmond sought to do at Virginia Commonwealth University. That's now being done. Jacksonville was improving its riverfront, which Richmond also is doing.
In 1994, the visit was to Cincinnati to see that city's convention center. Visitors witnessed true regional cooperation, involving Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
In 1995, the tour went to Minneapolis-St. Paul to examine the region's revenue-sharing system, in place several years. Participants also looked at the successful downtowns and convention center.
This past May, the visit was to Austin and San Antonio. Motorola has a semiconductor plant in Austin. The discussion there concerned work-force training and local vendors and suppliers that would be needed when Motorola's plant opens near Richmond. Also, participants studied Austin's successful venture-capital program. The third day of the tour was spent in San Antonio, which is a model for Richmond's waterfront-development plan.
Hampton Roads needs similar city visits.
One worthwhile destination would be Oklahoma City to see how that region developed and financed a public building package. It included a major-league arena in the city and something for each of the surrounding localities.
Hampton Roads is so balkanized that such a tour is needed if only to get leaders from throughout the region together for a few days each year.
Also, many local elected leaders suffer from parochialism. They were born here and they like their hometowns, but it would be useful for them to see examples of success elsewhere. They need to see how other regions have achieved rising wages, while ours fall farther behind the national average. by CNB