DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997              TAG: 9710100028

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   72 lines

TROUBLE IN VIRGINIA'S CITIES THE STATE'S GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURE PUTS CITIES UNDER STRESS.

The Commission on Local Government, the state agency charged with monitoring how localities are structured, has just issued its annual reminder that Virginia cities are programmed to fail. As usual, the top 17 localities on its ``most fiscally stressed'' list are cities, with Norfolk leading the pack.

In fact, of the 21 localities listed by the commission as ``high stress'' in 1994-95, all but three were cities. Of the 20 localities listed as ``low stress,'' all but four were counties.

Is anyone listening?

Too few, but hope springs eternal. Sooner or later, someone with clout (say, a governor?) is bound to notice that there is an unhealthy pattern at work, and that it might - just might - be related to the fact that Virginia is the only state with an independent city system.

In other states, cities are part of counties. Counties share in the burden of meeting social services' costs involving needy citizens. But in Virginia, there is no such arrangement. Cities are largely on their own in meeting the needs of their residents, no matter how unbalanced the distribution of problems may become.

The result is a vicious cycle. The poor congregate in cities. Tax rates go up to accommodate needs. The middle-class, anxious to avoid high tax rates, escapes to the suburbs. The urban tax base declines. Cities are faced with lowering services or raising taxes.

Many states offer cities the option of annexation when the economic base shrinks to a perilous level. But not Virginia. Cities were stripped of that safety net by powerful suburban and rural interests which, in too many cases, were motivated by antipathy to racial integration.

More than a quarter-century ago, former Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. of Suffolk, a conservative through and through, recognized the impending peril of a government structure in which cities and counties were increasingly isolated.

Writing about Godwin in a book on Virginia governors, historian James L. Bugg Jr. noted: ``Godwin viewed the problems of the suburbs and central cities as interrelated and contended that future progress of both depended upon the continued health of each.

``Yet his efforts in 1966 to create planning districts encompassing cities, counties, and towns were rejected by the General Assembly. Three years later, he warned of eventual disaster if local officials continued to sponsor the development of independent suburban communities adjacent to core cites.''

Ever so slowly, some government leaders are recognizing the truth of Godwin's message. Organizations have sprung up such as the Urban Partnership, which seeks to reward cities and suburbs that form joint public-policy ventures.

But there is strong opposition to providing the Urban Partnership anything beyond token funding. Meanwhile, mere discussion of the sorts of institutional changes that could bring cities and counties into full partnership remains taboo.

Meanwhile, the disparities continue. As noted by the Commission on Local Government: ``The average city endured greater fiscal stress than the typical county regardless of its geographic location, population level, or demograhpic growth rate.''

Stress is computed through a formula that assesses available revenue, the extent to which resources are being tapped and the income levels of residents.

According to the report, 88 percent of all cities generated stress scores higher than the statewide average. Sixty-five percent of counties had stress levels lower than the norm.

For the past nine years, the commission has been making essentially the same report: Virginia's cities are under enormous stress. Someday, somehow, politicians need to find the courage to denounce a government structure which ensures that result.

Virginia will never reach its fullest potential until they do.

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