Lately there’s been a lot of talk about regionalism, or the lack of it.
On Oct. 2, the Richmond Times-Dispatch hosted one its “Public Square” forums to address the issue at its production facility at Atlee Station in Hanover.
From published accounts, it would seem that many of the speakers were government officials or business types, who by the nature of their occupations, would be expected to promote greater regional cooperation.
What seemed to be lacking, at least in these published accounts, was comment from the “average” citizens of the various localities, whose lives would also be affected by any fundamental shift in regional cooperation policy.
All this nebulous theorizing must leave many “average” citizens with a headache.
After all, how does one define a “region?”
We hear the term “metro Richmond area” used as if it were an official designation. It may well be, for all this writer knows, perhaps used for statistical analysis by state or federal agencies.
But the fact of the matter is, there is no region.
There is just an arbitrary grouping of local governments that may sometimes have common interests, but sometimes may not. Richmond City, Henrico County, Chesterfield County and Hanover County are most often assumed to be members of this ad-hoc “region.”
Yet nowhere does the border of Hanover touch the city of Richmond, the nucleus of the region and source of most of the problems the regionalism concept seems designed to solve.
And this is where it gets confusing.
What are the goals of this constant talk of the need for more regionalism, and how will the citizens of Hanover benefit? And what are the proposed solutions?
One speaker in the Sunday’s Times-Dispatch Commentary front page of quotes from the meeting urged the General Assembly to divide Richmond in two and give half of it to Chesterfield and half to Henrico. Or, reinstate annexation and allow Richmond to grab land and taxpayers at will.
One hopes the speaker was merely indulging in a little rhetorical hyperbole to get the discussion flowing.
If not, he illustrates exactly what many residents of surrounding counties may have thought about Richmond’s problems, and the concept of regionalism. Which is that the city thinks the “region” should bail them out with some of its tax revenue, and help the city pay for its social services and finance its high per pupil school costs, among other things.
Another speaker said it was silly for Richmond to close schools, while surrounding counties like Henrico and Chesterfield spend big bucks to build new ones.
The only implication one could draw from that statement is that students from the counties could be educated in some of the only partially used city schools.
With the current battle raging between the city school board and emperor (excuse me) Mayor Doug Wilder, mention of regional cooperation between school systems could hardly come at a worse time.
The conflicts between the mayor and the school board and city council will be settled in the courts, unless the suggestion of another local publication on its most recent cover for a recall of the mayor goes forward, but meanwhile it’s sort of an embarrassing time to be encouraging reluctant county governments to intertwine their fates with a city that doesn’t seem able to govern itself, much less take part in some grand region-wide scheme.
So, when it comes to regionalism, caution should be the watchword when forming plans for cooperation.
If local leaders want suburban citizens to ever buy in to the regionalism concept, they must come up with clear, limited concepts and show how their plans benefit both Richmond and the counties, while not threatening suburban localities’ freedom to control their own future.
