Why Regionalism Never Works
For as long as I can remember, there has been a great deal of talk around the Roanoke Valley about regional cooperation, but in my lifetime I have witnessed very few concrete results. The current debate over the location of an intermodal freight facility in Elliston gives us a clear example of why progress is so hard to come by, and why results are so few and far between.
After years of study, Norfolk Southern and the State of Virginia have determined that the Elliston site is the only feasible location for the freight yard. The only hitch is that the people of Elliston clearly don’t want it there, and the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has vowed to do everything in their power to stop it.
Over the past several weeks, those in favor of the Elliston site have made a number of public pronouncements, indicating that the people of Elliston need to “suck it up” or “take one for the team.” Roanoke City Councilman Bev Fitzpatrick says “one government cannot keep this region from moving forward.” I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, that doesn’t sound much like regional cooperation.
The fact of the matter is that the projected benefits of the facility are expected to provide an economic boost for a region encompassing nine counties, but the people of Elliston are the only ones who are being asked to pay the price in terms of quality of life and environmental issues. Rather than bullying the citizens of Elliston into accepting a project that will dramatically alter their landscape and their way of life, our elected leaders have an opportunity to demonstrate the true meaning of cooperation.
State and local governments routinely use incentives to attract businesses to a region, but we are now faced with the opposite problem. How do you encourage a town to accept a business they don’t want? Instead of demanding that the people of Elliston suck it up, why not ask them what we can offer in return? If the governing bodies of the region are so convinced that the facility is vital to our economic health, let them demonstrate their confidence in the project by offering a package of incentives to the town of Elliston. Money for local schools, or for preservation of other green space in the surrounding area just might make the project palatable. With that kind of regional cooperation, we might actually get something accomplished.
Hi Chris – Your post on regionalism is an important part of the discussion required for multiple localities to act as regional communities. I find this going on all over the U.S. and the world. A link to this post will be in the next issue of Regional Community Development News. It will be on-line May 8 at http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the resources, perhaps try the Search engine and even consider a link. Cheers. Tom
I’d go a step further and venture that Norfolk Southern should be the one offering incentives. I also believe the localities are missing a prime opportunity to get NS to give back to the community. Besides throwing bucks around for local goodies, the entire region should be pushing to get passenger rail service back. With a full time passenger station in operation in Roanoke the entire SWVA could benefit from it. For that matter, if Elliston wanted the station that would work too. If they all worked together to make this happen and move SWVA forward, now that would be regionalism at its best.