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The
group of community, business and political leaders
gathered at The George Washington University on
May 30 were looking for a big idea. The setting
was a forum meant to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the formation of the Greater
Washington Council of Governments (GWCOG) by
taking looks back to 1957 and forward to 2057. Rob
Lang, director of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan
Institute in Alexandria, delivered the idea with
his concept of a “megapolitan” area stretching
from Baltimore through the District of Columbia
and Northern Virginia to include Richmond. Lang
calls it Chesapeake.
For
Dr. Lang, Chesapeake already has emerged. Existing
metropolitan areas are converging as
communications and transportation links expand.
Workers are living in one metro area and commuting
to another. Baltimore to D.C.? Louisa to Crystal
City? Front Royal to Tysons? Occoquan to Richmond?
No problem. Geographies and cultural links
encourage larger-scale regional planning. Didn’t
Virginia just suggest regional transportation
authorities and financing to its two most populous
regions?
Counties,
not cities, are the major population and
employment centers. Think Henrico, Fairfax, Prince
William, Hanover, Arlington, Loudoun,
Spotsylvania, Stafford, Chesterfield and
Montgomery and Prince Georges in Maryland. Lang
and his colleagues already see New England,
Piedmont, Gulf Coast, Sun Corridor Arizona and
other megapolitan areas. With high-speed rail
added to broadband, housing and commercial
activity one place is easily accessible to workers
and entertainment in another.
Exactly
what might Chesapeake look like in 2057 based on
both places and flows? George Mason University
Professor of Public Policy and Regional
Development, Stephen Fuller, helped fill out the
picture: 9.9 million people, 8.8 million jobs, a
gross regional product of $1.762 trillion.
How
would this happen? As the ending to "The
Sopranos" suggests (with apologies to T.S.
Eliot and his 1925 poem, "The Hollow
Men"), things happen less with a bang than
with a whimper. Lang suggests that the power
resides in the U.S. Census Bureau, which
matter-of-factly keeps track of growth, movement
of jobs and workers, new connections, emergence of
similar or reinforcing clusters of economic
activity and such. At some point the analysts at
the Bureau officially recognize the new area or
region. As Lang’s work in years past suggests,
when the Census Bureau formally recognizes a
geographic concept, it gains power. A Census
Bureau designation of “Chesapeake” would act
as a catalyst and send businesses and workers who
might not have thought of themselves as connected
running to get better connected. Can a Greater
Chesapeake Chamber of Commerce be far behind?
What
are the threats to Chesapeake emerging? Both
Fuller and Lang agree that supply and availability
of housing are critical. Fuller suggests that the
existing Greater Washington metropolitan area, for
example, needs to construct 55,000 more housing
units each year than it currently is seeing.
Without housing in the region, workers living
outside the region will fill the jobs, while
boosting sprawl and choking existing
transportation systems. Super commutes from West
Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware already are
the norm.
Sprawl
not only compounds problems, it disburses the
resources that need to be aggregated to make new
interregional investments and the densities to
make things work. How will Chesapeake be able to
invest in a timely way in new transportation
networks, such as the high- speed rail Lang sees
as essential from the fastest-growing areas to
existing business and commercial centers? That
brings thinkers to the political dimension, which
often resembles The Twilight Zone.
Fuller
suggests local governments need to encourage more
housing, which homebuilders want to build, and
more density in mixed-use developments. Political
leaders tend to fear the voices of the 25 percent
of people who want to go back to 1957, while
under-informing the other 75 percent who could be
champions of change. Lang thinks commercial
developers should be coaxed into the affordable
housing solution, too, since the average income
workers who service and staff their buildings
often are the ones frozen out of local housing
markets that are artificially limited by local
governments. Zoning tools rest at the local
government levels, but Chesapeake would need to
round up dozens of jurisdictions including
different states. Where would the regional leaders
for such a scale be found and encouraged when
parochial political combat seems more prevalent
than ever?
If
gasoline stays cheap and people do not value their
time, Fuller told the forum, then perhaps the
larger Chesapeake (or the existing metropolitan
areas) can make it to 2057 without a lot of worry.
But without a change in key trend lines, Fuller
adds, things get worse for many as they get better
for others. The average household income in the
Greater Northern Virginia region, for example, is
$137,600, while the average home sells for
$477,000. Fuller calculates that the home price in
2007 is about 3.5 times annual income. Of
trend-lines are unchanged over 50 years, Fuller
estimates, the home price will be 11.7 times
annual income. Average household income could
reach $1.3 million in 50 years, but the average
price of a home would be $14 million.
But
of course, gasoline is not staying cheap. Energy
is becoming more expensive and supplies more
uncertain. People, too, are discovering
increasingly that time is their most finite
resource. They want more transportation choices
that cut their time in traffic or on the train.
And they don’t want future development and
economic growth to come at the expense of their
health or that of their children.
The
convergence of these concerns – housing costs,
transportation options, energy use and a clean
environment – could prompt some new leadership,
cross-cutting solutions, innovative technologies
and investments at the megapolitan scale. The Bay
may not be the only Chesapeake at stake.
--
June 19, 2007
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