The big city that could have been

Imagine Richmond as a Top 40 city with 500,000 residents, 307 square miles and downtown Short Pump swelling the municipal coffers.

It could have happened.

Forty-seven years ago yesterday, residents in Richmond and Henrico County voted on a proposed merger. Richmond voters endorsed the plan by a more than 2-to-1 margin. But in Henrico, the measure was soundly defeated.

Because the merger could not go through without the support of both jurisdictions, the plan died.

The vote of Dec. 12, 1961, set the region on the uncertain course it travels today.

Back then, area business leaders, seeking the establishment of "a large, first-class city," hired a consultant to study a Richmond-Henrico merger.

"It was very vigorously supported by the city business leaders," said Nelson Wikstrom, a professor of political science and public administration at Virginia Commonwealth University who covers the merger in his book "County Manager Government in Henrico, Va.: Implementation, Evolution and Evaluation."

Other than growth and more efficient government, an objective of the merger was to stunt black political power, Wikstrom said. Naturally, most black city voters opposed the measure.

Meanwhile, some county residents balked at the idea of higher taxes, and county officeholders turned against the proposal. Tuckahoe was the only district to support the plan, which received huge opposition in eastern Henrico.

Some of those residents owned farms, were less cosmopolitan and more change-averse than western Henrico residents. "They weren't so wild about becoming part of the city," Wikstrom said.

Rebuffed at the polls, the city filed a suit seeking to annex an area home to 115,000 of the county's 123,000 residents. In January 1965, the Supreme Court of Virginia awarded the city 16 square miles and about 45,000 residents on the condition that Richmond compensate Henrico with $55 million. The City Council promptly rejected the award.

"In retrospect, I can say the Henrico officials were delighted that Richmond officials turned down the award," Wikstrom said. "That allowed them to move ahead without any fear of annexation."

Many city political leaders would call the rejection of the award "perhaps the worst mistake the city ever made," Wikstrom said.

A state moratorium on annexation made the matter moot. Now the balance of power between city and suburbs has shifted so precipitously that the idea of a merger is outlandish.

"I can say with certainty, as far as the city of Richmond growing bigger through annexation and merger, it won't happen," Wikstrom said. The "legacy of hostility" between the city and its suburban neighbors "is just too strong to overcome."

Still, Wikstrom called the outcome of the 1961 vote pivotal.

"If the merger had come about, then a lot of the other developments that followed would not have taken place," he said. Without the merger, Henrico County boomed and black political power in Richmond blossomed.

But was the outcome ultimately good for the region?

"Whether or not it was good for the region, I'd be more ambivalent," Wikstrom said. "I could see great things coming out of the region if that merger had worked."

Can we see great things coming out of the region under our current setup?
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .