No vision, no heart, no chance

Beginning in the early 1990s, area delegations flew to the Twin Cities, Cincinnati, Portland, Ore., and Jacksonville, Fla., as part of an effort to make the Richmond region greater than the sum of its parts.

This nascent stab at regional cooperation by area business and political leaders included the hiring of a Texas-based consultant, Jim Crupi, who in a no torious report bluntly enumerated the region's shortcomings.

Last year, Crupi returned to flog the region again for its chronic underachievement and lack of vision. He urged Greater Richmond to spend the next 12 months developing a plan.

It hasn't happened.

Regional leaders cite the sagging economy as a reason for the inaction. But let's be real: We've been at this since the dawn of the Clinton administration, and the region remains mired in many of the same problems we faced in 1993.

Good things have happened involving bricks and mortar -- an expanded airport, convention center and Virginia Commonwealth University among them. But 15 years after the report that made Crupi infamous, our lack of regional cohesion is as pronounced as ever. And most pathetic of all, we're still looking for outsiders to tell us what we should be.

It's not as if Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., who spoke here Tuesday, lacks sound advice. But instruction is no substitute for vision and will. Instead, we're constantly searching for answers we already know.

The region lacks not only a galvanizing vision, but even an iconic image to rally behind. Our civic slogans could well be "No, We Can't!" or "Change, We Don't Believe In."

It's not as if we don't have tons of raw material to fashion something special. Our history is compelling, our housing stock distinctive. Does any other urban downtown have whitewater rapids running through it?

But we've been curiously slow to capitalize on a history that is challenging to interpret. The James River is our ticket, but we refuse to cash it in. Too much prime riverfront property is off-limits to the public.

We know the problems.

A major difference between Richmond and Charleston, Charlotte, N.C., and Raleigh, N.C., is that those cities are in a county. Few folks here are interested in discussing, much less addressing, the limitations that independent-city status places on Richmond and the region.

Public education in Richmond, despite improved test scores, remains a problem. But the state of the city's schools is a symptom of the disease of poverty -- an affliction the surrounding counties hope (against reality) to keep contained to the inner city. Mass transit is another example of the suburbs' desire to box less-affluent residents in a separate reality.

What ails us can't be cured by outsiders. We've got to start behaving like a real region -- a community of shared interests -- instead of self-interested parties.

Fifteen years after being called out by Crupi, Greater Richmond's potential remains stunted by a paucity of leadership, imagination and something more disturbing -- the heart and compassion required to make the region whole.

Until that changes, we'll remain Lesser Richmond.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .