The State of Columbia

In an election day "Aside," Ryan Avent opines in The Bellows about the politics of the region today, and the idea of regional government and/or a regional state. Alas, since state borders are pretty sacrosanct, I don't expect much change other than through civil war (e.g., West Virginia, pro-Union, calved off from Virginia, pro-Confederate, back in the day).

Where his ideas are "radical" concern going beyond regional planning, which is done already, at least for transportation, through the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, to taxation.

The point Ryan makes is that regional issues centered around the core of the region/the center city can be fundamentally different from broader state issues. So that Marylanders abutting DC care more and are impacted more by DC than what happens in Perryville, or that Northern Virginians might be a little less concerned about Roanoke or coal mining, etc. And that we need our issues addressed, and that the average outstate legislator may not be too concerned about DC regional issues.
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In fact this is why I write about Maryland and Virginia issues a lot more than I ever expected. As it relates to Maryland, DC is physically connected to Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. And while we aren't physically connected to Virginia (unless you count that the full Potomac River is within DC's boundaries and therefore DC connects to Virginia at the western bank of the river) obviously it matters what they do.

For example, Virginia's screwed up transportation planning such as with the "Silver Line," which could have been used as an opportunity to both develop the support for dedicated NoVa transportation sales taxes as well as to work to address the Rosslyn Tunnel capacity issue. Neither is being addressed adequately, although the state gets to push forward ideology in transportation planning (paying private contractors to do it). In the meantime, the Rosslyn tunnel issue festers, and so does creating a dedicated funding source for WMATA.
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For a long time I've been meaning to write about a column by Christopher Hume of the Toronto Star about this issue, "Canada's city-states need more than lip service."

Hume, one of the best newspaper-based urban issues journalists in North America, writes:

In the future, the battles for independence will more likely be fought by cities than countries. Though it's only just starting, it is clear that traditional notions of nationality and nationhood are increasingly irrelevant in a world where wealth, power and people are concentrated in fast-growing metropolises.

In a highly developed England, the population was urbanized in the 1850s. But now the rest of the planet, especially the Third World, is undergoing the same process. As of this year, half the world's population lives in cities, and that shift is happening faster than ever before in human history. A city the size of Victoria, B.C., is added every week through rural-to-urban migration.

Yet everywhere one looks, municipal governance remains rooted in 19th century. Canada is no exception. Toronto's recent struggle with the province to obtain the powers it needs to deal with big-city realities is typical of a larger war now being waged around the globe.

Of course, in our region it is complicated by the state borders, as well as the Federal Government and its overall control of the District of Columbia.

It's very interesting to be taking a planning theory course now, and to see how the problems and the factional interests haven't changed all that much in 100+ years.

Also very interesting is the continued clamoring for public participation in the process. The recent events at Gallaudet, see "Signs of Revolution" (an excellent op-ed) and "At University for Deaf, Protesters Press Broader Demands," both from the New York Times, and even the protest about building housing in association with the Benning Branch library in DC--see "NE housing plan slammed" from the Washington Times--are at the root merely more examples of "the powers that be" making decisions without involving people effected and affected by the decisions.

From "Signs of Revolution":

Understanding this requires understanding that Gallaudet is much more than a university. Sometimes called “the deaf mecca,” it functions as the symbolic capitol of a minority culture long disenfranchised. In years past, deaf people were denied the right to inherit land, to bear children, to receive an education. Today, all too often they continue to be denied the right to access information and to speak for themselves.

Gallaudet is supposed to be the one place where deaf people can expect those rights in full. What really lies at the heart of the crisis is the protesters’ refusal to relinquish these basic, hard-won rights. The message was: don’t dismiss us, and don’t obfuscate.

With the library and housing, I think it's a good idea, and maximizes social and other objectives by better utilizing public assets. But by not involving the community in the process from the outset, they have poisoned the well and residents are focusing the ire on the mixed use revitalization idea, rather than the real problem, which was a failure to engage the community in the process in a substantive way.

Index Keywords: regional-thinking; civic-engagement