Can we talk?

This month, as you may have heard, Louisville, Kentucky,
leaped from 67th to 16th on the list of the largest cities in the US.

                  Well,
it wasn’t exactly one fell swoop; the jump — which happened because the city
and county governments merged — was the result of an election in 2000. Which
was the result of intensive, highly professional campaigning. Which followed
three previous elections, dating back to 1956, in which voters defeated merger
proposals.

                  Now
Louisville has joined the big time. It is, of course, still Louisville.
People still live in the same neighborhoods they lived in before. But B. Riggs Lewis,
a Louisvillian who visited Rochester last week, is convinced the merger will
make a difference. Will give Louisville clout. Will move the region forward.
Will spur economic development.

                  Lewis,
as an official of Louisville’s Chamber of Commerce, worked on the Unity
campaign that led to the 2000 merger vote. (His Rochester talk, outlining
Louisville’s road to metro, was sponsored by the Downtown Community Forum of
St. Mary’s Church, the Common Good Planning Center, and the League of Women
Voters.)

                  Louisville-Jefferson
County and Rochester-Monroe have a good bit in common. Both cities are heavily
Democratic. Both counties, outside their cities, vote Republican. Political
squabbling between city and county has been common and is blamed for the
communities’ lack of progress. (During the Unity campaign, said Lewis, the
Louisville Courier-Journal ran an editorial cartoon showing a tandem
bike, one piece headed in one direction, the other in the opposite.)

                  In
Louisville-Jefferson County, there was stagnation. And malaise. An attitude
that the community couldn’t get anything done. “We were a defeated city,” said
Lewis.

                  Obviously,
it’s too early to tell whether Louisville will now be able to get things done.
But, said Lewis, the merger “has given us a sense of purpose, a vision.” And
the experience of other metropolitan governments (Nashville, Indianapolis, and
Toronto, for instance) is that things do happen.

Does Louisville offer any lessons for Rochester?
Despite the similarities, the two counties aren’t completely alike. In some
areas, Louisville-Jefferson was ahead of us before the merger (or not,
depending on your feelings about metro).

                  The
city and county had already agreed on the importance of a single
economic-development effort, and together had contracted out that
responsibility to the Chamber of Commerce. The city and county school districts
merged 30 years ago. Land-use planning was handled on a countywide basis
prior to the city-county merger.

                  Still,
the idea of a single city-county government had not been overwhelmingly
popular. Many elected officials had fought it. Louisville’s African-American
leaders worried about losing minority representation on the new county council.

                  A
1956 merger proposal was trounced at the polls: City residents supported it 60
to 40 percent, but suburban and rural residents defeated it 72 to 28 percent. A
1982 proposal lost narrowly, 50.4 to 49.6 percent. But a proposal the next year
lost by a bit more: 51.5 to 48.5 percent.

                  The
issue was drainingly divisive, Lewis said. But it didn’t die. By the late
1990s, more and more community leaders and activists were convinced that only a
major change could turn the region around. And the business community stepped
forward, contributing heavily to the $1.5 million Unity campaign. US Senator
Mitch McConnell helped lead the campaign.

                  “The
business community came,” said Lewis, “because it was our last chance.”

                  Business
leaders in Greater Rochester continue to be silent — although it was no small
thing that last week’s audience included Tom Mooney, CEO of the Rochester
Business Alliance (the merged Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Management
Council).

                  Mooney
has had a highly publicized break with the most adamant of local metro
opponents, County Executive Jack Doyle. The issue, apparently, was Doyle’s
management style. But Mooney and other business leaders are quite obviously
worried: A region that was once dynamic, growing, and innovative, attracting
talent from throughout the country, is in decline, and nothing seems to be working
to reverse it.

                  Some
of us think some form of metro government offers hope. But in Rochester-Monroe,
regionalism is considered a political issue. Flaky liberal Democrats favor it.
The Republicans who talk about it hate it.

                  In
some other areas of the country, Republicans have embraced regionalism.
Louisville’s merger was the result of a broad, bipartisan effort; Unity leader
Mitch McConnell is a Republican, as is Lewis.

And there’s another lesson: There’s no one, single
form of “merger.” “Before we talk about merger,” Lewis said as he opened his
Rochester talk, “drop your concepts.” Communities can develop mergers in a
variety of ways.

                  Louisville’s
merger combined city and county governments into one. It did not affect the
governments of the numerous — 90! — little incorporated “cities” in
Jefferson County. Some of them consist of only 500 homes, with no commercial
center.

                  In
metro Louisville, those little neighborhoods are still individual, incorporated
municipalities, with their own zoning regulations and whatever. If residents
want to keep paying the costs of running their own little government, they can
do so. If they want to be incorporated into Louisville, they can do that, too.
It’s up to them.

                  The
point is, there’s no one “right” kind of metropolitan government.
Rochester-Monroe could create whatever it wanted. The important thing is to
look at what’s standing in the way of progress. It makes no sense to let
housing and commercial development eat up valuable open space out in the
country while buildings and land stand abandoned in the city and older suburbs.
Having the city and its suburbs fight over development is just nuts.

                  For
years, we’ve tried to move forward as a group of separate little
municipalities. We’ve lost businesses. We’ve lost talented young people. We’ve
lost open space. We’ve squandered opportunities. Some communities have found
other ways to govern. We could, too.

                  Can’t
we at least talk about that?

                  Want to comment? Write
or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250 North
Goodman Street, Rochester 14607. Please include your name, address, and daytime
phone number.

This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2003.