Before the year ends, Gov. Abigail Spanberger will announce her administration’s comprehensive economic development agenda, as is customary during the first year of a governor’s four-year term. In the executive order launching the planning process, Spanberger called for a “whole of government approach” involving every secretariat in the executive branch.
The order reinforced priorities that have long shaped the commonwealth’s stated policy. Among them is the goal of growing “an economy that delivers for every Virginian” by lowering costs, improving access to affordable housing and childcare, expanding career pathways, and “ensuring every region of Virginia wins.”
This sounds wonderful, but what does it mean in practice? What would it take for every region of Virginia to win, and how would we know?
Fifty years ago, economic developers used a simple formula for winning: Attract capital investment to create jobs, whose wages would circulate through the local economy, creating more jobs and investment and, ultimately, a thriving community.
Attracting capital investment is still essential. But economic developers have learned that communities can’t attract jobs and investment if they can’t attract and retain workers.
So, what attracts workers? That’s not complicated. Workers want communities with a high quality of life.
That means thriving businesses with good jobs; high-quality housing in safe neighborhoods with clean water; easy access to groceries, good schools, childcare and healthcare; reliable energy, internet and transportation; and walkable community centers, parks and recreational opportunities.
A winning region, then, is made up of communities that offer a high quality of life. That is what the governor’s order calls for and what the commonwealth has officially been pursuing.
Virginia has approached this goal through multiple agencies, each tasked with advancing some component of a high-quality community. Each follows its own measures of success, whether for industrial site development, affordable housing, food access, healthcare, workforce training or downtown development.
And that is the problem.
Talented people are doing excellent work, but much of it remains fragmented and siloed at the state level, and those divisions are often mirrored locally. What it all amounts to for each region, and whether each region is winning, we don’t know.
The solution? Lean into our stated policy priority of ensuring that every region wins. Instead of pursuing siloed state and local efforts, Virginia should take a convergent approach, one in which housing, workforce, infrastructure and business development are planned together, region by region, toward a shared goal: communities with a high quality of life.
We do not need more agencies. We need clear expectations that put convergent regional development into practice at every level of government.
The policy priorities in the governor’s plan — developed with strong Cabinet-level participation and backed by real investment in the state budget — should be the first step. A whole-of-government approach will require strong interagency agreements and new ways of working.
But alignment among state agencies is not enough. Policy is carried out beyond Richmond, and every region has different needs and priorities. Convergent regional development requires aligning local and regional organizations just as closely as state agencies.
Where to start? Task each region with devising its own holistic strategy for winning. Building on the governor’s economic development plan, the commonwealth should set guidelines for developing holistic, winning regional strategies without dictating their content. It should also require meaningful participation from stakeholders, including the local governments that make up each region.
There is no need to start from scratch. We have regional organizations, such as planning district commissions and GO Virginia regions. They are skilled at regional collaboration, but they have suffered the effects of program siloing, underfunding and other limitations. They know what their communities need. That knowledge simply has not been organized and focused around comprehensive regional strategies.
The commonwealth must charge regions with pursuing convergent development — aligning the components of community quality of life and establishing clear regional metrics to gauge success.
Will it work? One key will be strong, consistent support. This need not be an expensive undertaking, but it will require steady funding over time. Too often, the commonwealth has launched promising regional initiatives and organizations, only to cut their funding once its attention shifts to the next new idea.
The formula for support is simple: Fund the regions that organize and do the work. Provide meaningful technical assistance to those that lack the organizational capacity or personnel to carry it out consistently.
Could all of this be accomplished within one four-year gubernatorial term? No. But it need not take a decade, either. The pieces are in place. What we need is sustained state leadership and a commitment to fulfilling the promise that every region can win.
Other states have taken steps in this direction. Their efforts show that the idea is neither strange nor unrealistic. It’s an idea whose time has come.
John Accordino is emeritus professor of urban and regional planning at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. John Provo is executive director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement.
