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I'm having some therapy on my shoulder, which involves the therapist stretching my arm into positions that make me say “Yeeooww!” or less printable things. She does most of that work right at the border where comfort ends and pain starts.
I think there's a metaphor in this that involves political borders, too.
We live in a patchwork of political entities separated by borders that often seem arbitrary. I mean, the soil is the same on both sides of the N.C.-S.C. line.
Sometimes it's easy to see why the borders were put there. Rivers form many state or county borders. A few centuries ago, when Europeans were mapping colonies and states, a river was an obvious barrier.
But these days those borders sometimes cause big problems, especially when you consider the way the environment and the economy work.
The Catawba River that once made it hard to get from Gaston County to Mecklenburg is, today, easily crossed many times a day by people who earn money on one side, live on another and spend their money all over.
Environmentally, the Catawba is threatened by pollution rolling in from both sides. Further, population growth is causing worries that there won't be enough of the river's water to go around.
Multiple entities – two states and numerous local jurisdictions – control the river's banks. Cooperation across those borders is essential to sensible stewardship of its water.
It's taken decades to get people in the Charlotte region to realize it's a connected entity, something larger than a spattering of places with differing identities and histories. Not everyone buys into regionalism, of course, but you can hear the mantra of “regional cooperation” from the lips of many area politicians, even if actions don't always support words.
Of course plenty of folks are suspicious of regionalism, because they assume it must mean another level of government. But get ready. We're going to be hearing even more about regions, especially the next big idea: Megaregions.
Think about it. The U.S. government is built on geographic units (state borders, county lines, city limits) that make it harder, not easier, to address things like metro economies, environmental issues, transportation and growth.
Yet the economy functions at a city-region level. Bruce Katz, who directs the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, says metro area economies are what drive the U.S. economy. “There is no national economy,” he says. “We really are a network of metro economies.”
This week, a group of business leaders, academics and four mayors – including Charlotte's Pat McCrory, Gastonia's Jennie Stultz and Atlanta's Shirley Franklin – met in Charlotte to talk about what's being called the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion, an urbanizing area from Birmingham, Ala., to Raleigh. They chewed over whether and how all the megaregion's entities should start talking to each other.
It's one of McCrory's pet projects, and he makes the point that mayors are, in many ways, better positioned than governors to collaborate. Governors have too many political issues swirling, and in many states cities lack much legislative clout.
They talked about water. They talked about transportation, including proposed high-speed passenger rail from Washington to Atlanta, and about ports and about jobs. They'll meet again in October and start work on a vision for the megaregion.
For many people, this is all quite threatening. Some fear too much government (although no new government is proposed). Some fear a loss of local identity. Some probably are just wary of anything politicians are for.
But if we, as a society, are going to tackle the problems of polluted water and air, of building the nuts-and-bolts things we all need like highways and railroads and bridges and transit systems, not to mention reviving our economy, we have to enlarge the way we think about where we live.
During the Charlotte Chamber's inter-city “visit” in June, the Chamber crowd heard Mac Holladay, an Atlanta-based economic development expert, talk about megaregions.
“Isn't it time to work together to accomplish what you can't accomplish alone?” he challenged them. “I live in a state with 159 counties. Lord Almighty. We know this isn't working.”
My therapist is making me do exercises to strengthen my shoulder. And when you work your muscles, you have to stretch them, too, although – believe me – it gets uncomfortable.
To get stronger – whether it's shoulders or cities – we have to stretch past our comfort zones, push beyond old limits and expand those borders.
Mary Newsom is an associate editor at the Observer, mnewsom@charlotteobserver.com or P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308.
