Michael Pope

Welcome to Transition Virginia, the podcast that examines the ongoing transition of power in Virginia. I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman

I'm Thomas Bowman. Today on the podcast, the tension between urban Virginia and rural Virginia. Later in the podcast, we'll hear from John Provo at Virginia Tech about a project they've been working on to explore that urban/rural divide. But before we get to that, Michael, you and I have both been traveling the last month and with podcast magic, we've managed to only miss a few regular episodes.

Michael Pope

Only a few.

Thomas Bowman

But we're back now and we'll resume our normal weekly schedule for anybody who missed us. Michael, what were you up to?

Michael Pope

Went to Ocean City to enjoy the beach, some beer, mini golf.

Thomas Bowman

Ocean City, Maryland?

Michael Pope

Ocean City, Maryland. Yes, I love Ocean City. It's fun. And so like they've got all these classic arcade games. I love playing Galaga. I'm not really a beach person, but I did get some sun, meaning that I'm a slightly less pale shade of white. There's a hint of pink in there. And so now, I wouldn't say that I'm tanned, rested, and ready to go. But I'm pinkish, maybe, and rested, and ready to go. But it is good to be back. How about yourself?

Thomas Bowman

Well, I had two weeks of bouncing between family reunions and my wife and I managed to sneak a honeymoon in between.

Michael Pope

Nice!

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, finally. We got married right at the beginning of the pandemic and we had to elope instead of having a big party. And so we were supposed to do two weeks in Morocco back in April of 2020. Obviously, that didn't happen. And so the first week of our vacation, we went down to Surfside Beach, right below Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, with my mom's side of the family and that was great. We rented the same house that they've been renting since, you know, the 1970s. And just like you, I have a little Scotch and Irish in me, and not enough that I have red hair, or look like it, but I go from pale, white reflective, to lobster, just like you. So I avoided getting burnt for the first time probably in my life this year. And then we decided to take five days in Asheville, celebrating, I guess, like, we called it a, "mini moon." And there's some cool stuff in Asheville. I highly recommend you go. Great food, a lot of Japanese food actually, Michael. So if you like that, you can't go wrong in Asheville. And a lot of breweries, Wicked Weed was outstanding. And then we went to my dad's house in Charlotte and had Hunter family reunion, and then my aunt's house in Greensboro to have a Bowman family reunion. So that...we're all reunioned out. Now we're back two weeks later. But I was gone and I was unplugged, and it felt nice. So like Michael, catch me up. What, uh, what did I miss over these last few weeks?

Michael Pope

Well, we're about to head into a Special Session, a very Special Session where lawmakers get to spend more than $4 billion. So it's a huge spending spree that the lawmakers get to spend all this federal stimulus money and you know, in advance of leading up into that Special Session, the Governor keeps making these announcements about how he wants to spend chunks of that money. So he made an announcement about spending a lot of it on broadband, for example, he made an announcement about spending some of it for small businesses development grants. And he's made a number of these kind of announcements.

Thomas Bowman

I saw he proposed to spend around nearly $500 million on improving mental health hospitals.

Michael Pope

Yes. So I get the sense, every time the Governor makes an announcement, what's really going on, behind the scenes, is that he's cut a deal with Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate. And so if you think about that $4.3 billion as a pie, every time the Governor makes an announcement, he's taking a slice out of that pie. And so I think we've already gotten to a point where a majority of that pie has already been taken away. I think about $3 billion, I think if you add up what the Governor has announced, it's somewhere around $3 billion. So that's not, we're not all the way there yet. So I think, in terms of the timing of how long is this Special Session going to last? In terms of the money part of it, it really comes down to, can the Governor, and House Democrats, and Senate Democrats, come to an agreement on how to spend all this money before the gavel comes down? If they can come up with that agreement, we're talking about like a three day session, maybe a four day session. But if they don't come to an agreement before the Special Session starts, and the Senate Democrats can't agree with the House Democrats on how to spend this money, I think what we're likely to see happen is like a three day session, and then they go into a conference committee. And Thomas, I know, you're probably tired of hearing me say this, but I'm going to describe this conference committee as a secret closed door, not open to the public, not open to the press, conference committee where they make all these decisions in secret. This goes back to our first episode when I complained about this on the very first episode of Transition Virginia. And I will continue complaining about the secret closed door conference committee. So yeah, I mean, in terms of the timeline of this thing, either it's a three day session, and they they, in which case, they have already made an agreement before the gavel comes down, or it's three days of floor sessions, and then they go into like a conference committee where they try to resolve the differences between the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats. What's your suspicion on whether or not House Democrats and Senate Democrats can find some sort of common ground with each other before the Special Session starts?

Thomas Bowman

Well, from what you described, Michael, it actually sounds like a much more normal Special Session compared to, if you recall, last year, that COVID Session, which dragged on and on and on, weeks became months, I believe, and till they finally gaveled out. So what the political leadership of both parties prefer to do when they call a Special Session is to have everything worked out in advance, because they're not getting compensated as much to do these Special Sessions, compared to a regular session. And because Virginia is a part time legislature, they all need to go back to their day jobs, you know, those who have day jobs. And so it makes a lot of sense, from the leadership perspective, that they would want all the trains to move on time, and everything goes smoothly, and to have this back and forth, already kind of like stage managed, more or less. But to your question as to the House versus the Senate, I understand that Michael, nobody who isn't on one of the money committees is going to be able to make amendments? Like, fill me in on that.

Michael Pope

Yeah, there's lots of hurt feelings about this among Democrats and Republicans. So if you're not on one of the money committees, you're kind of shut out of this process. And you're not allowed to make amendments the way you would in a normal budget process. This process is going to be expedited in a way to make it run fast, and making it run fast means they're not really hearing amendments. And so the Republican's solution to that is they say they're going to offer floor amendments. But you know, by the time it gets to the floor, it's the 11th hour and you know, things have kind of already been worked out, and you can make a show out of it, but your your floor amendment's probably not going to go anywhere. So I would expect to see the Republicans not happy about the fact they could not make amendments, and instead, make some floor amendments and speeches about how they were cut out of the process. In fact, I can almost guarantee that's gonna happen. There are also Democrats who are unhappy with the fact that they can't make amendments either. I don't think you'll see them stand up on the floor and make speeches. But they have been sending me angry text messages, anonymously.

Thomas Bowman

I heard, not anonymously, I read I should say, that your member was particularly upset. I think I saw that on Twitter. Your Delegate, Mark Levine, is particularly upset that he can't make amendments, other than floor ones.

Michael Pope

Yeah. Well, I mean, the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate, have made the conclusion that they want to expedite this thing. And so their logic is, look, people are hurting. We're in the midst of a crisis. And Virginia needs to spend all this federal stimulus money as quickly as possible, to get it in the hands of people who need it. And in order to expedite that, and make it run as fast as possible, they're cutting out the amendment process. And so yeah, a lot of people are upset about that. But that's the way it's gonna work for this Special Session. And, you know, it's not just federal stimulus money, there's another part of the Special Session that hasn't received as much attention. But they will also be appointing a whole bunch of new appeals court judges. So earlier this year, the General Assembly took an action to expand the jurisdiction of the Virginia Court of Appeals, because most people don't know this, but Thomas, Virginia is the only state in the country where you're not guaranteed a right to appeal your case. Some cases might be appealed, but then some other cases might never be appealed at all. And that means if the judge in your case made a mistake, or was corrupt, or had a bad decision, or you know, your case was flawed, for some reason, you don't have a right to have an appeal. And so the General Assembly decided that they wanted to expand the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals. So everybody is guaranteed the right to appeal. In order to do that, they created six new positions on the Appeals Court that did not previously exist. So one of the things they're going to do with a Special Session is fill these brand new positions. Now normally, when the General Assembly elects judges, they're filling, you know, vacancies, right? This is different because they're filling brand new positions that had not previously existed. Meanwhile, they also happen to have two vacancies on the Appeals Court, they will also be filling. One has been vacant for quite some time. It's the Rossie Alston seat. And then there's another Appeals Court judge that's going to retire later this year. So actually, we'll be appointing eight Appeals Court judges, six new positions and two vacancies. So I would expect to see lots of drama on that, because Republicans feel like Democrats are packing the court here, and filling it up with people who are sympathetic to defense lawyers. And so I would imagine, we will also be hearing some speeches from Republicans about that. But this is one of those things where, you know, when you're in the minority, you know, you can shine a spotlight on things, and bring public attention to it. But you know, clearly they don't have the votes to stop any of these judges. But I would expect some drama about who's being appointed to these positions.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised to hear that Republicans would frame this as packing the court rather than what the Democrats want to frame it as, and I think rightly so, which is making sure everybody gets their due process in a state where, I guess we're the only one where people couldn't have their due process and appealing it. But, you know, I would push back against that framing. And the reason I push back against it is because after 27 years of Republican control, and the party, notoriously, I'm not breaking any news here, the party notoriously fixates on the judicial bench as a way to get favorable rulings, or to bat things down, that they don't like, in a format where they wouldn't necessarily be able to pass it through the legislature, because maybe an unfavorable executive, or they don't have enough votes in the ledge. And so I would push back against the Republican claim of court packing, to say that the courts are already packed. And it's salient, it's a point that'll definitely cut through to a lot of people who aren't really paying attention, or haven't been. In fact, if you recall, FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court, and even though he had all the power in the world at the time, that's the one thing he couldn't do, because it put too many people off. Right? So we know that this is going to be an effective claim from the Republicans, at least in theory. But again, I would frame it as the courts are already packed, in a way. And so what the Democrats are really doing, in addition to, you know, making sure that the residents of Virginia get their due process, and ability to appeal, is they're bringing balance back to the judiciary, for the first time in 30 years. And if you recall, it's really longer than that, because the Democratic Party of 30 years ago, is nothing like the Democratic Party of today.

Michael Pope

Yeah, you know, you you bring up the FDR court packing plan, which of course, he was not able to get through. And I think, I mean, there's lots of ways this circumstance is totally different, right, from what happened with FDR. But there also is a little bit of a similarity, which is when FDR wanted to add multiple judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was changing the composition of the court. So it was multiple judges being appointed all at the same time, with the expectation that that would change the composition of the court. So what's happening now is multiple judges are being elected. And the Democrats are not saying they want to change the composition of the judiciary. But, Republicans are saying, "Look, that's what's going to happen." And so, I mean, there are many ways that what's happening now, has nothing at all to do with the FDR court packing plan, but I think there is that little nugget of similarity there.

Thomas Bowman

I think it sticks out in people's brains, right? And so this is something that will likely come back up as we get closer to November, accusations of Democrats packing the court, because, you know, the average person doesn't want any party to pack to the court with, presumably their ideologues. And of course, it's important to understand that's not at all what's happening here. And we desperately need judicial reform. We've got a bunch of people sitting on the bench that just do not identify with the people that they are judging, at all, like through life circumstances, through economic circumstances, and that makes them not good people to have on the bench, frankly. And I'm speaking with a very broad brush. And I don't mean to insult the whole judiciary, because that's not what I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to say is, we need more balance, and we need more appellate judges that think differently from the cut and dry model from the last 30 years.

Michael Pope

Well, to that end, Thomas, there's another piece of this, which is really interesting. The current makeup of the existing Appeals Court judges, there are 11 of them, it's not a very diverse and balanced group. And what I mean by that is, if you look at geographic balance, there's nobody on the Court of Appeals, who lives West of Richmond. There's one person who's from Winchester, but that's the only Northern Virginia judge. That's the only Northern Virginia judge, this is one person from Winchester on the Court of Appeals. So there are Democrats who said, "Look, this is an opportunity to create some geographic balance on the Court of Appeals by making sure you got people from Southwest Virginia. And also, hey, make sure you get people from Northern Virginia, which is the population center of the Commonwealth." Also, not a lot of racial balance, or women on the court. This is also a really good opportunity to add some more women to the court, and add some more minorities to the court. And even Republicans will say "Yes, we need to make sure that the Court has a balance of women and minorities." So I think we can expect to see these six new positions, and two filled vacancies, to create some new regional balance from Southwest Virginia and Northern Virginia, and also add some women and minority judges to the Appeals Court.

Thomas Bowman

Well, this is a good segue to bring us back to that timeline question that you asked me about, what I thought, between the House and the Senate, or how long things would take. Traditionally, in a normal session, discussion of judicial appointments, and you know, the floor fight that you have over it, can take an entire day or two days, and you know, sometimes longer than that, in particularly contentious year. So if they're thinking they can do this Monday, through Wednesday, or Thursday, I would, just for the legislative like allocation of the federal stimulus, I would tack on at least a day, maybe two, for judicial appointments. And that's before you have the potential for Conference Committee, which takes as long as it needs to take.

Michael Pope

Yeah, and then there's also the wild card here of the minority, in this case, the Republicans, doing all of everything that they can, in terms of parliamentary tricks, to extend the length of this thing, you know?

Thomas Bowman

Yes.

Michael Pope

They can insist on the first reading, they can insist on the second reading, they can insist on the reading of the calendar. And so if they want to play that game, they can really drag this thing out for a very long period of time. They will be away from their day jobs and not making money. So I'm not really sure they want to go down that road, but they could if they wanted to.

Thomas Bowman

Well, and if they were to go down that road, it would be in line with the national strategy, which is just drag things out. I mean, inflict pain isn't really necessarily the right way to phrase it. But that's, you know, inflict pain, I guess is the best way you can. And to make it so everybody just wants to get out of there. Because when you get that dynamic going, people aren't paying attention to the policy as much, they just want to go home.

Michael Pope

Yeah, you know, there are a group of Republicans in Congress, who have recently been doing all kinds of parliamentary things to make everything go slower. So for example, if there's a bill that everybody agrees to, and part of their floor session, where they just sort of unanimously consent to something like, you know, the naming of a post office, or something that's not at all controversial, there is this group of Republicans that have been systematically insisting on recorded votes for every single bill, no matter what it's about. And that actually does gum up the process and make things go slower. There is a critical distinction there. Because those Republicans in Washington, that's their full time job, like they're in Washington and being a member of Congress is their full time job. These Republicans in the General Assembly, you know, they got to get back to their law office and make money.

Thomas Bowman

Right, yeah. So it'll be interesting. I would say I wouldn't be surprised either way. So I think three or four days is probably a little too optimistic, because there's too many Democrats who are going to be upset about being cut out of the process. And one thing I know about the Speaker, she likes to make sure everybody gets to have their say, or weigh in, and she is a consensus builder. And she likes to have consensus, at least among her Caucus members, before she moves forward with something. And so that, a lot of people like that, and a lot of people who want to move more quickly, get frustrated by that. And I, I wouldn't really ascribe a positive or negative connotation to that. It's just that's the way she likes to do business. And so planning for that, anticipating a budget difference, the Senate always wins, generally, when there's a difference of opinion between the House and the Senate in the budget. So the, that could either go quickly, or could take a long time. It just depends on how much communication Delegate Torian and Senator Howell, the two Money Committee Chairs, have had and how coordinated their efforts are. And so I'm glad to hear that the Governor is pre-scripting as much of these agreements as possible. So there's less to haggle over and fight over. And, you know, that should move things along. But I still say, you know, I would be surprised if it took two weeks, and certainly much more surprised if it took longer than that. But I would say anywhere between five business days to two weeks, somewhere in that line, is what I would expect.

Michael Pope

Well, you mentioned communication, we have been getting some communication about our podcast. And so we have voicemail, Thomas, from one of our listeners who wants to comment about a recent episode.

Trevor Southerland

Hey, Tommy Bowman, how's it going, brother, haven't heard from you in a little while. Listen, was looking through some episodes to the podcast. So you did one on the Mace. Amazing. Amazing. I can't believe you didn't have me on. Absolutely unacceptable. You did an episode about the House of Delegates Mace. You didn't have me on. Pennsylvania has a mace. We have two, we got two maces, yeah. You brought up South Carolina's sword. Yeah, yeah, great, great. South Carolina has a sword. Nobody cares. Can't believe you didn't have me on.

Michael Pope

That was, of course, the voice of Transition Virginia fan favorite, Trevor Southerland, who has not been on the podcast in a few episodes, and we need to have him back on. I didn't realize he was an expert on the Mace or the maces, plural, that they've got up there in Pennsylvania. But clearly, he's got something to say about it.

Thomas Bowman

Well, that's our mistake, Trevor. And, you know, the reason that we didn't invite you on to talk about the Mace, is because we don't really want to hear what Pennsylvanians have to say about their mace. For anybody who doesn't know, Trevor has moved on to greener pastures, and he is now helping out the House Dems in Pennsylvania. So good for Trevor, as far as he's concerned, it's definitely a promotion. And he can just stay there with his thoughts and opinions about Pennsylvanias two maces. Because that's redundant. We don't need that. We have the House Delegates, they're more important than the Senate, in my opinion, fighting words for the Senate. But it's just true, because we're older in the House, I was a House staffer. So I'm somewhat biased, but the House is older, the House, in Virginia, comes first. And so our, our mace here in Virginia, it's just naturally better, Trevor. So, you know, you can keep those opinions on your side of the Potomac. And we'll keep ours down here. Right? So we'll just fall into some old habits. So the thank you for playing that, Michael. I'm glad and I'm, I see I go away for two weeks, and we've changed up everything about Transition Virginia.

Michael Pope

If you want to send us a voicemail, it's really easy to do. On your smartphone, there is a voice recording app. Just record any kind of reaction you have to any of our episodes and send it to us, we might play it on the air.

Thomas Bowman

Alright, well, when we come back, we're going to hear from John Provo at Virginia Tech about their ongoing project to unpack the differences between urban Virginia and rural Virginia. That includes a book that will be out this fall, called, "Vibrant Virginia." And it also includes a bunch of panel discussions, including one that was moderated by Michael Pope. So more on that when we come back.

Michael Pope

And we're back on Transition Virginia. We're joined by the Director of the Center for Economic and Community Engagement at Virginia Tech. John Provo, thanks for joining us.

John Provo

Thank you. Good to be here.

Thomas Bowman

It's great to have you. And the folks at Virginia Tech have this project called Vibrant Virginia that is seeking to understand the urban/rural divide in Virginia. It's an ongoing project that has a lot of different pieces to it. Tell our listeners about Vibrant Virginia and what you're hoping to accomplish.

John Provo

Well, thanks. Sure. There's two big things and a lot of little parts, right? So the two big things are really unpacking urban and rural, helping us better understand connections, and disconnections, helping us better understand what we're even saying when we talk about urban and rural and all the places in between. And think about what we are doing right, or what we could do differently, to improve outcomes and opportunity in a policy space, or in other ways. We're also really working to better engage and create more, essentially, easy buttons for folks to engage with higher ed, to pursue positive change in their communities, whether urban, rural, or anything in between.

Michael Pope

So you mentioned that one of the aims of this project was to unpack urban and rural, and get a sense of like, what are we actually talking about when we use those words? One of the people involved in this project made a point that I thought was really salient, which is that the urban/rural divide in Virginia actually works differently than it does in most states, because Virginia doesn't have any large mega cities. So like, if you think about Maryland, has Baltimore. So the urban/rural divide, in Maryland, is between this huge city, Baltimore, and rural Maryland. So there's a huge urban/rural divide in Maryland, but in Virginia, there are no large cities. So does that change the dynamics of what we're talking about in terms of the urban/rural divide in Virginia?

John Provo

Well, I think it actually maybe highlights what's most interesting to me about this is that, you know, urban and rural are really defined by where you sit, in some ways. There's as many definitions for that in a researchers line of work if you want to find, but if you think about, you know, I used to think about explaining to faculty in our Northern Virginia campus locations, what it was like to come to rural Virginia, and the difference between bringing someone from Arlington down to Blacksburg, and taking someone from Arlington, you know, where they may think they've made a big trip to the country coming to Blacksburg, but then say, bringing a partner from Lee County up to visit our campus in Blacksburg. They're coming to a much more developed and urbanized area, even if it doesn't, you know, feel particularly urban to someone from the Greater Washington area, let's say. So really, for me, a lot of what I'm looking for is understanding how people perceive that density, how that impacts what they do in their industry, or what happens in a certain area social policy. And yes, the lack of a big mega city, versus the countryside maybe changes our politics a little bit. But certainly the the Nova/Rova distinctions come into play, as we think about what's, as you've talked about, what's going on and transitions around Capitol Square in Richmond and such, but from a researchers point of view, I do think it just sort of changes some of the framing and it really highlights, for me, that you know, it's all about relative density.

Thomas Bowman

That is a great point. And I find it fascinating because I used to live in Northern Virginia, and I'm from Fairfax. And at the time, I was living in Arlington. And when I was a staffer for the General Assembly, so you know, you come down to Richmond for Session, all of the rural delegation comes to Richmond, and many of the members or staffers will act like it's their first time in the big city, you know, and that influenced their behavior. Is that common that you found?

John Provo

The sort of a fish out of water phenomenon, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, you know, I think everybody makes a mental map around their daily living, right, whether it's about your commute, where you get your coffee, where you go to recreate. And when you pull yourself out of your regular day to day setting, you've got to rebuild your map. And I think that's kind of what we're talking about here. Because, you know, the shape of our economy has changed since, you know, I grew up, actually, in Fredericksburg, which used to be this little town in between Richmond and Northern Virginia, and is now definitely, you know, part of the Urban Crescent, if folks in the Eastern part of the state still refer to it as such. And I think that, you know, the context for what makes sense in the economy, and society, and whatever, is very different in that town I grew up in, and you can have that same kind of conversation anywhere, but what we have, we still have city and county boundaries, and we still have policies, you know, that were created for a very different Virginia. And it's something we need to think about. And we need to think about how to, you know, what, what's our demographics? And how does it look in the landscape? I mean, there was a big excitement over the last year, about proposed redefinitions, and what it meant to be a metropolitan area, which not to muddy us even further, but is, you know, essentially a collection of communities, typically linked by commuting patterns and economic interactions. And, you know, there was an idea about sort of raising the threshold for that, because, well, populations gone up, so that's pretty simple. But you know, there was a lot of hue and cry with what would the impact of that be, and people really couldn't begin to sort through all of that, because these, these definitions about Metropolitan, about urban, and rural, they're embedded, you know, not just in our cultural practices, but also embedded in all sorts of different policy definitions, agency rules, and things that we need to do a little bit of work to unpack if we want to see them operating better.

Michael Pope

Well, so, let's continue to unpack this thing. One of the people involved in this project is Liz Povar at The River Link Group. She helped provide some guidance on some of the chapters, and she participated in a panel discussion, where she made an interesting point about the history of economic development statistics in Virginia. She says, "The strong statewide numbers obscured the weakness of rural Virginia." Essentially, she's saying here that the urban numbers were really, really good and really, really big. And that had the effect of hiding the fact that the rural numbers were horrible. Here's Liz Povar, of The Riverlink Group, in one of the Vibrant Virginia panel discussions.

Liz Povar

The mantle of taking control of your own communities, is now in the hands of regional and local leaders, much more visibly than it historically has been. And the numbers that are reported, and based on job creation, capital investment, those numbers are now available regionally, which helps us all think about where do we have some different solutions for different parts of Virginia?

Michael Pope

So how is this urban/rural dynamic changing? She's making the point here, that the previous way of collecting these statistics actually obscured what was really going on. But now we have better data because it's regional. So how is this dynamic changing?

John Provo

Well, I think one of the things that is really important, and Steven Moray, who also contributed a chapter to the book, has been talking about this since he came to Virginia, is really looking at growing prosperity on a regional basis. Right? Is recognizing that people live in communities, but they work across regions. So understanding, you know, employment change, marketing, investment opportunities, and finding a way to share progress across communities, is really the critical work of, you know, that, you know, Liz was kind of referring to. So, you know, we do have different ways that we collect and present data. We also have new organizations. Something we have now that we didn't have at the start of my career is this program called Go Virginia, Growth Opportunity Virginia. And essentially going back to the 2016-17 session, we've had this essentially handing off of, you know, not just planning and you know, yeah, sorry, I'm missing this. So So we've had this handing off of not just responsibility for planning about economic development to the regions, but we've also given some money that previously might have just been doled out for Richmond out to regional bodies that have the authority to make investments on their own. In the years past, we have things like this in the most distressed areas, say like in the tobacco commission footprint, but now regions in all parts of Virginia have this catalytic funding tool. It's not the be all and end all of everything. And full disclosure, my office is actually involved in supporting one of these, staffing one of these groups in the Blacksburg, Roanoke, Lynchburg area. But it's a tool, and it's a way to think about the, you know, where we place these tools, right? So doing these things, regionally, I think is only going to become more and more important.

Thomas Bowman

Alright, so we're hearing about the weakness of economic development across rural Virginia, and the strength of economic development in urban Virginia. But there's another participant of Vibrant Virginia who says that doesn't mean we should jump to conclusions. Conway Haskins, at the Center for Innovative Technology says a closer look at the numbers reveal some important problems in urban Virginia.

Conway Haskins

Five or six of the top cities in the country, with the highest eviction rates in the United States, are in Virginia. Right, and those are in those cities, not that they're they these aren't happening in the counties, but they're happening in our cities. But if we just talk about urban urban urban being so prosperous, because we're missing the fact that there are a ton of people that are struggling.

Thomas Bowman

So is this urban/rural divide, something more complicated than just urban areas are doing great and rural areas are struggling?

John Provo

I think we need to be thinking about this in very nuanced terms, very granular terms. So it's definitely more complicated than just urban and rural. We've got a host of areas that are kind of in between, you know, sort of small metro areas that don't fit the typical perception of urban and rural, depending on where you sit. And we've got both challenges and opportunities in all of these places. And if we can better define and grapple with what it is we're trying to say when we call a place urban, or rural, or suburban, we can give those communities, and the collections of communities in each region, more tools to be able to do the right thing for their folks. And part of this, if we recognize that we're not just talking about urban and rural, we're talking about what connects us what are the disconnects? And what are the connections and disconnections within our communities? And I'm sometimes surprised that we don't see more. And you know, maybe this is a thing that will grow in future General Assembly sessions, as our politics continue to evolve. But I'm surprised we don't see more coalition's between Central City communities with poverty challenges in rural areas. And maybe part of that is the information and the data to help them see similarities in their challenges really isn't easy to access and discuss.

Thomas Bowman

You know, this is, this makes a lot of sense. Because working for the member who represented Mount Vernon, for example, he had, in his district, some of the richest zip codes in America, richer than Beverly Hills, right next to some of the poorest zip codes in America. And so it really strikes me as a function of class. Right? So the number one indicator of economic success is really how easy is it to move up from a lower class to a middle class or a middle class to a higher class? And so, is anybody thinking about bridging the urban/rural divide as a way of via increasing class mobility?

John Provo

Well, I think one of the interesting things when you talk about economic and community development policies, is sort of sifting and sorting through things that affect people, and things that affect places, and things that affect people in places. Right? So yeah, I think that's a totally open area of discussion. And I think you'll get economic arguments about when different types of policies can affect that. There certainly a national overlay about challenges in upward mobility and the current structure of the economy. And I think we're seeing folks look at the great reset as we come back from the pandemic shutdowns. And think about what this means and are we losing certain types of jobs and gaining other types? And what's the impact on people, and places, and how do we responsibly resolve that? We've talked about regions finding common cause and getting more tools. We've talked about helping communities see what they're maybe missing in the shadow of prosperity, where, you know, you could also flip this around, there's great economic opportunity and people making something of it in our most rural distressed communities too, but it's often obscured by great amounts of poverty.

Michael Pope

Okay, so, we've saved the juiciest part of the debate for the end here. The chapter on broadband is a barnburner. Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus James Bolan argues that, "Community and municipal broadband in Virginia has been blocked by a powerful coalition of legacy telecom companies and cable providers." Now he's talking about Cox, Comcast, CenturyLink, Verizon, AT&T. He's making the point that these companies have used their power, and their influence, and their campaign contributions, and their relationship with lawmakers to stifle the competition and benefit themselves at the expense of others. Here's Professor Bolan.

Emeritus James Bolan

Right now, Virginia is one of just 14 states that block municipal broadband. And that's some of the innovative work in internet broadband development is going on at the municipal level. And as a consequence, many of the communities within Virginia are being slighted by their inability to easily establish broadband systems within their own municipalities.

Michael Pope

Now, his chapter points out that the telecom companies and the cable providers have worked with lawmakers to rig the system, preventing local governments from subsidizing development of broadband infrastructure. They're also not allowed to set prices lower than the incumbent providers. But in one of the panel discussions for Vibrant Virginia, the Governor's Broadband Adviser, Evan Feinman says he rejects the idea that that coalition is blocking progress.

Evan Feinman

An urban network is the strongest used case for a municipal network. Out in rural areas, the inability to enjoy the economies of scale, that large scale network owners and operators already have, means that you undertake a great deal more risk, and you have a lot more in the way of fixed costs, if you stand up, you know, one to 30, 40 different county networks.

Michael Pope

So he's saying that anyone who thought that community broadband and municipal broadband was the answer for rural Virginia's broadband problems, doesn't fully understand the economics of the situation. John Provo, what do we make of this really interesting debate here about the past of what's happened with this broadband discussion, and also the future of where this thing is headed now?

John Provo

Well, Michael, I think this really is an interesting opportunity to think more broadly about how we resolve all of what we've talked about here today, right? Because, you know, they were talking about differences between communities, they were talking about issues of density and how that impacts a policy choice. The Governor recently proposed spending and the legislature in a short period of time, we'll get the chance to consider investing a tremendous amount of money from the federal Recovery Act, Rescue Act in broadband, which is a big central government commitment to resolving a problem that spreads across all these different levels. And if you think about it, it's one of our challenges in this in this topic has been sort of, you know, who owns what kind of issues as times change, as communities develop in different ways and grow or decline. Who really owns the issues when the new technology comes along? And I'm talking about the broad sweep of history here, right? And central responsibility, if you think about it, I mean, counties and cities are creatures of the state, that are created by the state government to better administer things for the public good. All the sorts of regional bodies and programs we've talked about are of that sort. So I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that some of these policy answers that crop up where urban and rural differences are particularly sharp, we can put tools at the community level, we can put tools at the regional level, but there's still a lot of important work to be done, big investments that can be made to really address the biggest areas problems between urban and rural.

Thomas Bowman

You know, it strikes me that this binary discussion about economics really misses the point. You know, access to internet should be a public utility, and we already have an economic model that makes a lot of sense for the case of rural broadband where you would create a public service corporation, you would take on the initial costs of installation, in the areas where a privatized company couldn't really recoup their money. And then you would bill it, like electricity rates. We already have this model ready made.

John Provo

Well, there are examples, certainly, around Virginia and in other states where like co ops, like Citizens and Floyd, have taken that on and become really interesting contributors, you know, not just to their community, but also to surrounding communities. And I think it's clearly been a piece of how we deliver solutions. But I think maybe the larger point for me is that we can solve a lot of things at the local level. But ultimately, that doesn't get the state off the hook for being a constructive participant, whether it's in authorizing different models and experiments or resourcing larger solutions, like they're proposing to do now on this broadband issue.

Michael Pope

So we're coming toward the end of our time, I want to get a sense of what's next for Vibrant Virginia. So you got this book that's coming out this fall, everybody's excited to get their copy of the book. What happens after that? Where's Vibrant Virginia headed in the future?

John Provo

Well, thanks. The book, and I'll share a link you can share with your listeners. But yeah, for book notifications, that is going to come out this fall. And we're very happy to offer that up as a starting point for some discussions that we hope we'll have between our university and communities, we'll have between folks in policy roles and communities, and government folks. And we're going to go on the road as soon as that's safe and appropriate. And we hope to take the book as a jumping off point for meetings in different parts of the state. We're doing some things within Virginia Tech, we've actually created a Vibrant Virginia Council and we've put together some strategic funds that we're going to use to support university community partnerships. And when I get off the phone with you here, I'm going to be working through about 30 proposed faculty projects in everything from Health and Aging, to a technical assistance for companies, and other sorts of community and talent development kind of projects. And so we're just, yeah, happy to keep the conversation going and looking for ways to make it both an academic but also a practical exercise as well.

Thomas Bowman

So that's all for this episode.

Michael Pope

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Thomas Bowman

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Michael Pope

Read the transcripts at TransitionVirginia.com and special thanks to Emily Cottrell for figuring out what the heck we're saying.

Thomas Bowman

Thanks for being on the Transition Team. We're your hosts, Thomas Bowman.

Michael Pope

And I'm Michael Pope.