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Do we have an identity crisis?

February 4, 2012 12:10 am

BY HOWARD OWEN

Among the most pressing economic issues in our region are how to keep and lure jobs here and how to cut down on commuting.

We seem to be losing the battle.

There are five localities in the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance--Fredericksburg and the counties of Spotsylvania, Stafford, Caroline and King George. From 2002 to 2009, according to census figures, the percentage of residents in each of those localities who worked inside the FRA area decreased.

In addition to the long commutes on Interstate 95 and the loss of tax revenue from businesses, there is another downside to residents working elsewhere. Call it lack of identity.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget defines population centers as Metropolitan Statistical Areas. According to the OMB, a metro area consists of "one or more counties and includes the counties containing the core urban area, as well as any adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic integration [as measured by commuting to work] with the urban core."

Metro areas have their own identity. In our state, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Winchester, Harrisonburg and Danville have their own MSAs. The FRA's population (nearly 328,000 in 2010) is larger than each of those areas, and its gross domestic product puts it ahead of most of them. However, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania and Stafford counties are lumped into the Greater D.C. metro area, along with localities all the way to West Virginia. Caroline County is part of Richmond's MSA. King George isn't in any metro area.

The key is all those commuters. If a lot of your region's people travel somewhere else to work, you're not an MSA.

"This region could be the fourth-largest MSA in Virginia [behind D.C. and the Tidewater and Richmond areas] if it wasn't carved up," said Kevin Byrnes, director of regional planning and regional demographer for the George Washington Regional Commission, which serves the same area as the FRA. "It will never be an MSA of its own unless there is some radical change in definition and criteria."

The GWRC tries, among other things, to "make the quality of life in this region more liveable and commuting times less," but it isn't in the business of trying to lure companies here. That's one of the things the FRA does.

Todd Gillingham, director of strategic initiatives and technology for the regional alliance, points out that the area "has made great strides" since 1995 in drawing workers from Northern Virginia here, before the housing bubble burst. Of course, those workers, whose moves helped the housing industry here, only made the area more of a bedroom community and less MSA-worthy.

The regional population grew 36 percent from 2000 to 2010, from 241,044 to 327,773. Many of those who came here didn't bring their jobs with them, opting to commute in exchange for less expensive homes.

FRA President Gene Bailey noted that some of the people who make that long commute might find it worth the tradeoff to live here.

"It's not Miami, or Detroit," he said, mentioning two metropolitan areas hard-hit by the Great Recession. "It's all relative."

He also notes that the numbers don't take into account those who come into the area from elsewhere to work.

Because the population grew so much in the 2000s, the workforce continues to grow, according to the FRA. There were 3.6 percent more workers in the region in 2009 than in 2004, despite the rise in out-commuting. Employment grew 0.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2011.

There's another wild card at work in our area.

As Byrnes of the GWRC notes, the Census Bureau's system doesn't include federal uniformed military personnel. So, anyone commuting to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Fort A.P. Hill or Naval Support Facility Dahlgren isn't counted.

This may explain why Stafford County's employment was up almost 15 percent between 2006 and 2011, according to Tim Baroody, the county's economic development director.

Byrnes said an area recognized as an MSA "would become recognized in the business world because a lot of market analysis starts with trends at the metro level."

Bailey, however, says the FRA uses other statistical data to woo companies here.

Karen Hedelt, Fredericksburg's director of economic development and tourism, said of metro status, "I always thought it was a kind of chest-pounding type thing" and notes that Fairfax economic development focuses on corporate recruitment and retention while "we look at tourism, retail. They are all about big white-collar employers.

"It's like pushing that big rock up a hill," she said, "but you can't not try."

Howard Owen: 540/374-5539
Email: hwowen@freelancestar.com