Growing Together – Envision Coastal Alabama
By: Ron Martin, Alabama Power Company and Dr. Phillip Norris, University of South Alabama

Envision Coastal Alabama was established to accomplish one of the most important tasks facing every community across the globe – creating regional linkages to facilitate the ability to compete with other regional economies in the world. The new global economy will not let us have a small jurisdictional approach and remain competitive. Baldwin and Mobile counties cannot go their own ways and prosper; we are socially, economically, and environmentally linked and dependent on each other. Successful regions are diverse but share the resources of labor, housing, transportation, and natural resources.

The bayway linking Coastal Alabama’s two counties is busy in both directions, both morning and evening, as Coastal Alabama citizens move back and forth for jobs, entertainment, housing and recreation. On a Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce leadership trip we learned that regionalism is alive and growing in the Boston area where Rhode Island and Southern New Hampshire share in a regional economy, a regional identity, and regional problems. On an Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce leadership trip to Naples, Florida the Mayor of Naples said that if he knew 15 years ago what he would be experiencing today with traffic congestion and unaffordable housing he would have made different decisions then. Perhaps a process of regional planning could have made a difference 15 years ago. As a new Urban Land Institute study on Florida’s future points out, “virtually all of Florida’s growth-related issues, from how to achieve economic diversity to how to integrate land use and transportation planning in order to accommodate growing populations-are regional in scale.”

The problems we face and the opportunities we have are too large and too complex to be solved by local entities acting alone. The recruitment of EADS North America and Northrop Grumman was a regional effort and success. The pollution and siltation of our bay is a bi-county problem and a bi-county failure. We have our own communities that historically have operated independently in a time when we could afford to go our own ways but those days have gone. We once operated independently out of self interest in a time when it worked to compete with our neighbors, but today we need to share the industrial and transportation resources of Mobile with the housing, retail, and recreational resources of Baldwin County.

Envision Coastal Alabama has been facilitating and supporting bi-county programs like Leadership Coastal Alabama, DASH (a regional affordable housing initiative), Smart Coast and the National Estuary Program’s community forums. We have sponsored summits on smart growth, affordable housing, workforce development and regional public transportation. We have encouraged chambers and economic development agencies to work together for the common good of our region. We have come a long way in the last few years toward building the infrastructure for cooperation, but we have a lot of work ahead building trust between our coastal counties and facilitating growth that will not destroy the quality of life we need to preserve for future generations.

Today we work to create a shared vision for our two counties, but tomorrow we must reach out to our neighbors in Pensacola, Pascagoula, and Biloxi and find those shared interests that will create a dynamic region that works together within the new rules of a global economy. We need to coordinate our regional political strength; we need our industries and ports and workforces to draw strength from each other; and we need to forge a common plan for our coastal future. First, though, we must strengthen our links in coastal Alabama and show our neighbors that we are preparing for the new realities of living in the 21st century. We must think regionally, plan regionally, act regionally and we must speak regionally.

Ron Martin works for Alabama Power Company and will serve as the Mobile County chairman of Envision this year. He can be reached at rjmartin@southernco.com. Phillip Norris works for the University of South Alabama’s Baldwin Campus and will serve as the Baldwin County chairman of Envision this year. He can be reached at pnorris@usouthal.edu.

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