Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008

Columbia only as ‘hot’ as its leaders, citizens make it

COLUMBIA HAS yet another tagline and branding campaign aimed at selling itself to potential visitors, businesses and entrepreneurs from elsewhere, but it’s yet to deal with its internal identity problem.

The Midlands is a wonderful place for those who live here. But it won’t be the destination spot it wants to be — and can be — until elected officials and community and business leaders as well as citizens get beyond the fractured governmental structure and the associated baggage that prevent it from being unified.

People not from here see us — whether we live in Cayce or Irmo or Red Bank or Lower Richland or Northeast Richland — as Columbia, our state’s capital. But with 19 municipalities in Lexington and Richland counties, some of which are hung up on their own identities and resent the center city, it’s difficult to develop the unity needed to compete with the likes of Charleston, Asheville, Raleigh and Greenville.

We long ago learned that it’s not just about having a tagline; we’ve had many, most of which were bad. Columbia has been deemed “A capital place to be,” a destination where “It’s Happening Now,” and a region “Where Friendliness Flows.”

And now, our city is “Famously Hot,” the slogan recently adopted by the Midlands Authority for Conventions, Sports & Tourism, which oversees the Columbia Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. It remains to be seen whether it will be successful, but there is some potential in that tagline.

More importantly, Columbia, which is experiencing unprecedented growth, has tremendous potential. It should be easy to market our many resources and attractions, from the Three Rivers Greenway to Lake Murray to the Congaree National Park; from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport to Riverbanks Zoo to the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center to the Colonial Center. And USC’s research campus, Innovista, has the potential to draw new brainpower and money that would transform the entire region’s economy.

While officials in both counties have collaborated to make a number of those projects successful, they still haven’t overcome the psychological divide of the river and haven’t embraced a regional vision.

The lack of vision is obvious in the failure to find the money to support and expand the struggling public bus system into a regional transit system that would take people where they want and need to go. A metropolitan area this size needs a transit system to support its economy, helping get workers to their jobs at the convention center and restaurants and hotels and malls and hospitals. Should we lure the desired visitors, how would they get from hotels to restaurants to shopping venues to the zoo or Lake Murray or the Lexington County Museum?

There are other areas where this community must collaborate to convince outsiders to visit and invest, such as congestion and pollution. Then there’s homelessness. How a community cares for its down and out says a lot about its character.

If this community is indeed to be “Famously Hot,” it must warm the cool relations between competing governments and deliver on its potential. A slogan, no matter how well promoted, is only as good as the product.

The best way to convince people Columbia is a vibrant, alluring community worth visiting is to be one.