What will it take to reinvent Hampton Roads PT.1?

As a lifelong resident of the region known as Hampton Roads, I have always had a slight distaste for the term. I understand why people here want a regional name to lump 9 cities, 4 towns and 7 counties together, but I don’t think anyone outside of Southeastern Virginia has ever been able to grasp the concept. Instead of knowing it to include the cities of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Poquoson and Williamsburg, many confuse it as the city of Hampton alone.


In 1956, the voters of Hampton narrowly rejected a proposal to merge with the city of Newport News and Warwick County. They wanted to call the new city Hampton Roads. Warwick and Newport News merged two years later. In 2012 there was a study conducted to propose the merging of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Suffolk into one city that would have become the 10th most populated city in the United States. It would have contained over 1 million people and be the largest in the country in terms of land area with 1000 square miles. Needless to say, it was shot down.


Most residents would agree that the most populated city of every state in America stands alone. That would include the cities of: Virginia Beach, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Honolulu and others. The same applies to the most populated cities in other countries such as: Paris, London, Helsinki, Sydney, Beijing, Toronto, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and you get the picture.​

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Certain regions in the United States are known by a regional name that is well-known and respected such as the Bay Area for San Francisco and neighboring cities, The Gulf Coast for all the cities of the states that border the Gulf of Mexico and the Twin Cities for Minneapolis and St. Paul. This does not apply to very many places and not many people can name all the cities that fall under these terms. All of the cities, towns and counties in our area would be nearly impossible for outsiders to name.


So why then is the coastal area of Virginia given so many different region names that confuse and obfuscate so many seemingly distinct places as one homogeneous zone? As a resident of Virginia Beach, I will admit to not being very familiar with places like Yorktown, Isle of Wight, Newport News or Williamsburg. All I know about the latter is that it has a historical district that dates back to colonial times and the Bush Gardens amusement park is located within its city limits.


Even with all the different terms and the insistence on ignoring standard protocol for name recognition, I still want this area to succeed and become more economically viable. Norfolk, Hampton and Virginia Beach are the strongest players and the other places sort of tag along. Hampton Roads or the 757 or Coastal Virginia is too nebulous, but it’s what we have so I believe we should make the best of it. All efforts to create a more well-known area should be implemented by all of the players in business and politics for the betterment of us all.

Continued on PT.2