DREAMING OF RIVERS

The STATE newspaper (COLUMBIA, SC) -Sunday, October 8, 1995 Article By: FRED MONK, Business Editor

After 100 years of abandoned plans, feuding and fighting, the three rivers that form perhaps the greatest potential assets for the Columbia region's future development are beginning to bring the region together. The miles of riverfront traversing a major metropolitan area provide the Columbia region with an enviable opportunity. It's a largely blank canvas on which the region can paint its dreams.

It's that opportunity the River Alliance is trying to accomplish.

The alliance has been holding forums to ask people to dream about the future uses of the 90 miles of "river-influenced" areas in the region.

These aren't "public hearings" in the traditional sense. The public isn't being asked to validate or dismiss a plan or proposal. Instead, people are asked to give their dreams, their ideas and what they have seen that they like from visiting other cities.

"We are looking for input -- there's no value judgments," says Mike Dawson, director of the River Alliance.

This input comes almost two years after the River Alliance was first proposed. And its own development and approach to the river is a refreshing change.

It has gone about crafting a consensus-building organization in a slow, methodical fashion. It has not developed by trying to sell someone's preconceived plan.

It has sought to bring not only governments, but property owners and organizations affected by changes along the rivers, into the discussion on the front end.

It has worked to build partnerships, quash provincial fears, open communications, assemble the volumes of previous plans and data and create a regional mind-set.

"It's kind of a novelty," says Dawson, a low-key, broad-minded leader who retired last year as Fort Jackson's director of long-range planning.

"We are sincerely interested in people bringing us their dreams," he said. And for that reason, the River Alliance has left the parameters of the river development largely undefined. Americans tend to be such short-term thinkers. This is a rare opportunity to create a vision for the Columbia region that will unfold over 5 0 to 1 00 years and beyond.

The process that the River Alliance has gone through itself has been like the rivers, bending to find the ways around resistance. Because the potential is so great, it is a process that doesn't have to be rushed, and needs to be inclusive.

"Many people don't understand the magnitude of this project," says Dawson.

After catching people's dreams, the hard work begins -- looking to see what is the best use for segments of the rivers, what can work and what makes sense. And then how to do it.

The River Alliance has already accomplished a great deal. It is making the rivers a unifying force. "The notion of regionalism is almost becoming infectious," says Dawson.

Copyright (1995) State-Record Co. (Columbia, SC)

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