HAMPTON ROADS
Hampton Roads, consisting of the Census Bureau's
Metropolitan Statistical Area
of Norfolk - Virginia Beach - Newport News, is a sprawling, polycentric urban
area of almost 1.4 million people, worthy of being called the "Los Angeles of
Virginia." The variety of
names by which this area is known (Hampton Roads,
Norfolk, Tidewater) makes it easy to lose sight of the impressive size of this
urban agglomeration.
This combined metropolitan region is, with the exception of Atlanta, the largest urban concentration in a vast area of the southern United States whose boundary to the north extends to Washington, D.C., to the south to New Orleans and to the west to St. Louis.
Hampton Roads' economic base is port-related, including shipbuilding, ship repair, naval installations, cargo transfer and storage, and manufacturing related to the processing of imports and exports. Associated with the ports' military role are almost 50,000 federal civilian employees.
The tourist industry of Virginia Beach and the Williamsburg area and the agricultural activity of Suffolk and Southampton counties add variety to the region's economy. Meat processing (especially pork products), soybeans, and peanuts are among this area's specialities.
Tidewater's economic future is bright for many reasons, although decreased defense spending, particularly for shipbuilding, will slow growth in the region. Hampton Road's hinterland for all types of cargo is a bustling Sunbelt region that extends well west of the Appalachians into the Tennessee Valley, and well beyond the Coastal Plain into the Piedmont of the Southern Atlantic coast.
Hampton Roads also stands to benefit from its own momentum. The increasing concentration of population and manufacturing within the Tidewater region itself makes the port both a producer and consumer of more and more of its low bulk, high value general cargo. This type of cargo generates much more employment growth in Tidewater than does coal, which is the principal export of the Hampton Roads area. The coal exports, while not an exceptional generator of employment, also have increased tremendously over recent years.