Uniting of Megalopolis Is Divisive at Best

Sometime within the next few weeks, the federal government will announce plans to join Washington and Baltimore in one huge megalopolis for the purposes of official record-keeping.

And, as with Dallas-Ft. Worth and Minneapolis-St. Paul, the merger means a new name: the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.

Maybe that’s the Washington-Baltimore area?

In the name game, this is what one might call the big leagues. Or you could just call it a blatant grab at bragging rights, one that has drawn in Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and a growing roster of business titans who are lobbying the federal government over what the newly configured region should be called.

The reclassification was prompted by 1990 Census figures showing that the two areas have become so intertwined, through development and commuting, that it makes more sense to think of them as one big place.

If past practice is followed, the metropolitan area with the larger central city will go first when the region is named. Baltimore, which is one-sixth larger than the District of Columbia, would get top billing.

Needless to say, that idea has set more than a few Washingtonians’ blood a-boiling.

Let’s not forget, they say, that Washington is the nation’s capital, home of the leader of the free world, and a city whose name carries much more cachet than that of its neighbor to the north.

“Most of the business that comes here, the high-tech companies, the telecommunications firms, are attracted to the area because it’s the seat of government,” said Ed Cronin, chief executive of the real estate firm Smithy Braedon.

The ultimate arbiter of the name dispute--the Office of Management and Budget--has agreed to consider the views of the public before deciding the matter and is soliciting opinions through members of Congress and other interested parties.

A random sample of some possibly interested parties breaks along somewhat predictable lines.

Washington Gas had this to say: “We think it should be the Washington-Baltimore area because we’re the nation’s capital and the one with the great football team.”

Baltimore Gas disagreed: “It’s the Baltimore-Washington Airport and the Baltimore-Washington Expressway, so why break with tradition now?”

If OMB does decide to break with past practice and go with Washington’s name first, it would be the first time that it allowed a metropolitan area to have the name of the smaller city in the first position.

And how does Ft. Worth feel, having played second fiddle to Dallas for years?

“This is a very sensitive issue here,” said Tom Higgins, economic development director for Ft. Worth. It’s bad enough being the second half of a hyphenated name, but worse when you get lopped off altogether.