Once again, the geopolitical-economic discussion in Chattanooga is revolving around the notion of regionalism, this time in earnest. The driving force behind it, of course, is Volkswagen and the imminent construction of their new assembly plant at Enterprise South Business Park. Located wholly within Chattanooga city limits and Hamilton County lines, the plant is nonetheless envisioned as a juggernaut for regional job creation and new business investment.

This month, a 100-member delegation from the greater Chattanooga area traveled to Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina to learn the lessons taught by the construction of BMW’s North American assembly plant there 16 years ago.

German-owned like Volkswagen, BMW announced its decision to build in South Carolina in 1992. Two years later, the first 318i rolled off the line. For a time the plant produced the wildly popular BMW roadsters, and today it manufactures the X5 sport utility vehicle and the X6 cross-over coupe. While locals may quibble over the details of the resurgence, there is little disagreement that BMW has provided a whopping return on the investment made to attract them there. To date, the plant’s economic impact exceeds $9,000,000,000. (That’s nine billion for those who grew tired of counting zeroes.)

Actually, the BMW plant is situated in Greer, South Carolina, midway between Greenville and Spartanburg. Forty percent of the company’s employees come from Spartanburg, 40% hail from Greenville, and the remaining 20% come from a dozen other Upstate counties. So as you might imagine, our host/presenters spent a lot of time talking about regional cooperation.

It’s delicate, though. Before the plant opened, there were 60,000 applications for the first 1,000 jobs, so they decreed that the first round of hires had to reside within 50 miles of the plant. They also stated their preference for hiring South Carolinians. “South Carolinians paid to get the plant, they ought to be the ones who benefitted from it,” stated one of our hosts. Aside from that, they made an honest effort to look beyond jurisdictional boundaries.

All those good intentions notwithstanding, regional jealousies persist and some officials feel not enough is being done for their respective districts. They’ve been at it for a decade-and-a-half now, but the people we spoke with said it’s a constant battle to make people understand the BMW tide will lift a lot of boats throughout the region. Furthermore, it’s a force that tends to blow through political boundaries.

On the bus ride back to Chattanooga, you could hear the words “region” and “cooperation” working their way through the various conversations. The Volkswagen plant will be in Chattanooga, Hamilton County and Tennessee, but our neighboring Southeast Tennessee counties – Bradley, Rhea, Marion, McMinn, Meigs and Sequatchie – are all eager to play their part. And representatives from the cities of Collegedale and Cleveland joined the trip to learn how they can best contribute.

In the late 1990’s, Chattanooga launched the Regional Growth Initiative to bring the awareness of economic boundaries into some kind of parity with the long-standing observance of political boundaries. Some progress was made, but there was little real-world pressure to keep people at the table. Now we have Volkswagen.

It will be a telling few months as we lay the groundwork for VW. Surely there is enough economic development to go around. A recent study by the University of South Carolina showed BMW generated 3.9 spinoff jobs for every direct hire at the plant. They have 42 suppliers in 20+ counties. They spend $4 billion buying goods and services in South Carolina alone.

Those numbers tend to wash across county and city lines. Even state lines – and we have two in play – will take a back seat to the appeal of financial incentives and geographic proximity. “Regionalism” is on its way; we will do well to facilitate its arrival rather than resist it.