I am currently reading the official one volume history of Virginia: Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia 1607-2007. It was written as part of the Quatricentennial Books initiative in 2007. What is striking to me is how much of our current politics are simply echoes of what has gone before here in our Virginia.

Take transportation, for example, where the saga of roads in Northern Virginia has occupied the entirety of my political experience. In reading about the political debates of the mid 1800s, it is striking how much ink was spilled over whether to build and fund a canal from Richmond to the Ohio river. And the three attempts to do so were stymied by a lack of funding and opposition from traditionalists who did not like the idea of paying money to fund transportation for the dynamic regions of the economy. Eventually, the whole effort went belly up.

Personally surveyed and planned by George Washington  himself, the canal was begun in 1785 under the James River Company, and later restarted under the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. It was only half completed by 1851. It was an expensive project which failed several times financially and was frequently damaged by floods. By the time it was halted, it had only reached Buchanan, in Botetourt County, Virginia, even though it was largely financed by the Commonwealth of Virginia through the Virginia Board of Public Works. When work to extend the canal further west stopped permanently, railroads were overtaking the canal as a far more productive mode of transportation. – Wikipedia

In the 1830s and 1840s many in Richmond did not want to build roads, canals, and bridges for the benefit of dynamic local economies brought about by waves of people new to the Old Dominion. And when they eventually did try to build something it was a failed financial boondoggle. Funny, that sounds familiar.