For years, “regionalism” has been the buzzword among the intelligentsia in the communities that comprise the area formerly known as Tidewater. Hampton Roads, as the regionalists insist we refer to it, can never compete with the Northern Virginias, the Research Triangles, the Chicagolands or the other mega-metropolitan areas throughout the nation unless its separate cities band together toward common purpose.

During the latter part of the 20th century, several initiatives grew out of that press for a regional approach to life in Hampton Roads. And as those initiatives have matured — and in some cases, reached or passed middle age — the push continues for an ever-broader acceptance of an approach toward regionalism that assumes no difference between the opportunities and the challenges that face the people of Suffolk or Portsmouth or Virginia Beach or Norfolk or Chesapeake.

But two of those early experiments in regionalism are perfect cautionary lessons for those who would like to see the philosophy extended to schools, social services and other facets of governmental operations. Both regional waste collection and regional transit offer some important lessons for the crowd that suggests we’re all in the same figurative boat here in Hampton Roads.

In both cases, one of the most important lessons to the people of Suffolk is that in any regional alliance that includes Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk, the comparatively smaller city of Suffolk will always be considered last among equals.

The idea has been demonstrated repeatedly in the Southeastern Public Service Authority, the clumsy and inefficient regional agency in charge of handling solid waste since the 1970s. Especially in recent years, Suffolk has been fortunate that a signed contract protected its interests against the aggressions of other municipal members, especially those to the east of the city, who are all too happy to fill the dump in Suffolk with their waste, but chafe at the agreement that gave Suffolk free use of the landfill in exchange for taking on the traffic, the stench and the other consequences of hosting it.

More recently, Suffolk has learned that however much Hampton Roads is willing to spend on light rail, a truly regional approach to mass transit is expensive and unsupportable when it comes to providing meaningful bus routes for Suffolk residents.

When it became clear that a third of the city’s $700,000 annual investment in Hampton Roads Transit went to administration and that those administrative costs would not fall when Suffolk lost two bus routes under an efficiency program rolled out by HRT, Suffolk finally turned from its pursuit of a regional approach to its public transportation needs. And nobody in Norfolk or Virginia Beach even blinked, because they never really cared whether Suffolk was a part of their plan or not, except for the money the city chipped in to cover administrative costs.

It sometimes seems the Hampton Roads definition of regionalism calls on the little city of Suffolk to make the biggest sacrifices, while the larger cities to her east just make the biggest noise. As leaders throughout the area continue to press for a broader approach to problem solving, city officials would do well to remember the lessons learned through their membership in the regional waste and transportation authorities.