Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405130081
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Lon Wagner
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In fact, when it comes down to analyzing commuting patterns, the Roanoke Valley's efforts to strengthen itself by joining forces with other localities would be better spent elsewhere.
And elsewhere is closer to home, places you've probably heard of: Bedford and Franklin counties.
More than 6,400 Bedford countians drive to jobs into the Roanoke Valley everyday. More than 4,600 Franklin Countians commute to jobs in the Roanoke Valley. But only 2,800 people from Montgomery County work in the Roanoke Valley.
Bill Mezger, senior economist with the Virginia Employment Commission, foresees a day when the valley's links with Bedford and Franklin counties turn into something more statistically significant: a tri-city based metropolitan statistical area stretching among Danville, Lynchburg and Roanoke.
OK., stop laughing.
``With three MSA's adjacent to one another, the pattern has been they have eventually become one with commuting between the fringes,'' Mezger says. ``It probably won't be by 2000, but at some point I could see the three being combined into one area.''
Bedford County provides the link to Lynchburg. It became part of Lynchburg's MSA after the 1990 census. With all the talk of the Roanoke Valley competing with Greensboro and other North Carolina cities for industrial prospects, many may not have noticed what's going on next door in Lynchburg.
Bedford's inclusion in Lynchburg's MSA boosted the Hill City's metropolitan area population to 193,000, or 177th in the country. Roanoke's MSA stands at 224,000, or 169th.
The concept of Roanoke, Danville and Lynchburg - and don't forget Martinsville - working on regional projects together may seem far fetched. Two decades ago the four cities couldn't get together on the idea of building a big airport somewhere in the middle of the triangle, and many look at that failure as a blown opportunity for the region.
But the cities wouldn't have to work together. A big MSA can be a psychological advantage when competing for industries, some of which want to know they'll have a big enough population from which to recruit workers.
Most MSA's these days involve a central city and a surrounding area. The Virginia Beach area, for instance, is called the Norfolk, Va.-N.C. area, and it takes in almost 1.5 million people. The ``Greensboro area'' MSA takes in more than a million people, most of whom live outside that city's boundaries.
So bring together Roanoke, Lynchburg and Danville and what would you have? The 169th, 177th and 274th-sized metropolitan areas combined would have a population of 527,000. That would bring the Roanoke-Lynchburg-Danville MSA to about 83rd, according to InfoNation, a computer program put out by a Phoenix, Ariz., software company.
On InfoNation's ranking of the metropolitan areas, that number would put the Roanoke-Lynchburg-Danville area in a statistical league just below Knoxville, Tenn., and Bakersfield, Calif., and just above Wilmington, Del., Little Rock, Ark., and Charleston, S.C.
So what?
Well, television stations in the region aren't waiting for the three cities MSAs to be combined. The TV market for the region already combines the three cities. That makes the Roanoke-Lynchburg market the 66th largest TV market in the country, and puts it right below Green Bay, Wis., which has a National Football League team.
Stan Marinoff, general manager of Fox 21-27, explained what the larger market means in the television business.
``Some advertisers will only buy the top 75 markets,'' Marinoff says, ``so yes, it's advantageous to be in the top 75.''
by CNB