
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 5, 1990                   TAG: 9003052214
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ROANOKE'S QUALITY OF LIFE REQUIRES GROWTH

HAVING BEEN born and raised in the Roanoke Valley, I find it distressingly sad to see so much resistance to the change necessary to facilitate a substantial business community into the year 2000.

I spent a year and a half at the University of Florida and returned to this area because of family and the high quality of living in Roanoke. I am attending Virginia Tech and can enjoy the valley, but there will probably not be any jobs available to me to stay here when I graduate, at least without some type of expansion. The Explore Project is a prime example of people resisting positive growth in metropolitan Roanoke.

Explore, whose only mission is to preserve a piece of the "high quality of life" so avidly sought in Roanoke, has been fought by those people claiming to support the area's future. Not only will the project provide the cleanest form of commerce, tourism, it will also provide jobs for all of Roanoke. The business provided would work to lower our taxes as tourism has in Florida, where residents do not pay state income or personal property taxes. Aren't the benefits greater than the cost?

I have heard people cry that growth will spoil the quality of life here. I say that without it, there will not be life here, at least of any quality. If everyone gets involved in the growth, then it can be controlled. Political depotism can occur only if the tax-paying and voting public become apathetic and lazy. TODD LENART VINTON

by CNB