IN MEGALOPOLIS, THEY MIGHT LIKE TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK

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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 5, 1993                   TAG: 9301050141
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY   
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: SEVERN, MD.                                LENGTH: Medium
IN MEGALOPOLIS, THEY MIGHT LIKE TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK
At first glance, it could be the good old days all over again, just the way things were a couple of years back, before the recession hit this little rural patch sandwiched between the suburbs of Baltimore and Washington.
Bulldozers are ripping out lots for new subdivisions. Carpenters are hammering up wall frames, and the signs pounded into the raw earth in front of the new houses read, "Sold . . . Sold . . . Sold."
But while the signs may suggest some rejuvenation in this town 25 miles northeast of Washington, there is concern that the post-recession pace here and elsewhere in the heavily urbanized "Chesapeake Crescent" that stretches from Baltimore to Norfolk will never equal the raging boom of the 1980s.
During that decade, the population grew at twice the national rate, to nine million people, driven mostly by growth in the federal government and in the industries that grew up around it. Per capita income topped out at $26,000, almost 50 percent more than the national average. The values of many homes jumped 30 percent or more in a single year and suburban wooded plots turned into condominiums.
Now, battered by job layoffs and bankruptcies, many of the region's residents are for the first time mulling the idea that the soaring prosperity of the 1980s was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. Increasingly they see the boom as having been sustained by real estate speculation, undisciplined consumer spending and unbridled growth in federal spending on the region's heavy concentration of government agencies and military installations.
"It'll be a long time, if ever, before we see the likes of the '80s again in this region," said Steve Fuller, an urban planning consultant in Washington who specializes in economic and development trends in the region.
No one thinks mortal economic danger threatens the 250-mile-long megalopolis. But the recession has left many of the region's once high-flying real estate speculators bankrupt, their subdivisions half finished, their office towers vacant.
Many of the shop-till-you-drop baby boomers are deeply in debt, out of work and standing in long lines to apply for jobs. And while many here think the Clinton administration will continue and even increase some federal spending, many agencies' budgets are likely to be cut severely, especially the mainstay military outlays.
The houses being built are selling for less than $200,000, about half what many were bringing before the recession, and many businesses are reshaping operations to reduce expenses.
Before the recession, one of every five tellers at Richmond-based Crestar Bank worked part-time. Now that figure is almost one in three. The blunt rationale is that part-timers cost less because most get no health or retirement benefits.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB