Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 28, 1993 TAG: 9303010240
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
POLL POINTS TO TENSION BETWEEN KINDS OF GROWTH
WE LOVE THE MOUNTAINS and we care about downtown. But the Roanoke Valley still is wrestling with its conscience in one way: We want economic growth, but not the population growth that comes with it.
Polls, it often is said, simply are snapshots of what people are thinking at a certain moment. This one, because it deals with broad community issues, also can be read as a kind of check-up on the Roanoke Valley's mental health.
In that respect, the Roanoke Valley Poll finds the region's state of mind decidedly mixed about its economy and its future.
The poll finds the Roanoke Valley secure in its identity, perhaps too secure. "It's a place that wants to be a big small town," says Virginia Tech geographer Susan Brooker-Gross in her interpretation of the poll's findings.
"People still want to go to the local coffee store to meet one another, and they know who the owner is," says Mary Carter, a Republican campaign strategist from Henry County. "They want progress, but they don't want a lot of change."
That's why at the heart of the poll there's tension - between the valley's desire for more economic growth and its opposition to faster population growth. Can there be one without the other?
Former Gov. Linwood Holton says yes. Jobs are disappearing all the time; the key is the types of jobs with which the valley replaces them. "The way to do it is by getting $30-an-hour jobs instead of $8-an-hour jobs," he says.
Still, it's hard to keep population growth and economic growth completely separate, former Gov. Gerald Baliles says. "Population growth is often a reflection of perceived economic opportunities," he says. "People go with the flow." That's why, he says, it's important to know something the poll doesn't show - how much population growth people are willing to tolerate in exchange for economic growth?
That may be one of the key questions that elected leaders need to pose to Roanoke Valley citizens, Baliles says.
In the valley's desire to be a big small town, the poll finds some undeniable signs of health.
There's a strong interest in downtown:
35 percent say downtown is important to the future prosperity of the valley; 53 say it's somewhat important; only 8 percent say it's not very important.
50 percent say more attention and resources should be given to downtown; 33 percent say about the same; only 17 percent say less.
"I think its unusual to find a city so proud of its downtown and still see it as a hub of the urban region," Brooker-Gross says. That's in stark contrast to other cities in Virginia, Holton says, where downtowns have been allowed to deteriorate.
The poll also showed a strong sense of what former Hollins College President Paula Brownlee termed "civic-mindedness." In one way or another, the poll shows people in the Roanoke Valley care about their neighbors, their community.
However, the poll also suggests to some that the valley may be so inward-looking that it's not fully aware of the economic trends transforming the American workplace. In question after question, the poll turns up deep-seated fears about the valley's economy. Yet 43 percent of those surveyed still say they're optimistic about economic conditions in the valley; 37.5 percent disagreed.
Darrel Martin, an assistant to the president at Virginia Tech and former Democratic political strategist, found that professed optimism curious. "The underlying optimism despite the economic battering Roanoke has taken over the last several years is at least interesting, if not puzzling," he says. "Their voices are saying, `Everything's fine,' but their feet are numb and they're wondering sporadically whether their feet are simply going to sleep or is this some foretelling of some fatal illness?" He wishes there was more evidence that people were interested in confronting some harsh economic realities.
Other findings in the poll are just as open to interpretation.
The three things people like most about the valley are mountains, friendly people and the weather. Brooker-Gross, the Tech geographer, found those surprisingly passive choices. "It's wonderful that people like the mountains because it's a unique thing other cities can't aspire to," she says. "Yet on the flip side, it doesn't give you an opportunity to mold what you like about the city. Mountains are not subject to improvement."
Yet they are subject to destruction, Brownlee warns. To her, the poll suggests that Roanoke Valley governments take steps to protect the mountains by limiting development that would ruin their beauty.
The three things people disliked most about the valley were lack of job opportunities, drugs and crime. It didn't surprise people who looked at the poll that jobs ranked first, but many were taken aback that drugs and crime ranked so high. On the one hand, that suggests the valley has a problem. On the other, says Bob de Voursney of the University of Virginia's Center for Public Service, "it's a sign of the quality of the community that this is becoming a big concern." People in bigger cities might be more willing to accept drugs and crime as simply another part of urban life, de Voursney says.
People did not seem particularly concerned about schools; 20 percent said schools were something they liked about the valley, and only 5 percent said they were something they disliked.
That apparent lack of interest could be a danger sign, warned some of those who studied the poll. "I know a major manufacturer within a 25-mile radius of Roanoke hired graduates of a certain high school and they had to train these people to read rulers," Holton says. "That's not the kind of education we need if we're to get those $30-an-hour jobs." On the other hand, de Voursney says, the poll may show that the valley's schools are doing a good job, so people have little reason to worry about them.
One of every four people listed "racist attitudes" as something they didn't like about the Roanoke Valley. That figure struck Holton as relatively low, given Virginia's history. Martin saw it as high, given that Noel Taylor, a popular black minister, was Roanoke's mayor for 16 years.