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

DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993                   TAG: 9309190238
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHO CAME UP WITH THESE NUMBERS?

The U.S. Census Bureau collected them; David Rusk helped sort them out.

Rusk is the former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M. He's now an urban consultant in Washington, D.C., and the author of a new book that's attracting much attention in urban policy circles, "Cities Without Suburbs."

In his book, Rusk marshals 40 years worth of census data on America's metropolitan areas to make the case that where cities have been able to expand their borders freely - through what Virginians would know as annexation or consolidation, through what other states allow through less drastic and less controversial means - the metro area as a whole has done better economically.

In other words, Rusk's book contends where both city and suburbs are under a single government, that metro area has created jobs at a faster rate than comparable metro areas under separate governments.

But the research Rusk performed for this story had nothing to do with either annexation or consolidation. Instead, the Roanoke Times & World-News, taking advantage of Rusk's vast computer database, hired him to analyze the economic performance of the Roanoke Valley. Rusk supplied the raw data and his analysis; we also sought the views of other experts in urban economics to offer their analysis, which appears in the accompanying story on the role Roanoke's geography plays in its economy.

What's with North Carolina?

The big cities in North Carolina have increased their citizens' income much faster than their Virginia counterparts. Now those cities rank as the most affluent in the region, especially Raleigh-Durham. In 1950, Raleigh's median family income was 9 percent below the national average. In 1990, it was 22 percent above.