Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9401310264
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH PAULL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roanoke's unique nature, especially in the downtown area, has almost ceased to exist. Vacant lots in residential areas, desolate views between acres of street-level parking, potentially usable square footage in decay - ignored in the false belief that new is always better. Recreational and cultural resources barely given lip service if they exist just beyond the City Market. No places for people to do more than just exist.
The naysayers, who originally scoffed at developing the market and Center in the Square, now point to these with what I fear is self-serving pride. ``Look at what we have done!'' translates to ``OK - we have our little concession to culture - now let's get back to business as usual.''
This totally ignores the ever-dwindling human and physical resources in the heart of Roanoke that still try to speak to what makes Roanoke different and, in the long run, would serve the entire region. The market constitutes a good start, but only a start - with continued neglect just behind the frontages in the Hotel Earle block as an example.
A few years ago, some people from out of town stopped me in front of Center in the Square and asked where they could find the downtown movie houses. They expressed genuine dismay when I gave them the sad and all-too-common answer. They couldn't believe that a city of this size would allow such waste. Their hometowns had saved their movie houses, and they expressed understandable pride in that fact. Who encourages such pride in the areas surrounding the core of Roanoke?
I also understand that all the railroad buildings constitute a unique complex not found anywhere else. The old office buildings have great multi-use potential. But downtown has only marginal life after 6 p.m., and that will continue as long as people don't call the area home or want to live there in fear of further destruction. A recent news report showed some small attempts to convert buildings that would invite people to live downtown. The operative word is live.
People need more than just jobs; they need real neighborhoods. If you have actual residents, they will produce a solid, ongoing need for a wide range of shops, services, groceries, recreation, etc., not just seasonal fluctuations from tourists and conventioneers. In turn, the remaining living areas surrounding downtown would have some chance to survive and nurture renewed pride.
What solutions have been offered? Instant, magic cure-alls for decades of neglect? A few large, splashy projects while smaller operations, as shown in your Jan. 23 supplement called ``New names and fresh starts,'' go unnoticed and unappreciated? The highly debatable notion that families with limited time and money zipping up to goggle at plastic Disney history will somehow work Roanoke into their plans?
A stadium perhaps? Besides being very risky and destructive to what's left downtown, Salem already has a head start in developing sports-related functions. But then we have two civic centers; why not multiple sports facilities? Yes, let's just rubber-stamp the same-old same-old and continue to play copycat catch-up. Meanwhile, the core of Roanoke drains itself dry.
Perhaps a good, hard look at what now exists and the common-sense input from those who have to contend with the results of shortsighted decisions might serve better.
Stop finding high-paid consultants to reinforce narrow interests. Stop looking at the bottom line at the expense of nearby residents, present and future.
Each vacant lot and neglected building speaks volumes about the deep damage already done to the heart of a once-thriving cultural fabric. All the convention centers and tourist dollars in the world can never fix all that results from an eroding quality of life and the exclusion of needs of f+iallo citizens, who must, in the end, live here after visitors go home.
\ Elizabeth Paull of Troutville teaches social studies in Roanoke County.
by CNB