Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503090053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Move on to the wide open spaces, where panoramic views of mountain landscapes feed the soul. Just the family and nature, in splendid communion.
With maybe one gas station, down the road, so we won't run out of gas too far from civilization. Make it a service station, in case the car breaks down. And maybe a small grocery store. A Food Lion. Prices are too high at those mom-and-pop operations.
And the roads should be good. Not too good. Don't want to attract traffic. The noise, the fumes, the drivers going too fast along narrow, winding roads. Want to get away from all that. But gotta get to work, even in bad weather; and the kids have to be able to get to school safely.
And maybe just one fast-food restaurant - just one - for the inevitable nights when a home-cooked meal is out of the question, what with the time it takes to commute home from the job. Perhaps a small, unobtrusive mall for groceries, gas and fast food, would be good. With a Wal-Mart.
Need cable. TV reception would be lousy without cable. A well would be OK, if the water is good. Don't like the idea of septic, though. Want to get hooked up to a sewer line ASAP. Electricity and indoor plumbing are givens, of course. This is America, after all.
Yes, this is America. The development patterns are repeated again and again, in every part of the country, transforming it into homogeneous sprawl barely distinguishable from one place to another.
It is not, we admit, Oriskany. Suburbia hasn't really moved there yet. Maybe it never will. But it's overtaken Daleville and Troutville. Blue Ridge. It's moving along U.S. 460, and soon there will be no more jokes about Saturday night in downtown Bonsack.
Oriskany could use some of the growth, in fact. So could our region generally. The right kind of growth enhances quality of life. Stagnation kills communities.
That is the tension running throughout The Changing Countryside, this newspaper's series of stories on the pressure that residential development is putting on the rural landscape of the Roanoke Valley and surrounding counties.
People cherish the mountainous countryside and rolling farmland. Those whose very migration is eating it up want to preserve it. After they get their little piece of it. And then it is gone.
That irony need not be accepted as inevitable. Growth and preservation can co-exist. Indeed, they must. If you degrade the natural assets that support and attract growth, growth is not sustainable.
But people have to want both growth and preservation badly enough to change their expectations. Cluster housing, for example, is a relatively new idea (based on an old idea, villages) that could help fulfill the dream of convenient country living that keeps eluding suburbanites.
And politicians and planners have to be leaders - with the vision to promote growth where it makes sense, the guts to say "no" when public and long-term values (and the integrity of comprehensive plans) are threatened, and the sophistication to understand that smart growth management can attract beneficial development.
To dismiss wise land use as the self-indulgent fantasy of urban dwellers who want to take occasional drives in the country is to be sadly or intentionally ignorant of the all-too-familiar effects of community passivity.
The development/conservation battle, fought repeatedly and, too often, mindlessly, is no better than the passive default option. We need to look at successful peace settlements and develop win-win strategies for the region.
by CNB