Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508220091
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In our view, the council's recommendations, released last month in a barrage of thick reports, include a lot of ideas worth serious consideration - especially when understood as supporting a vision of the region not one or five years but 20 years from now.
Readers' comments (appearing on the opposite page) can be divided into two categories: those dealing with the basic concepts undergirding the council's work, and those addressing or adding to several of the hundreds of specific ideas emanating from its proposals.
As a rule, the volunteer group gets high marks for, as Lin Neill of Roanoke writes, "defining our region geographically and challenging us to think regionally." An exception is Michael T. Marlowe of Blacksburg, who criticizes the council as "people who want to determine how to spend other people's money, and to do so without having to go through the bother of getting elected."
If anything, several readers suggest, the council isn't regional enough. Jane Barnes of New Castle hopes Craig County residents will be included; Barry L. Nunley of Bedford implies that Bedford County and Lynchburg ought to be part of it.
Michelle Lowe of Blacksburg suggests that having "a new name and slogan for the area is nice, but not necessary." Perhaps it isn't. But surely development of a regional identity, toward which a new name might contribute, deserves its place as a priority goal. (As it came to be defined for the council's purposes, the still-nameless region consists of the New River Valley, the Roanoke Valley and the Allegheny Highlands.)
Defining the region more broadly is not the only inclusion issue raised by readers. Lowe and Neill caution, respectively, against letting the New Century Council turn into "an exclusive club" or become "dominated by a small clique pursuing narrow interests." The point could be argued in the positive as well: Prioritizing regional strategies, and implementing them, should be the goal of a citizens-based effort more broadly based than the council.
On specific issues, the relationship between environmental protection and economic development is easily the most frequently raised. Helen Crumpacker of Roanoke fears that New Century Council ideas might lead to too much regulation of landowners. But Bill Modica of Salem and others suggest that the council report puts too much emphasis on economic development and too little on environmental protection.
To this conflict, in our view, a long-range and regional approach would prove of immense benefit.
A long-range view of the region's natural assets, for instance, would not regard the identification and preservation of the most significant of these assets as a hindrance to rising property values or economic development. Similarly, if all parts of the region understood and acted on their interdependence, development pressure in the countryside could be eased via better planning and more accommodation of growth in the urban centers.
by CNB