ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605080027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
WHEN OUR news department recently asked readers what they thought of the idea of the state's helping finance a major-league baseball stadium in Northern Virginia, not every answer was limited to the pros or cons of government aid for privately owned sports franchises.
Also surfacing was a more generalized resentment of Northern Virginia - apparently grounded in part on the mistaken belief that Northern Virginia gets more state dollars from Richmond than it gives to the state in taxes.
Actually, as was noted in a news story Tuesday, the opposite is true. More affluent Northern Virginia helps subsidize state spending for her poorer Virginia cousins to the south and west.
That point aside, though, readers are correct in thinking of Northern Virginia as a region in many ways quite different from the rest of the state - or, more precisely, as one of several regions in Virginia, each with its own economic, social and other characteristics.
Not only does Northern Virginia have higher incomes (and living costs, especially for housing), but its economic base - federal employment, defense spinoffs, high tech - is different from the Roanoke region's. Similarly, Richmond (state government, banking) is different from Tidewater, site of one of the world's great seaports.
To speak of a Virginia economy and culture is not without all meaning. By being part of the same state, Western Virginia and Northern Virginia - like all the commonwealth's regions - share in common tax policies, a judicial system, corporation laws, a higher-education system, a roads network and (to some degree) a political culture that influence economic and social life.
But where the private sector is vigorous, economic patterns are set more by the marketplace than by state boundaries. To think of Virginia as a half-dozen or so city-states - regional economies and cultures clustered around urban cores - is closer to today's reality.
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB