ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
THE NOTION that Blacksburg might grow enough to become the core of a new metropolitan area is not utterly absurd. But it is certainly less than assured - not only for the year 2000, but also for the next census after that, in the year 2010.
The better question may be: Why has the growth of Blacksburg and its Montgomery County environs slowed, and what are the implications of the deceleration?
The prospect of metropolitan status for the Blacksburg-Montgomery area was raised in a recent USA Today story. The story didn't cite Blacksburg as one of its 14 surefire bets to become new metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, after the census of 2000. The town was, however, one of two places in Virginia - the other was Harrisonburg - listed in a second-tier 40 as possible candidates for MSA status.
At first glance, Blacksburg's candidacy is well-warranted. It is a university town - in itself one of the most significant markers of growth potential in the economic geography of the Information Age.
In addition, Blacksburg and Montgomery County are within at least telescopic sight of the population criteria for MSA status as defined by the Census Bureau. A city or town must have 50,000 people; Blacksburg's 1990 population was 34,950, up from 9,384 in 1970. Alternatively, a city or town of at least 25,000 in a county of at least 100,000 could qualify; Montgomery's 1990 population was 73,913, up from 47,157 in 1970.
But handle those numbers with caution. They can be deceptive.
For example, much of Blacksburg's population growth since 1970 is attributable to an annexation in the '70s that made town residents of thousands of Virginia Tech students. The Montgomery County numbers, which are unaffected by annexation and which include the town's population, offer a truer picture of growth during the period.
That growth is still impressive, of course, but most of it occurred early in the period. Growth rates peaked during the '70s, fell in the '80s - and are continuing to decline in the '90s.
Montgomery's percentage growth in the '80s was still enough, at 16.4 percent, to slightly outpace Virginia as a whole and easily outpace most other Virginia localities west of Richmond. Even so, it was less than half the percentage growth of the '70s.
During the '90s, between-census estimates suggest, Montgomery-Blacksburg growth has declined to a rate far below the state average. Even by the year 2010, population projections now foresee, Montgomery will have a population of just 83,900. That's more than a few folks short of a full MSA.
Unquestionably, Virginia Tech is the region's predominant economic engine. But Tech-generated growth in the future might happen in ways different from the past - with more distance learning, for example, as well as high-tech spin-offs and greater outreach to off-campus consumers of education. Meantime, Tech has yet to figure out its role as a leader in regional economic development.
Fiddling with local-government structures and boundaries - another Blacksburg annexation, perhaps, or an incorporation somehow of independent Radford's population into Montgomery County's - might make MSA status possible without a resumption of the growth rates of yesteryear. But that would simply demonstrate how the concept of MSAs can be, at the margins, a manipulable artifice.
A truer measure of metropolitan expansion in the coming decade would encompass a region larger than Montgomery County. It would see closer ties between the New River and Roanoke valleys as a major avenue for growth driven by Virginia's largest university.
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