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Virginia
Editorial Defends Blacksburg Residents' Right to Choose How Community Should -- and Should Not -- Grow
Amid the New River Valley conservatism, progressive Blacksburg, with its Virginia Tech, has always stood apart as ''a college town in the purest sense,'' attracting people from diverse places and welcoming free thinking, observes editorial writer Christian Trejbal from the Roanoke Times office in Christiansburg, just five miles south, not surprised by Blacksburg's grassroots rallies against a 187,000-square-foot big-box in plans for its Main Street and troubled by their resentment in Christiansburg and across the valley as elitist.
The critics' main argument is ''(i)f big-boxes are good enough for the rest of us, then they should be good enough for Blacksburg,'' he writes. ''In other words, Blacksburg should stop complaining and let developers do whatever they want, the side effect be damned. That's the Southwest Virginia way.''
But Blacksburg residents ''like their tree-lined streets, local shops, expansive parks and clean air,'' and ''pay a premium'' for their homes, the writer reports, asking, ''Is it so shocking that they oppose turning Main Street into a strip-mall, big-box Hades like the one and the north end of Christiansburg?''
Blacksburg has its problems, including home prices too high for service workers and a neglected downtown area, while ''anti-growth sentiments -- some call it smart-growth -- hold dangerous sway over town government.''
Still, a big-box, probably a Wal-Mart Supercenter, ''is an unlikely solution to any of those issues'' the writer tells readers, stressing that ''Blacksburg residents should get to make their own rational decision without being called elitists if they choose anything but capitulation.'' -- Roanoke Times 5/13/2007
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